Dear moon child of the Universe
wake up and lift your golden feet
& wave your hand’s glory to your
placid disposition
however humble it may be
without surrendering your
human dignity
For you have the worthy right
to be present here void of
dark imaginings of who’s
over your halo & beneath
the sole of your feet
Dear child see here as loud
as the echoes of the walls of your heart
not as broken dreams shattered
by tricks, lies and politics of many men
who are here enabled with
authority-power to cancel the
dreamers & nightcrawlers
As a treader of this path
stomping on eggshells
moonwalking on the surface of
every mountains without
whisper or tell…
Sing your songs loud to your silence
& to the silence around you to halt
all silences
Even though you encounter defeat
& the unfair blows of life knocks
you down to earth flat — facedown!
Beat your wings & rise from the
dusty fall & wear your blackened
eye with pride…
and stand firmly in the sun with a will
tattooed across your chest…
fearless, deathless as the kill
with shining sword and shield
ready to battle… (to bury the dead in you)
willing to give life another
benefit of doubt
For the dream is louder than the
noisy confusion of life
Blaze it… don’t
smoke it!
Uchechukwu Onyedikam is a Nigerian haiku innovator and interlingual poet fusing Igbó and Yorùbá linguistic textures with English-language short-form poetry. His work has appeared in Presence Haiku Journal (UK), Wales Haiku Journal (UK), Prairie Schooner (USA), The Heron’s Nest (USA), Asahi Haikuist Network (Japan), and Decolonial Passage (USA. He is the Founding
Editor/Publisher of MasticadoresAfrica and has been featured in The Haiku Foundation’s HaikuLife Film Festival. He lives in Lagos, Nigeria, and will relocate to Cardiff, Wales in June 2026 via the Global Talent Visa.