I recently learned that some of my correspondence with Allen Ginsburg was at the Stanford University Library. It must be some of the poetry I was writing while I lived in a bed-sitter in London. That was in 1966. I was the only person in the building not from Nigeria. Back then the only piece of technology I had was a portable typewriter.

So this discovery was the inspiration for writing some poetry now.

A Poem by a Wild Duck
I was driven more by curiosity than by ambition
More by amazement than desire
At times my body was a stranger
Whose only presence was a shadow
While my mind was on fire

I imagined the future and thought about the past
Wanting to live but always in doubt
Struggling to breath without panic or fear
A child alone wanting to know everything
Everything there was and everything that would be
Wanting to live and to breathe