Exorcism – Olusoji Obebe.
Exorcism A morning breaks into my bodyAnd the bird in it escapes into space I’m merely a tote of years,Counting and recounting memories Like yams in the barn whichBeetles have beaten into rot. I’m something made out of letters,And I have in my pocket a packet of the past. In it are matchsticks so thatWhen night creeps in I can lightBut it’s not the darkness I burn It’s meI burn I tell youYou enter Like a shot in the headI’m unknotted Lord,this legion of memoriesIs gnawing at me. Who’d cast it out?Who’d fill the hole? Contributor’s Bio Olusoji Obebe is an emerging Nigerian poet, essayist and fiction writer. He writes from Ondo State, Nigeria. His essays have made the longlist of the African Human Right Essay Competition 2021, the Sixth Chinua Achebe Poetry/Essay Anthology and the Libretto African Anthology Prize 2022. His works are featured/forthcoming in Fiery Scribe Review, Nnoko Stories,…
My Father’s Breath in the Eternal Moon of Farewell – Yahuza Usman.
My Father’s Breath in the Eternal Moon of Farewell i, too some-day would lookinto the room where my motherused to tell us the tale of the luminous moonthat seldom refused to shine with red-teary eyes,but sadly, my ears would neither trace her mellifluous tonenor would my eyes catch a glimpse of her mature teeth someday, i would wake up early in the morningwith grief-stricken news that would melt my heart–that the grey-haired man that puts food on our tablehas gone to stay in the world where only the breathless souls go someday, i would ask my tender heart with a sorrowful tone–about the glamorous light i used to behold in the nightevery time i sleep, but an oven would my heart become–melting my tissues without a word of comfort, even for a while someday, i would not be able to swallowthe distance of joy treasured in the box of survival…
A Memory of a Man Drowned by the New Ways – Rasheed Ayinla Shehu.
A Memory of a Man Drowned by the New Ways I sit with my grandfatherWhile the half-moon illuminates throughThe darkness of the night.We chatter, like birds cherrypicking between cerealsWith their beaks rummaging in our lane of thoughtA memory to fill the gaping spaceA blackness in our white dentitionOf the generation between us.A night like this, with another half of the moonBuried in the belly of the ravenous sky birthsScores of memories – a bit of us dead in the past,Reincarnating in a form in the present.We do have a picture of a shark opening his jawTo house the drowning us in his belly for food:A period to unseal a pulsating wound,To seek survival in its yellowish pus. “I wish he had traveled in a caravan just like me,” Grandpa muttered.“Through the thickness of the forest, the heatsOf the sun, heading towards the Sahara;Balanced on a gasping camel with the height…
Weals from the Rain – Arikewusola Abdul Awal.
Weals from the Rain “What ear to our sobbing hearts?” -Birago Diop. We lost them– our brothers that darted outside to set the drums to the catchment & never returned. Yesterday night, we longed for rain on our roofs. & it rained–it rained cats and dogs. This morning, Our verandah was lost in the flood of blood. “Blood is libations that cleanse your roofs, & appease the gods of golden waters.” said the village priest. Alas, for our brothers who now live only in our dreams, no grain of wheat to hold our hopes, nor there a rain to water our mouths– their deaths on our bodies are weals from the rain. Tonight, we dread longing for another rain, but again, the sky is ready to strike us with her cold, long & tiny hands. “What ear to our sobbing hearts?” Yesterday macerated our hopes. Tomorrow’s deeds are lurking in the…
IF ALL THE SCARS IN MY HEART WERE LADIES, THEY WOULD HAVE BEEN GROWN ENOUGH TO BE WEARING BRAS – Adamu Yahuza.
IF ALL THE SCARS IN MY HEART WERE LADIES, THEY WOULD HAVE BEEN GROWN ENOUGH TO BE WEARING BRAS After Zainab Kuyizhi The walls of my heart has grown into a bonfire I wear these scars like old habits. once, a girl searched through my heart & ended up not finding flowery sinews or veins, but skulls of my adversaries. & ain’t we all glued to this madness like icicles during winter? once, I threw some banquet of roses & it landed on the same garden where my older brother threw His. the war of love began & it ended when we became the ashes to its flames. I, too, attempted to tug love inside of me like a second skin but failed & still failed. what does it mean to not see a side of love in God’s many faces? the last time I thought of love, I almost became a…
Shapes of no more – Osagiede Best.
Shapes of no more Victor Uwaifo said: you buy shirt shirt tears if God creates soul soul will go back to its owner the body that we use minimally would turn sands so i could not tell you to stay & if i break cascades down goodbye, goodbye handful of body-sands thrown to the teeth of a starving abyss i won’t cry for I know i could not hold back your slipping away not that this washes away any pain so many things i want to say to you just yesterday, Papa & i writing the biography of you you again felt the weight of those three tubers of yam on your head as you put the soles of your feet on the footprints of your father trekking miles away to the object of desire again you in your childhood backyard when the darkness of noon came with a 1947…
Anxiety is a way of life – Adesiyan Oluwapelumi.
Anxiety is a way of life Filter Like a sieve, I am drained Of every dewdrop of happiness Through the mesh of my hollow body. And I– dust in the fireworks of light Escape the drizzling storms of darkness. I– billowed tusk of winterbourne Streaming down into a gorge Of landscaped realities Acculturate the mimesis of shame. Here, fear is a fleece wool Unfurling in the cotton eyes Of a cowardly man. And every prayer is the blossoming Of nightmares, before they ripen In the garden of dreams. Residue The cremains of dead memories Haunt us alike. In fragments, we break into our death. Say every light born of darkness Must return in a wave-tide motion to its origin. Say the mind is a haunted gallows And we wheel thoughts along Like cringing vehicles enduring The bruising art of locomotion. Say to move is to steer the gears of the…
An Interview with Oyinda Shoola.
An Interview with Oyinda Shoola. Interviewed by Olaide Oluwafunmilayo Soaga (Features Editor, Afrihill Press). As a poet, what is your writing process? My writing process is the same regardless of the genre. It goes one of two ways after a profound thought worth exploring comes to mind. Sometimes, I ignore it and refuse to write until it’s fully formed. Other times, I write down the idea and scraps of any relative thoughts, then return to edit later. I am not the type of writer who sits down for a dedicated number of hours to write daily. It’s unrealistic for me. Moreso, the most tasking part of my writing is editing and revisions to make a single clear meaning of a piece. For example, yesterday, I had an idea for a poem about the devil as a designer and jotted down the punchlines that came to mind. Then, during my break…
Pashing a Roadmap of Gloom – Aderohunmu Abdulrokeeb.
Pashing a Roadmap of Gloom [5:20 am]: I woke up with all my woes written boldly in my heart, I woke up with all the silence of yesteryears reigning in my body. My rosary is a strangled neck aiming to carry its burden with ease. The night before, a girl tried to carry my third leg with her tender arms, it’s the ritual here, for a girl to proffer pleasure to the boy she thought looks seductive, the music in it is played and the pants could only listen to its lyrics It’s hard to control the song, it’s hard, it’s hard, and I won’t survive any humiliation if the lyrics echo into her hands, I submerged my body into the darkness of the night [5:5:30 am]: I’m still left strangling the sticks in my rosary, with repeated litanies making their way into my mouth, mother said life will be…
No One Wants to Write an Elegy – Ridwan Badamasi.
No One Wants to Write an Elegy The disposition of the gravelike an openmouth.Cut is the stalkthat might have grown fullystraight. We trampledew-wet grasses finely latticed with day-oldspider webs. No onewants to write an elegy.The cruelty of sweet-smellingearth, the wet thump as it splashesoff the shovels. And already there is nothing left to see. As evening comes birds go quietlyinto the dark. Relatives fill upthe gaping rooms. We sitaround the hearth, watchingthe flames lick up mounds ofdry sugarcane pulp. And the old womencover the silence with their weeping. Contributor’s Bio Ridwan Badamasi is a Nigerian. He writes from the ancient city of Kano. A Biochemistry undergrad at Bayero University, his works have appeared in Praxis Magazine, Kalahari Review, Salamander Ink Magazine, and elsewhere. You can find him on Instagram: @pluetarch. Also, via email at [email protected].