Tuesday Poem by David Ishaya Osu

/in

    LANGUAGES

    ordinary bottles no one said anything i will paint my box and be happy                a spreadsheet of lovers we broke eggs we ate eggs the life next door                 was made up give glasses time to see you drift away from why i write                    because i can’t stop sleeping

    i don’t want to be like my father he told no secrets like mum over cakes                she gave me her yellow wrap and a song and all the time for peaches all                doors lead into emptiness a finger or two or endless tingles or unloving                     clothes we had to get togeth’

        dreams don’t err nor this bod                            ask the sea for new carols not me or your old bedroom did not have every                thing you wanted holes in poetry and you dug them and said prussian blue                needs three hands in a picture belonging to everyone returning to flowers

        this is for you and shadows                            we don’t know yet a bouquet falls anytime you touch the centre twice or                 wait for the clock has no power in this house only wet papers matter to no                one fixed the table till we got tired we sang and lifted our shirts to the sun

Tuesday Poem by Jekwu Ozoemene

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The Used Tire Necklace

I happened upon the savaged body
Ravaged with stones, sticks, kicks and blows
Eyes bloody dimmed puddles of acute throes

With each blow, his arms and legs twitch
In response the cosmos screams;
‘I am someone’s father’
‘I am a hungry brother’
‘I am the death of what is left of us’
‘I am because I know I am’

‘I am not a thief’ he barely squeaks
Amidst the mocking baying of the frenzied hounds
‘Kill the pig!’ they howl
Cut his throat! Bash him in! Drink his blood’

Right on cue, cell-phones emerge
I-reporting
Costly status devices of the judge and the judged
A grime recording of the assize of the dying

Suddenly, to their horror, he launches from his rumps
A cornered wildcat, snarling savagely
(The beast in him challenging the beast in them)
A last-ditch dash across the busy road
Aiming for a maze of side streets, a possible labyrinth to home

The crowd heaves in pursuit
Demented creatures dancing and singing;

Catch am, catch am! Thief, thief, thief!
Catch am, catch am! Rogue, rogue, rogue!
Catch am, catch am! Robber, robber!
Catch am
Pull am
Get am
Keep am
Ole…

Target acquired
Missiles launched
Bull’s-eyes announced by new splotches of bright crimson
The soon to be dead body totters briefly in a drunken bop
Cranium kisses the tarmac with a sickening thud
Motionless, he lies splayed
And I, helpless
Wish that the nightmarish sounds of the demented beast
No longer reach him, no longer touch him

Wey the petrol? Somebody whispers as if in a trance
(The voice so full of pride in his contribution to the dance)
Around his neck the necklace goes
Matchsticks! Lighter! Dementia roars!
Let him burn quickly, after all we aren’t savages someone howls…
His eyes flicker open, beholds the tire and sees his death
I weep as he shrugs of the wreath with his last breath
Again they beat him with sticks and stones
Again the garland returns to his prostrate neck

A splash of petrol, a sprout of fire
All that is left is the last wail of defiance
Then silence

Broken only by the sizzling of burning flesh
No more words, no more movements
Just the cackling flames
Then a forlorn voice asks
Wetin de man do sef?

Tuesday Poem by Toni Kan

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Kintsugi

(for her who once asked for a poem)

How do you fix this broken thing
not with cement, stupid!
neither with super glue
you do not darn it like stockings
or patch it with clay
you dont talk it anew
like the nagging wife of proverbs 27.

To fix this broken thing, my love
you learn the art of kintsugi
find that special lacquer
dust it with gold
make it glitter and glint
like something precious
that’s how you fix a broken heart.

Tuesday Poem by Ruth Zakari

/in

Hurricane on the sky

Afro-thick clouds rally

Past the pink, orange canvas

Over wispy heads


A mule hangs in the air

Listening to the birds

Zigzag over everything

The sun steadies its head

For a final game

Soon, it loses its ring to gravity

Stripped, the yellow ball falls


A crane perches high off the ground

Reaching the last bit of light

But losing… losing fast

Its hook pose

Ready for what the night may bring

Colour fades to a deep blue sea

I lose my shadow to the warmth

Of headlamps racing after the sun

Tuesday Poem by Adedayo Agarau

/in 
two weeks before my birthday

i.
as we fucked
lights out 
         the bed shook like
         a tree tormented

                      by rain
         your name 
        hid the shame in my mouth

the doorway was open 
                    i cried black into your back
kissed your neck  
                drove you crazy  drove you out of my mind

& as the day bled into nightfall
                       everything crumbled into the ground
you said, i’m cumming ade

                  i am still waiting for the arrival of rain

ii.
for light’s sake / i pluck moon from the sky and place it in this poem / no girl loves a poet as his drafts do / i remember reading you my poem about cunnilingus before flapping your clit with the leaflet of my tongue / i remember how the room wore your mouth / how you turned like the hand of a clock & guided me into the bowels of your body with your hand / but that is not enough to mourn you / not suitable / to decipher how beauty can mean iku in another language

iii.
i want to be left alone 
                 i carry a bible to go in search of god
all i see is a museum  a little light  & another little light
                 falling out of the holes you used to fill with your throat

Tuesday Poem by Shingai Kagunda

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IS SHE HOME?

Does she make you happy?
Sorry, wrong question. Does she believe in revolution?
Is she pretty?
Sorry, wrong question. Does she wear an Afro in the shape of the African continent?
Does she call it the motherland? A memory from her mother’s mother’s land?
Does it carry our land’s brown in its crevices and cracks?
I digress
Is she smart?
Sorry, wrong question. Does she stimulate your mind with captivating dreams of your home country?
You do remember your home country, don’t you?
The one you told me you would come back to build,
These city streets swarming with people who have left their shamba fields to come and build
I digress
Is she tall? Short? Fat? Thin?
Sorry, wrong question. Does she carry Africa within her in the way she walks?
Do her hips swing and sway the way you said you liked?
Not sexually but sensually?
Does she move with an understanding of her own humanity?
Is she funny?
Sorry wrong question. Does her laugh make you laugh?
Is she easy to talk to?
Sorry, wrong question. Tell me about your conversation.
Can you talk about everything under the sun but always come back to that one story where two broken people fall in love with an even more broken people’s history?
Is she home?

Tuesday Poem by Efe Ogufere

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IMMERSION
(For Oniovosa)

two sets of little feet shuffle
in a sea of periwinkle shells,
keenly taking lessons
on patience and deception
from scruffy fishermen in Orerokpe.
sustenance as a bait for sustenance.

if death has no allure to the living
-little brother squirms when
a worm wriggles in his grasp-
why then do damaged men
pour from a bridge into the deep?

hook ready, the fish folk signal
for silence to wash over us,
each breath metered as though
a tasting of fine wine before a feast.
our offering to the river is a painful wait
for the tugging of the line.

brother rises as though in a trance
and plunges into the river
viscosity shows no spine
as the film of oil breaks
and the black adorns him in its sheen.

I still remember not flinching,
nerves of steel, or shock,
or simply dearth of common sense,
until he was baptized three times.
to this day mother still chides
about a siren’s unanswered call.

Tuesday Poem by Carl Terver

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Confessions To Two Lovers & things felt in-between

i.

(for Zipporah)

 

I come to you like Nicodemus asking,

what do I do

to be born again in you?

the rheum have left my eyes,

I have washed in the pool

& it is only your face I remember

ii.

(after Vanessa)

 

The taste of music is sour here

& I have lost appetite for it.

they told me that I will enjoy

the lights of the city

but now I am having urban frostbite

from cata–tone

& neon blizzards

Tuesday Poem by Olajide Salawu

/in
HOTSPOT
I am meeting my lover for the first time.
And in the scene, her skin
is dark with kinky grasses growing on her head.
I ask her why she would leave her demon
back home and walk up to me in a strange
body and why her eyes are not patented
in their marionette colour.  The purple-pink
of her mouth has melted into a brown pond of grief
while the moon is somewhere at peace
above us.
I am meeting my lover for the first time but
I am remembering another girl
with corral teeth and feral eyes.
In the scene, she describes herself for me
adding flowers and our last emojis;
inside the planetary depth of her dimples,
I look like an archeologist
discovering his first fossil
through the violent breath of the wind.
I am meeting my lover for the first time.
Will you like to meet her too?
We are at Hotspot of the city
sitting at a table with echoes of Lana Del Rey
reaching us at a side and smoke of barbecue
burning the ozone layers of our love
as our faces reach an eclipse.

Tuesday Poem by Rasak-Oyadiran Opeyemi

/in

HANDS

We need to talk about the tenderness of hands, just hands.
Of how fingers locking into one another can feel like a grip on the heart,
how for months, I kissed a man in the most carnal of ways but hesitated
when he held out his palm.

Where my mothers come from, hands are how they show joy,
how they receive love and this body is littered with palmprints of a thousand affections,
no wonder I feel less beautiful when I’m away from home; no one here can read me.

I like to think of beauty as well manicured fingers; cuticles just the right color of pale, the subtle elegance, hands not too large
but big enough to make a mark in the archive of my skin.
I’m trying to expand my vocabulary.

But none of these explain why when the tip of this thumb grazes mine,
I feel bathed in dew.

Once, I saw a child latch onto her mother’s hand.
Her whole mighty fist bunched up like a territory grabbing continent on her mother’s index finger.
I was 14 and already knew that hands could also break, squeeze and shove
but watching that, it felt like I had emerged from a pool of sunlight.