Tag Archive for: Poetry

Tuesday Poem by Logan February

/in

Insulin

Yes, they warned him about the sugar
rush. And no, he didn’t listen. The beehive
sounded much like any radio. Who can

blame him for following it, his calves
twitching with excitement. No one knows
how far he went, though I once raised

my face to the sky & saw a pair of eyes
staring back. They looked exactly like his.
I learned lethargy as a word, for his sake,

before I learned the feeling. Now, I need
a good glucose boost. Please. I want,
please. My last two lovers called me hungry.

So I’m looking at the sky again, asking for
manna. He did it once, he can do it again.
Hello? Hello? I suppose no one is home.

An echo against a kitchen door, floor, sink.
Spice rack. Extra-virgin olive oil. My sacrifice
is the tongue I bite to keep from crying,

mine. One thing about ancestor worship
is your father never shows up when
you need him. This way he, too, is God.

_________

Logan February is a poet and pizza-lover. He is the author of three collections of poetry. Say hello @loganfebruary

Tuesday Poem by Saddiq Dzukogi

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A Poem with a Line from Carl Phillips

My body folds into a small
space, the mouth of a python
stretched for the swallow.

Solitude engorges the sound of heartbeats,
fulminating against the walls of my skull,
the curls of my hair.

They could let the nights unfurl
before them, splayed as figures
ingesting my fingers, soft as feathered steps,

the quicksand eats everything,
my shadow, whose skin is a skin
of an adversary welcomes the sun’s

multitude tongues, careened on leaves,
spilled on bodies, mixed
where the crescent stares across the horizon.

I don’t see anyone but shadows
drowning next to a mountain
on liquid earth, slipping through a pelvic floor,

deep into the mouth of the python,
the snake with two heads,
the snake consumes its own tail.

Tuesday Poem by Roland Nduka Akpe

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What a Lichen

Like lichen I likened what you meant to me
to commensal affections
Passive symbiosis of resigned companions
who could live without each other
but would rather not

The cardinal rule in what we had
was an insistent middle finger
given to everything, anyone
who sought to teach us
that this utter reliance on the other
was toxic
We suspect it is
Do not confirm our fears
Do not speak it in spray of spittle
spritzing out your wise wise mouth,
fucker
Here’s a middle finger for your trouble –
Up yours.
Up north.

Yes
We are ended now
and this is what I liken it to:
The convenient end to Double Indemnity – a dark screen
and words;
A sack letter
plastered in words coated in more
words not meant, peppered in pretence of mint;
It is the beginning of morning
at a household with the breadwinner gone, dead at dawn,
is it still
morning?

Tuesday Poem by Dami Ajayi

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SHOESTRINGS

Of all things to filch,
you chose shoestrings

perhaps because you
don’t get the mechanics of it:

how something so fluffy and flimsy;
how anglets could hold the entire weight of boots.

But if I were you, I would have
pilfered a column of good books

but where is the good head?
Where is the patience to dwell

on sentences poised to shape your life?
Where are the exotic cuisine,

platters of pasta & proposed writing,
dessert?

Of all things to filch
you chose shoestrings.

_______
Shoestrings is not in my new book, A Woman’s Body is a Country.

Tuesday Poem by Dzekashu MacViban

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Second Coming

There is a coup d‘état
New persons impose themselves to-night
And take into their hands— the Power—
To wreck the ship-of-state,
Give a dog a bad name, then hang it.
Thy throne‘s thy grave…
A young snake kills its mother
Yet, it ain‘t different
Déjà vu, I‘d say
As a dishonest saint replaces another
Is this our fate until the Second Coming?

______
This poem was taken from Scions of Malcontent (Miraclaire, 2011)

Tuesday Poem by Tunji Olalere

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WEST OF MINES
Sunset shuts this circuit’s door―
Six bottles verdant with life’s voltage.
Each chameleon-glass a half-amber;
Menisci quivering, abetting parallax.

Rivulets coalesce where vapour crashes
Against the cold. Snake-handled by gravity,
Their heads balloon with limping tributaries,
Then burst open, soft like a flower.

It is a game of numbers. Sum the polka dots
On both dice once your palm splutters.
Multiply by seven. We shall know the
Years left in us. Chance never lies.

Dami has sixty-three. Ah, goats will fall
In your wake! He empties his glass, belches.
Ola has forty-nine. He is balding, already;
A rim of froth frames his toothy smile.

Then, at a roll’s end, staring back―
On a pair of squares, white, unblinking,
As the sun bows beyond the horizon―
Two pupils, jet-black, fixed, glistening.
 

Tuesday Poem by Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún

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At Lewis & Clark

There’s a memory I have, a dark
Trace of three people walking
Through a wooded swamp
Behind the Lewis and Clark
College? Park? Memorial?

We were alone at the parking lot,
And the premises was closed
But walking around yielded
Lots of treasures around the hot
Afternoon and we traded in boredom.

We had driven there with brave
Eloho and that one crush I had,
Trying to kill idle time within
The wide shade the structures gave.
And that we did around the grounds

It led, at some end, to a hill
With a spread of elephant grass
On either side, blowing cool air
As the wind tilted it to its will
Through my legs. I was afraid.

It seemed strange that no one
Showed up to meet us there, three
Black people traipsing around
A government property in the sun.
And no one came for us in the swamp

Where we found coke bottles and other
Proofs of life, a finished cigarette,
Junk from careless folk who probably
Came there, like us, in another
Quest for peace, and maybe sex.

There was a wooden peg on the floor
At the back, near a log cabin
And, in my memory, I asked
When else we could return for more,
When humans returned to roam the place.

But I don’t remember much else
How we got there, what we did,
Or how we broke through the thick
Air of the love that, later deemed false,
Seemed to have hung from the trees.

Tuesday Poem by Timilehin Olagunju

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Up National, Progress

 

rusty metal on wheels,
clanging down the interstate,
like an angry wheelbarrow,
roadworthy my foot!

even the road is not worthy!
potholes desecrate the road,
driver becomes a stuntman,
meanders better than the F1 racer.

then a tyre squeals,
hissing at us in defiance,
enough is enough, I have to retire
let another take my place

another angry wheelbarrow comes along,
the new driver is smoking! hot
he takes us to our destination,
what a misfit of a journey!

Tuesday Poem by Precious Arinze

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When Hunger Becomes Prayer
“Hadduusan qudhaadh jireen, miyaa la qiri lahaa malab –
Who has never tasted bitter, knows not what is sweet” – Somali proverb

the year we cracked out of our skins
blood came oozing out of holes
the body had not formed yet
as if a trauma patient in shock
waiting for the pain to register
needing a ready answer
for when the doctors ask
can you feel what I’m doing to you?
so they can call in emergency aid
diagnose the drought in your belly
declare a famine
and that is how you name a country
that is how you pretend to save it?
this is how we say
if the fighting does not kill us
the escaping will
and if not the escaping
the hunger
and where the hunger colonizes our bodies
wrestles it to the ground
there we will plant new seeds
there we will be rain
panting with our own questions for the soil
o heaven, let our suffering be biblical
let the firstborns die if they must
let the darkness run into its ghosts
o earth, hunger and basmati
taste nothing alike
o earth, there are no lullabies
in a mother’s breasts robbed empty of milk
o earth, declare forgiveness in our mouths
in the bellies of the children
and if there be no water
we will swallow the sea

______

Precious Arinze tweets @TheAddlepate

 

Tuesday Poem by Dami Ajayi

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LAGOS BUNNIES II
(After Chris Ajilo)

 
In the hotel room where fantasies decay
there is no putrefying stench

no dingy remains
everything is as intact as a crime scene
save the evidence.

we don’t hold requiems for dreams here
when they die
we incinerate them

day dreams have the worst fate
we impale them ourselves
banish them into cisterns

their fates plugged in by sealants
liquid waste

in the land out of the range of mother’s eyes,
crying is an expansive futility
past warnings skirt by in quick quick trails
you should have known
for mother warned you about Lagos.