Adam
By Blessing Omeiza Ojo I found myself in the garden behind our family house and began falling in love with the god in fruits. I would have fallen for the pretty girls on the street of a city in Nigeria…
contemporary nigerian poetry
The allophone of my heart’s phoneme
By Michael Imossan —after Nome Emeka Patrick My heart gravitates towards silence like a vowel moving towards destruction. Forgive me, assimilation is the process where life assumes the features of its antonym. At the expanse of the moon, I see…
A poem is an enclave
By Divine Inyang Titus I wager, outside poems, a mother who falls into a ravine does not rebirth in a burst of angel wings. Her son does not seduce the rain with his tears or beam his glee when the…
On some Shapeshifts, I Wish Myself a Ferrous Poise
By Nnadi Samuel glossy with aging, in that green conceited morning. rot terrifies me. fossil, barreling through my measured loin. I conserve light at the slightest crack of dawn, from things that pass for broken: my delicate mother. the thunderstick…
This is how I learnt how to say “God, kiss me, you are a beautiful creator”
By Shitta Faruq Adémólá Today, I awoke on God’s lap. Tomorrow will be the festival of flying and yes, I will fly into the wind. Tell your mother I have just received a scar on my left ear- I am…
poem in which my mother never died
By Ernest O. Ògúnyẹmí —my imagination can’t weave it up, language lays cold in my hand, a petalled pistol. nine years, seven months & twenty-four days of being motherless makes you unable to dream a world where you are somebody’s…
phantom
By Rahma O. Jimoh i hold this place with all of its blue waters, dazzling sunlight, tulips & bougainvillea— i transcend into water, curl around fleets of flowers. like a creek, unafraid, i pour into others & the sea mirrors the sky’s…
Red
By Georgie Your mother sprawls Like a petition left unanswered At an altar. You calculate if this pregnancy Outweighs her body— you imagine How it must be to lift something inside Other than yourself. You shake her fragile body Just…
Cicatrix
By Chinedu Gospel For Mariam every time / my name escapes / from your windpipe / it’s as if I’ve been drowning / inside your air sacs / all my life / & you’ve been pushing me out / like…
Ode to the lust for life
By Anthony Okpunor I think memories to keep the body. I write about the day as what endures the night. something about dreaming is a lie— the blue line above your head is a puzzle of not remembering. still, sometimes,…