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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
For P By Ibe Obasiota Ben The love I’ve known is the love of / two people staring/ not at each other but in the same direction. — Frank Bidart I am a deserter. Somewhere, a man speaks to the…
By Chiwenite Onyekwelu Because deep down all we want is to be split apart. Or do you not see it clearly enough— this mole on your flesh, tender as light & sinking through. It was never always so. The bodies…
for Chinyerem By Chibueze Obunadike “…thunder is a sudden noise that begins with light.” — Fernando Pessoa i don’t know if, when you close your eyes, you can still see it. all the way back…
By Martins Deep [a] breathing became; i. an act of emptying a cage cluttered with birdsong that’ll never find an ear to nest; ii. letting the wind sweep stars under carpet grass— stars polished with saltwater dripping from the horns…
By Ola W. Halim (for all albinos battling skin cancer) i. my skin eats itself daily until all left of it is mincemeat ii. my skin is a sketch work of shiny reds, charred browns, pulpy whites, and fruity pinks…
—after Adam Zagajewski’s poem of the same title By Othuke My favourite poets are the folks planting trees cleaning up our dying lakes & rivers & oceans. The women & men marching, arm in arm on hot asphalt & chanting,…