Philip Abonyi’s poem, origin of songs, is an enticing slice of creativity. The strong metaphors in this poem will get you thinking and the message it seeks to pass to the reader is not as cryptic as the handwriting on the ancient Babylonian wall. We loved this very much and thought it was worth sharing with you.

– Editorial Team

A song is a living thing.
It breaths. Crawls. Walks. And runs
Into my body like cold.
The broken walls sing
Of empty plates,
Broken petals pipe
Of broken hearts,
And owls howl
a soprano of mourning.

My mother is a song that carries
Water as lyrics,
The last time you saw my laughter
Caught in the web of silence,
A song was seeking home in my body.

A song comes from the necropolis
It brings memories
In black and white,
Rusted euphoria
And fragment
Of violence
That ground our homes into the grain
That cannot be gathered again.

A song in accompany of instrumentals
Holding grudges against each other in the studio
Is my daughter at nightfall,
She snakes herself through windows
And returns for me a belly filled
With songs, titled bastards.

In a cathedral where they burn candles
And God joins table for dinner
Of purification,
Songs are angels
And the choir sing
Them into our body in praises.

In the mosque where a minaret stands defiant,
song is the wind of the adhan that gathers
people towards righteousness 

In the shrine where my father message
The sun
With kola-nut and palm-wine,
Songs are ancestors
Hiding in the throb of drums
And the melody of flutes.

In a nation, where guns are governing
Where tribe threatens tribe,
Where the flag is broken under the love of violence,
Where the economy is paralyzed,
And unity is not a citizen,
Songs are the messenger by whom we send
Our gloom to the messiah.

About the Author

Philip C. Abonyi writes poetry, prose, and articles. He is a Science Laboratory Technology student, who hails from Enugu State, Nigeria. His poem was shortlisted for the Eriata Oribhabor Poetry Prize, 2018. His works have been published in the Ace World, Eve magazine, Qwenu, Allpoetry, Tushstories, and elsewhere.

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