Not all poems are written to answer questions, some are written to ask the tough questions which we never ask. In these poems, “Truth Has No Epitaph” and “Who Smothers The Agony Accrued when the Feet Meets a Familiar Gravestone?”, Charles Nnanna asks questions which’d usher a reader into a moment of philosophizing. We loved every line of his poems because, not only is his diction relatable, his employment of personification hints of a sharp imagination.

– Editorial Team

Truth Has No Epitaph

do you kill Truth by driving a spear through its skin and
hanging it on a stake for mockery’s sake?

bang! bang! goes the voice
of the gavel — “acquitted!” it says, “for
lack of substantial evidence(s)…”

& a murderer with a brawny pocket
walks a free man / having bullied
the poor blind lady with an (un)balanced scale and
a sword she can’t use.

or perhaps the sword was used / to
mutilate the truth & send it behind bars. but,

do you kill Truth by the
mere banging of gavel?

or do you go old school by driving a spear
through its heart & hanging it on
a stake for mockery’s sake?

surely as its blood drops on the earth —
come rain come sunshine, epochs after epochs, it’d
stay undecayed / until
it grows another heart with a fiercer voice
& a more fearless mind. Truth can never be cremated!

Who Smothers The Agony Accrued when the Feet Meets a Familiar Gravestone?

are all the tears in
the world not enough to
quench the fire of quietus?
the smoke of what’s left of
death’s ruins have rested well
atop all our rooftops / so that
every house, every heart —
has perceived and inhaled an
unquenchable sorrow
born out of what was burnt by
death’s fire.
it’s a comforting knowledge
that the fire service swiftly ring about
the site of damnation to
quench the blazing fury of death &
salvage what can be salvaged. yet,
who extinguishes the agony when our feet
visits the carvings carved upon many a
familiar gravestone?

About The Author

Charles Nnanna is a Nigerian undergraduate studying mass communication at the University of Ilorin. The 19-year-old discovered his passion for literature — poetry, and prose precisely when he was about 16. And ever since, he has grown to find solace and purpose in his scribblings and many other beautiful works of art. He writes to heal and bring hope to one in despair, even to himself — and greatly appreciates other literature that uplifts the broken. When not on his jotter pad, you’d find him twitting @runnyink_. He writes from Abuja, Nigeria.

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