These poems draw from personal experiences and the political climate in South Sudan. The lines are elegant, rhythmic, and gracefully witty. Marial Awendit, unreservedly pours himself into these poems, employing brevity and simple sophistication in an impressive way. We are thrilled to share these poems with you.
– Editorial Team
The Fourth and Fifth Theories
…and if things never broke,
They could be thrown
Everywhere with no fragment of care.
…and if well that petrol pipe
Will not agree to fire’s touch,
There are still ways of killing hunger,
Like fire taking fast into ashes the brown grass
That keeps it burning.
This Quill
I feel this quill, my pen should hoot
When nearby a rogue loots.
.
And if a malevolent sun melts shoots,
This feather should sprout roots.
.
So far in my land,
The lords of war, their guns wear boots
To skin lean butts,
And draw noses to rich farts.
Ode to My Body
How long will you be leeched
To pleasure,
The earth now millions of years old,
Stretching assortments of it for
More billions of years?
When one mouth is clogged
With colorless death,
There is chance of a moan
Above a lover somewhere
Or a mouth dipped in honey.
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The Game
The game for me is tricky
-To shoot dead a man,
Then ask another corpse
To join my giggle.
War Republic
We can no longer wage wars
For lice lost in hair plantations
Nor can we resuscitate flies
Drowned in acidic piss.
We cannot wash shit off their feet
As did Rabbi to his seller,
For the gods of death assailed us,
Even when sacrificial chicken
Made headless dances at our nail-less feet.
The river we wanted to cross towards God
Froze at our knees and that may be
How vultures choked on eyeballs
Reaped from the wars we brew,
That may be how maggots of animosity
By Darwin’s evil-ution thronged vicinity.
Contributor’s Bio
Marial Awendit is a South Sudanese poet and essayist. His poems have been published in Brittle Paper, Kalahari Review, African Writer, Praxis Magazine, CreatePreneurAfrica, Best New African Poets Anthology, and elsewhere lit. Marial is the winner of the 2016 South Sudan Talent Youth Award for the category of Best Poet and the 2018 Babishai-Niwe Poetry Award.
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