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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