When it comes to writing love poems, it takes a certain ingredient which when absent makes the poem a gathering of cliched lines. We found this ingredient in Olabode Olanrewaju’s “Lovers’ Web” and “Thunderbolt.” Each poem struck a chord and made a statement that is familiar and at the same time novel. This will definitely make a pleasurable read.

– Editorial Team

Lovers’ Web

Tonight, it rains
As lovers tangle in cupid’s web.
His arrow hangs from heart to heart.
A red shawl from the loom
Hides the wrestle of legs
Stained with blood,
A flood yet causing no harm.
An echo of sweet pain beats the rooftop
As well as rain reeds.
The creaking of iron bed
Disturbs the earth –
Shivering like an aspen leaf in the wind.
The soft wind hushes by,
A rude intruder further
Disturbing the partial silence of the night
For the tryst like wrestle
Of a veteran and a fledgling.

…Till dawn, the wrestle holds sway
To be dead by the coming of the sun.

THUNDERBOLT

(Magun: the course of a husband hiding a charmed broom at the passage of his cheating wife to crossover, and then whoever sleeps with her next dies in one of a number of ways.)

Vanity shall be the charmed broom at her doorstep,
Another man’s doom at their copulation.
I know the mystic name of earth.
I know its secret path.

I know the aged in spirit.
I have dined with those who see
The sun at midnight.
Again, vanity shall be your charmed broom

Hidden at her doorstep
That if she crosses it
And at our mating, in concubinage,
I shall traipse the earth’s narrow throat;

But first, as it works, the strength of the charm:
I shall thirst for water, a dying urge
And at its sight, I shall drink to death
Or otherwise,

I shall somersault seven times,
A hard stunt for the novice
Yet to be acted with ease at death’s maneuvering
Or otherwise,

I shall crow
Like the cock,
Time indifference; day or night.
Again, vanity shall be your charmed broom (do not cross)

At her doorstep.
And when she approaches me again –
Weather, indifferent – and now for your insult upon my trade,
I shall dig her to the abyss like never before,

A depth deeper than the farmer’s plow
At the death of yam for the birth of tuber.
And when you see her totter back to your home,
Know, alive, I came, saw and conquered.

About the Author

Olabode Olanrewaju is a Nigerian. He is a Special Assistant to the Speaker of the 9th Ogun State House of Assembly and also a graduate of English Studies from Babcock University, Nigeria. He edited Kalamu Review magazine, the maiden edition of the literary magazine during his last year in school. He has published on Nigeria Today, Kalahari Review, Best New African Poet 2017, and Kalamu Review. When he is not writing, he is working on the progress of his society.

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