The Editor’s ‘No’ or Nod
Last night, the editor looked through a pile of poems, where mine hid, with a smear of mama’s anointing oil, wrapped in the first prayer I mumbled after my last rejection. (Is there even a thing as last rejection? Is rejection not a long endless…
ANXIETY AND THINGS THAT SHATTER: EXUDATES OF A TROUBLED MIND
(Anxiety and Things that Shatter, 112 pages, Samuel Adeyemi , 2019, Smashwords Edition) I had barely read halfway through the first part of this three-sectioned anthology before I messaged Samuel, “How did you put these poems out without feeling naked?” The poems in this collection…
AN ECHO OF SILENCE
Because we do not preserve memories from decay By immersing them in vessels filled with formalin, I tried to remember you today- your smell, your kiss The beats and lyrics of the songs you said your heart Sang for me, but I can’t remember any….
STICKY NOTES
We read the sticky notes on her wall today, “What separation technique is used To separate pain from life?” “How does a fish who lost its gills survive? Does it befriend the tides or surrender to The fangs of the waters?” “As a man releases…
Musings, Monologues & Madness
I we do not know how many calabashes of fermented incantations the gods must drink to get drunk, but we know that wisdom is not something the gods give in exchange for kola nuts! sometimes he melts it into verses & allows it to drip…
The Sun That Would Not Rise In The East
The day Akanji hosted death, the crown exhaled in relieve as it watched a hundred and one brittle-hearted fellows adorned with mournful grins, troop to his festive funeral They said: “He’s dead! The man who defaced the wall of humanity with his uncommon shade of…
All The Madness Around Here
Whether or not Charly Boy was born with a placard in his hand, I know not, But his words: “Our mumu don do” must not be left to burn in the fireplace of sentiments Because medicine for many of the ailments that plague our society,…
Tell Me How To Woo Adaobi
How to woo Adaobi
One of you
Do not ask me again Why I hop from tree to tree like a monkey It is because I am in a frantic search For healing herbs for my bedridden country And just as the thunder’s applause welcomes the rain And the torch of lightening…
English