FROM THE BLUES (ISSUE 8)

EVERYTHING DIMS AT TWILIGHT | Olubowale Johnson

Please, don’t bid me rise

Here with my eyelids close I lie

For why’s the haste into the day

Whilst still so young

If a little slumber can ease my fiery heart

Leave me alone where I lie

 

Please, don’t calm the fluster of my youth

Ebullient spirit like untamed stringed score of stallions

Set loose with blazed tail

Race across the battle line

As I chase my own shadow while the noon is so high

Or chase hare in the resplendent glade under the mellow moonlight

 

Please, don’t make me lick toes of my foes

Until my tongue’s as sharp as flint

By which the flesh it cuts

Is wet in its own ruddy sweat

Or stare so hard at my own portrait which my own hand wrought

And despise the imperfect me

 

Please, don’t ask me to drop my plough

Until my honest sweat turns to gold

For what is the difference between the furrows I plough and my grave

Just a few feet you may say

For the same place where my seeds lay

Sprout into vines

Of which, soon, its grapes we dance upon in the winepress

And thus drunk with our own blood we call wine,

Wet with our own urine,

We lose our sanity

Less do we know true sanity is found in the silence of grave

There where our bodies shall feed maggots and carrion beetles

However don’t tell me about the dead while I live

For I need not be told

That everything dims at twilight.

Olubowale Johnson is a poet, educationist and a physicist. He is the author of the book titled ‘Truth At Twilight‘

 

 

 

 

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COME BLIND, GO BLIND | Lovina Ashedzi Emmanuel

Their arrival was at sunset
With the sky in fore lead
Flashing its sparkles on
All foot ways

They descended  to ascend
The peak of the mountain in
A lightful day with a ray of
Shine on the nudity of each
Dressed soul

Yet darkness beclouds their eyes
To detect the shrieked bellies in

Breathing lilies of want

Dimness befriends their sight in
View of the desert-throat sailing
In a boat of thirst

Tint folds up their descry
To foresee the teary-face
Sinking in the pool of penury

They come blind,
Go blind in guard of a
blind walk-stick
Lovina Ashedzi Emmanuel is a poet, writer, an up and coming entrepreneur, essayist, facilitator and trainer (on global issues). She studied Mass Communication at Nasarawa State Polytechnic, Lafia where she served as Editor-in-Chief of a student training magazine. As a student, her articles were featured in Nasarawa Newsday Paper while in school also.

Lovina is currently serving as a Program Assistant Manager at Grassroots Youth and Community Livelihood Enhancement Initiative (GYCLEI), Akwanga.

 

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LIKE THE DESERT | Jummah Mujeeb Aremu

These naughty pebbles irk your feet,

but are the only friends who understand how you truly feel

 

Sometimes there is everywhere to sail in the ocean of sand,

yet you know nowhere to trail

 

So, distraction makes mutters of a better world

And dissatisfaction grips your focus on this shattered world

 

Our feelings protest

Just as our brains are fuelled to ponder

 

For we may not have Hiroshima’s imagery images

But we have seen replays of Nagasaki in high definition images

 

Then, knowledge bites us hard;

what we have today maybe drained to nothing come another day

 

So, let every empathic organism forget not

such places like the deserts in the Middle East.

 

Jummah Mujeeb Aremu was born on July 2, 1994 in Victoria island, Lagos. He is the first of three children gifted to Alhaji Lateef and Mrs Aminat Jummah. Mujeeb is a lover of art who has a fetish for drawing and making comics. He is currently a penultimate student of Arts and Social Sciences Education in the University of Ibadan. He is a devoted Muslim.

 

 

 

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A DARKER SHADE | Okunlola Azeezat Olayinka

“Mandy! Mandy! Mandy”

 

Two clocks the time

She came running, delighted to hold a pen
Blissful that she might have me speak

“Please write,” I began…

 

I read through the shallows

My heart soared

Soared because it felt like me

Like that poet lent my very voice.

 

Mandy, please do write

I will give it a darker shade

For there is still much to write.

 

I fumble with the key,

A part of me wants to remain locked in

 

He did call…

Yes, he called when he received my letter

Strangely, I couldn’t figure his voice

The one that spoke my favourite lies:

“I love you.”

“I miss you.”

Yeah, and this too: “you’re my world.”

Haha… Lies I held dear.

 

“He said all of that,” Mandy asked.

 

“Oh Mandy, please write…”

The lies I once cherished, all void of meaning

Perhaps…

Just perhaps, he craved vengeance

When he began the torture, I’d ask,

“Haven’t you had your fill?”

 

Please write me a poem, will you?

A poem that speaks of lies & deception

Hurdles around hate and love

But don’t you think, Mandy

That love and dinosaurs have much in common?

 

Okunlola Olayinka Azeezat writes poetry and prose. She has authored a book entitled ‘Red Fuse Trip’, and currently studies for a degree in Classics at the University of Ibadan.