A MAN’S BORDERLINE TO OVERCOMING LONELINESS by Oluwadare Popoola

A MAN’S BORDERLINE TO OVERCOMING LONELINESS by Oluwadare Popoola

by | Sep 1, 2020 | Isolation, Isolation-Poetry

art back view backlit boy

A MAN’S BORDERLINE TO OVERCOMING LONELINESS

by Oluwadare Popoola

there is familiarity,

a twinkle in our eyes for unknown places

that beg a birdsong to settle

for one of milky eyes or murderous ears.

a chalice or wine.

 

I don’t think I know the crevices of insanity well,

but it sure looks like a jagged muscle

from a mouth tilted in the position of a rig-saw.

 

you leave the ninety-nine

and come after my body,

measuring slabs of it with your eyes,

resectioning its tissues with your teeth,

cooking it with spices from the internet.

& then you see

that you have cooked up a ghost.

it’s a white coat carrying rashes,

something you call letters

or a relic of it

that soon becomes songs.

 

you bathe them in your spittle

and give them a home in photographs

or tie them to a group of wintering bluebirds

and in electronic papers that are all apparitions.

calories wasting & eyes singeing.

 

you go to the kitchen to search for lost energy,

sleep and dream that I became your neighbour

and woke up to ninety-nine retweets.

Source: From the Isolation Issue (September 2020)

A MAN'S BORDERLINE TO OVERCOMING LONELINESS

by Oluwadare Popoola | POEMS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

OLÚWÁDÁRE PÓPÓỌLA is a poet or so he thinks, a student of Microbiology and a Sportswriter for a media company. He writes from a city by the rocks and longs to see the world without discrimination of any form. He is learning how images are made from words and his poems are up/forthcoming on Mineral Lit. Magazine, Headline Poetry & Press, Feral: A Journal of Poetry & Art and ang(st)zine.

ABRIDGED PATHOLOGY OF A SYSTEM UNDER LOCKDOWN by Ayokunle Betiku

ABRIDGED PATHOLOGY OF A SYSTEM UNDER LOCKDOWN by Ayokunle Betiku

by | Sep 1, 2020 | Isolation, Isolation-Poetry

black and brown desk globe

Abridged Pathology of a System under Lockdown 

by Ayokunle Betiku

first   the body embraces confinement

as a fast

 

interlude within the immune walls  of 

living 

 

cells      roses sprout  from the  elastic

skins

 

of  streets &  highways  bristling  with

grave

 

silence      the heart  beats well  till the 

rising

 

figures  of  fallen  bodies   go viral  &

cripple

 

a nation’s system    the walls of living

cells

 

get rigid  & extend  after heavy  bouts 

of infections

 

plague the nation      empty  stomachs

develop guts

& leave the walls      some captured by 

hosts

 

in olive  fatigues       the eyes long  for 

sights

 

behind window blinds     & everything 

held

 

in shadows leaves the body  yearning 

to embrace

 

faces   sun rays & a reed organ in the

open field

Source: From the Isolation Issue (September 2020)

Abridged Pathology of a System under Lockdown

by Ayokunle Betiku | POEMS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

AYOKUNLE SAMUEL BETIKU is a Nigerian writer who sees his fingers as bridges between his heart and the world. His works have appeared in journals and anthologies, including Parousia, Monus, EOPP, BPPC, Kalahari Review, African Writer, Libretto & elsewhere. He lives in the city of Ondo, South West Nigeria, from where he writes.

(PIANO-TUNING) by Alexis Teyie

(PIANO-TUNING) by Alexis Teyie

by | Sep 1, 2020 | Isolation, Isolation-Poetry

piano

(piano-tuning) 

by Alexis Teyie

Interstice,

a staggered release—

out of step, but thankfully,

ever tense, and trembling in concert

(first dead dog: CupCake) —

who is to say you are not

your own mother, nurse?

 

A sensory key, hammer

is the pin. My hymn: a crumpled

grocery list I discard,

anyhow.

 

Energy transfer,

kinetic traffic and

think: melodic,

these gilded weapons

of interference, beating,

towards a well-tempered mode.

 

(First miss-

ing tome: Pushkin.) Again.

Divergent and twin, this

(first limbs out of tune: right

shoulder, left ankle)

lost parent of mine, out of

time (indolent lungs) — you

are permitted a little

stuttering.

 

first instrument: 

a set of un-

breakable nails; I run them across 

screens, blackboards, dinner plates,

thighs, earth, walls, 

sins, 

water, that favourite sweater— yes,

log it all as a loss, careless

commerce— there is no accounting for

stillness.

a name without an owner,

I call it out from inside night’s crease,

this orphaned, liberated name.

I called from within this valley:

 

It’s so hard to keep our sins

straight, yawning

no no no no, up and

out. 

 

I called to the usual 

ballet of lovers, insisting my way

into this ill-fitting glory. 

Joy, I know, sinks to 

the bottom of any pool.

 

I follow the will.

Is that a lightness blooming

in me?

Source: From the Isolation Issue (September 2020)

(piano-tuning)

by Alexis Teyie | POEMS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ALEXIS TEYIE is a Kenyan writer and feminist. She is a co-founder and poetry editor with Enkare Review. Alex co-authored a children’s book, Short Cut (2015). She has also published a poetry chapbook, Clay Plates: Broken Records of Kiswahili Proverbs (2016), through the African Poetry Book Fund and Akashic Books (see on LitHub). Her poetry, short fiction or non-fiction have appeared in collections like Routledge’s Handbook of Queer Studies (2019); 20.35 Africa; Queer Africa II (GALA); ID (SSDA); Water (SSDA); Anathema’s Speculative Fiction. She has also been published by Jalada Africa, Omenana, This is Africa, Writivism, African Feminist Forum, among others. She also works as a data nerd and sings for a secret choir in Nairobi.

THE MEETING by Seun Lari-Williams

THE MEETING by Seun Lari-Williams

by | Sep 1, 2020 | Isolation, Isolation-Poetry

two person in long sleeved shirt shakehand

The Meeting

by Seun Lari-Williams

A pandemic meets an old man on the road.

Who is this who is not afraid of me? It asks.

You must be religious, I believe.

Which of the gods do you worship?

 

I am not religious, the old man replies,

I must go about my business.

You must be immune, then, the pandemic says,

or perhaps you have found a cure?

 

I really don’t care, the old man groans,

my business is urgent, I must go.

Then surely, you are foolish, the pandemic retorts.

Have you not heard the reports?

 

I am hunger, the old man began,

I’ve been here since the world began.

Wars and diseases, they come and they go.

None has lived as long as I have.

You burn at both ends; your end is near.

I burn slow like fine firewood.

Keep them indoors and fill them with fright,

but when I knock, they come right out.

 

Your reputation precedes you, the pandemic responds

and bows before the old man.

They kiss, hug and shake hands like old friends and

smile knowingly at each other.

 

The old man takes his leave and continues his routine—

knocking on doors and turning knobs.

Source: From the Isolation Issue (September 2020)

The Meeting

by Seun Lari-Williams | POEMS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

SEUN LARI-WILLIAMS was born in Lagos on 28th April 1987. He is a lawyer, poet, and flutist. His first anthology – Garri for Breakfast, was longlisted for the 2017 NLNG Nigeria Prize for Literature. His poem, ‘A Little Violence’, won the second prize in the 2019 Guardian Newspaper Poetry Competition. He is married to his best friend, Feyi and they reside in Munich, Germany where he is a DAAD Scholar for a masters’ degree in intellectual property law.

WHAT WE CARRY HOME by Chiwenite Onyekwelu

WHAT WE CARRY HOME by Chiwenite Onyekwelu

by | Sep 1, 2020 | Isolation, Isolation-Poetry

grayscale photography of woman

What We Carry Home

by Chiwenite Onyekwelu

I’ve been here for far too long,

I feel my body steeling into the soil,

 

making roots. Nothing grows beneath

my feet, or close to it, or along

 

this pathway where I sit to number

my children every day. I’m not afraid,

 

I swear, I just worry too much about

what we carry home whenever we

 

collide. My son is 6 and rocket-shaped,

a wild thing. Now and again, I nail

 

him to the wall, pray his body into

his room. I say, you must learn to sit 

 

in the house long enough until this flood

sun-dries. Each time a country drowns 

 

in the News, I memorize half the figures

that try to wash our faces down 

 

the drains. My daughter thinks we’ve 

overstayed the holiday. She rearranges 

 

her body on the couch, asks me to map 

out all of the spots where her shadow 

 

begins to rot. I decline, basin her on my

laps and smuggle her into safety.

 

There is nothing else to save from the

flood except this poem. Except you.

Source: From the Isolation Issue (September 2020)

What We Carry Home

by Chiwenite Onyekwelu | POEMS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CHIWENITE ONYEKWELU’S works have been published or are forthcoming on America Media, Brittle Paper, Kreative Diadem, ZenPens and elsewhere. He was a runner up for the Foley Poetry Contest 2020, a finalist for Stephen A. Dibiase Poetry Contest 2020 and winner of the Christopher Okigbo Poetry Prize 2019 for his poem “The Origin of Wings”. He was also shortlisted for the Kreative Diadem Annual Writing Contest 2019 and was the 2nd prize winner of the Newman Writing Contest (NMWC) 2017. Chiwenite studies pharmacy at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria.

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