STRIDES OF MUSIC by Lucky Labaya

STRIDES OF MUSIC by Lucky Labaya

by | Oct 26, 2019 | ISSUE, Issue - Poetry

STRIDES OF MUSIC

by Lucky Labaya 

That music should

pace as slow as possible.

 

That what should sail

into ears are stroked strings

of a guitar.

That haste in it means defiance

rides on its meter—

 

That if it hurries: it isn’t

of the rising dust of stamping feet.

That it isn’t good

for where cartilage narrows.

                   –

What

crawls out of some lips is: so

long it thuds hard and it is

impatient enough to pace

hurriedly, it needn’t be given

a listen.

                   –

What about the ones

that now broaden their cheeks from

years of bowing heads after

NF’s tune found its way

into their headphones?

 

What would have been of

them when they did make yeah

a refrain that overrode their thoughts

as they kept facing the ceiling while

toasting a dice on the floor,

contemplating what a single

squeal could do.

Source: From the Rebel Issue (October 2019)

STRIDES OF MUSIC

by Lucky Labaya | POEMS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

LUCKY LUBAYA is a poet and fiction writer who writes from Zambia. He pens poems to have a better understanding of the world and to smear different emotions on paper and his word app. If not writing, he spends his time taking a reasonable stroll and finding delight in stuff that fits being art.

THE DEFINITIVE TIME OF NOTHINGNESS by Sheikha A.

THE DEFINITIVE TIME OF NOTHINGNESS by Sheikha A.

by | Oct 1, 2019 | POEMS

THE DEFINITIVE TIME OF NOTHINGNESS

by Sheikha A. 

Her eyes are ponds rippling the moon;
snip in the air turning fade
and the confusion of a quarrel
with the deceased relative’s visit
in mother’s dream is grimier
than the clarity of murky water  
she saw centered in a ruinous court-
yard. It must have been the moon
had browned in the hide of a bear –
the tones of honey-hue yet majestic dusky;
she wasn’t able to tell one from the other
while we waited as a weightless voice
like in chants of allegiance, when a grave
is ordered to convert into a fruit-
bearing field. Mother’s mind is  
listening to winds; how fast metres
race when arrival collides with departure.
Of late, this is how it’s been. She gets
on her feet with a scrubber and can’t
decide what corner needs most
cleaning attention. Fabrics of chiffon
are the different ways she folds  
in decisiveness. We see her looking
outwards, towards the common  
man taking the bus to work, she  
sees his feet are steady even if his
heart has lost accountability of
the number of breaths he draws  
out of his veins, just to watch the day
successfully end without incident.
There is envy in that sort of timeliness;
predictability doesn’t have to be
a god, or human invention. And
we have seen many springs take
the stairs of summer to alter  
flashing lights into a comfortable
breach-birthed darkness. We are
here hanging like the first sign,
the kind that we miss because  
of speed, also cannot reverse to.
Mother knows from the circling
birds overhead, neon rains
are about to wet flamboyant  
paints of vitality.

 

THE DEFINITIVE TIME OF NOTHINGNESS

by Sheikha A. | POEMS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sheikha A. is from Pakistan and United Arab Emirates. Her works appear in a variety of literary venues, both print and online, including several anthologies by different presses. Recent publications are Strange Horizons, Pedestal Magazine, Atlantean Publishing, Alban Lake Publishing, and elsewhere. Her poetry has been translated into Spanish, Greek, Arabic, and Persian. She has also appeared in Epiphanies and Late Realizations of Love anthology that has been nominated for a Pulitzer. More about her can be found here. 
IF GOD WAS A NIGERIAN by Othuke Umukoro

IF GOD WAS A NIGERIAN by Othuke Umukoro

by | Aug 27, 2019 | NIGERIAN POEMS, POEMS

IF GOD WAS A NIGERIAN

by Othuke Umukoro

ASUU would strike him
till his sorrow grows a beard.

He would be a Yahoo boy or a pimp or a drug dealer
or an innocent girl in the cold & dark streets of
Italy tendering white men’s amorous dreams
or all of the above.

He would be a potbellied politician
that swallowed (y)our children’s future,
or a snake that swallows dollars
or a rat that chases the big man
out of his office.

They would have slaughtered him, like
Ramadan rams, in Benue or
bandaged him with bombs in Borno.

His children’s life expectancy in the
Niger Delta would be around
9 or 10 (that’s a conservative statistic)
—all they would ever have are: a bowl
of oil spills for breakfast, a plate of
greenhouse emissions for dinner
& grief sandwiched between.

He would drown crossing the
Mediterranean or sold for peanuts in Libya.

He would yelp & complain on the mad streets of twitter
but will never come out to vote out oppression.

The sun would die in his mouth in Kirikiri
or other eyeless places where those who try to
sing new songs are stripped, chained & tortured.

He would not be in school but on the sidewalk, holding a
blue plastic bowl for your damn pity or under the leprous
stare of the sun cleaning your windshield at a red light.

SARS would shoot him & the government hospital
they will rush him to will not have electricity.

He would be a broke ass poet like me.

IF GOD WAS A NIGERIAN

by Othuke Umukoro | POEMS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Othuke Umukoro is a poet & playwright. His demons have appeared, or are forthcoming in The Sunlight Press, Brittle Paper, AfricanWriter, Eunoia Review & elsewhere. His debut play Mortuary Encounters (Swift publishers, 2019) is available here.
When bored, he watches Everybody Hates Chris. He is on Twitter: @othukeumukoro19

FLOWER PETALS by Ugochukwu Damian

FLOWER PETALS by Ugochukwu Damian

by | Jun 3, 2019 | POEMS

FLOWER PETALS

by Ugochukwu Damian

for ikedinaobi
your country is a hunger
that you cannot name
your bones are fragile
like flower petals
& there’s a river in your body
that you cannot name
& there’s a country emptying this river
into itself
where queer bodies drown last
after drowning in their bodies

FLOWER PETALS

by Ugochukwu Damian | POEMS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ugochukwu Damian Okpara is a poet and a medical student based in Nigeria. He began writing poetry in 2017 and his major theme explores depression, loneliness, and sexuality. His goal is to inspire those who have been hurt, making them realise that the light at the end of the tunnel is not an illusion. He was one of the 21 mentees in the second cohort of the SLM Mentorship programme. His poems have appeared in Woven Words, African writer, Kreative Diadem and elsewhere.
SELF by Adejuwon Gbalajobi

SELF by Adejuwon Gbalajobi

by | May 13, 2019 | POEMS

SELF

by Adejuwon Gbalajobi

I wear my fear around my neck like a tie,
my fear, the reason my sleep comes in fits.
& anytime I close my eyes,
my demon transmogrifies into thoughts, an accuser,
a finger pointed at me:
“You, you’ll be like your father, a waste.”
“You, you son of a beast!”

 

2:00 am,
I saw my demon clearer today,
he has flaccid ears, a squared nose, a red carpet for hairs; 
it has my face & my mother’s voice,
“You! I curse my womb for having you!”
2:30 am
I woke up drenched in my sweat,
picked up my phone,
opened my writing app &
finished this poem.

SELF

by Adejuwon Gbalajobi | POEMS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Adejuwon Gbalajobi is a Nigerian poet and creative writer. He writes to explore every sphere of human consciousness.
His poems have appeared on Praxis magazine, Writer Space Africa and Okada blog. He is a lover of tigers, trees, paintings, and sculptures.
 

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