IF GOD WAS A NIGERIAN by Othuke Umukoro

IF GOD WAS A NIGERIAN by Othuke Umukoro

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.

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

POLITICS by Taofeek Ogunperi

POLITICS by Taofeek Ogunperi

POLITICS

by Taofeek Ogunperi

is a river that drowns
even at its bank

is a jungle where squirrels
become alpha lions

is a microphone that gives
a clear voice to the dumb

is an echo that penetrates
the walls in the deaf’s ears

is a wheel, standby for all
that can, that cannot drive

is a road that shifts
size, shape, surface, stretch

is a game: rules definitively undefined
players uncensored, unlimited

is a perigee, an apogee
to good, bad governance

is dirty, clean
because it is you and I.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Author of a book of poems, Twisted Tongues, Taofeek Olalekan Ogunperi was born and brought up in Ikirun,  Osun State, Nigeria. His poems have appeared in print and online media such as Muse for World Peace, Armistice, WriCon Quarterly Journal, Atelewo Pelebe, I am Not a Silent Poet, The Talented and elsewhere. He is a member of the Ultimate Club of Ikirun – an assemblage of youths promoting education in Ikirun and its environment; a member of Muse for Peace Foundation – a group of youths committed to community development and propagating peace. He blogs at namelessexpress.wordpress.com.

TELL DARKEN WEST

TELL DARKEN WEST

 

“Go Soul the body’s guest

   Upon a thankless arrant

       Fear not to touch the best

         The truth shall be thy warrant

             Go, since I needs must die

                 And give the world the lie.”

Sir Walter Raleigh- Soul’s Errand.

 

TELL DARKEN WEST

Say to the West they stink

And smears of filth

Tell, Convention fades like blink

Tell Bravery ’tis but myth.

 

Warn War of holocaust

Chide Strategy ’tis mere prank

Tell Peace it lies nought

When its rod faileth to spank.

 

Cry to Light it’s thin

And laxeth in its shine

Tell, Democracy can’t win

Unless with Villainy dine.

 

Tell Darken West!

Tell Darken West!

Tell Psychopath He commends

And makes his fawn

Tell Awe of unsungness it mends

Tell Sun to trail when Flattery’s done.

 

Say to Faiths they gleam

On their sacred way man leaves dirty spoor

Say to the proud stream

It flows, oe’rflows and banes the moor.

 

Tell Courage it prateth

And flees when it’s the meanest

Rebuke Fate it wasteth

Tell strength it’s not the strongest.

 

Tell fatigue it’s mean

When this Truth thou harbinger

Tell, resilience is near

Near, near and nearer

As it drifts towards matyrs’ isle

Tell nudists there’s mantle.

 

When thou hast uttered thy foretellings

And lay bare their loomy goriness

Fear not their yellings

Till you saunder Oneness

Whence lieth their bestness

Exhume conscience from ashes of shyness!

Thou Soul, body’s guest

Fear not but torch Darken West!

 

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Agbaakin Oluwatoyosi Jeremiah is a law undergraduate of the Premier University, University of Ibadan. Born on the 9th of April, 1994 in Ikire, Osun state, he is an active pressman in the university community where he heads the news unit in his hall press organization. During his secondary days, he won many essay competitions, performed poetry for state programs and participated in many literary activities.

He is not relenting as he keeps writing especially on his blog: muselord.wordpress.com. Apart from his keen love for legal studies, he has burning passion for writing fantasy novels, poems,and on philosophy. Battle Scar, a novel about the Biafran war was published to his credit on the top online forum in Nigeria, Nairaland in 2013 and it received a wide read.

I believe in fighting for integrity and justice at all cost as the noble laureate, Wole Soyinka rightly said “The man dies in all who keep silent in the face of
tyranny” and a legendary Judge once established that justice must not only be done but be manifestly and undoubtedly seen to be done.

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