In my backyard stands a colossal baobab tree, ten feet farther from the house, tall and majestic as the Nkanyamba mountains overlooking the surreal view of our village, its peaceful demeanour pervades all around it, more so when its copper arms beckon at me with a poised buoyancy from a distance, sending enthralling tingles all [...]
I've never met my grandmother, except from my mother's lips, in which case, I know her very well. Her spirit lives on my mother says. She's an unextinguishable flame that could not be doused even by the passage of time, soaring the vast, capricious Alkebulan sky like all great Goddesses who reigned over these sacred [...]
unsung tales of yoke unbroken mosaics of the many unlived hung undone the newborn scion betrothed to the meanders of flexile gods as ritual or phantom—I do not know which yet, we dip the newborn in the bewitching lakes as early riser or insomniac—I do not remember which yet, the forlorn sky gazer remains shackled to the [...]
“Must've been intense", remarked the light-skinned woman staring intensely into my face. I enjoyed watching the frightful apprehensiveness budding in her eyes. "A tiger you say..." "Oh my!" "Must've been quite something…" "Does it hurt?" "Can I tou…" she reached out her hand but was interrupted by the train halting. It's my stop, so I [...]
I have seen mothers bleed their eyes out; I have walked across women enslaved in a whimpering heart, I had heard from my grandmother; That the moon came home before my grandfather, And I also heard how the whole world trembled; Every night my grandfather walked into the abode. My eyes could see it in [...]
A rustle is heard in the vert; A mother stalks her young. A cold sinister wind howls an abominable note, a thief chances on hidden treasure; a poacher claims his price. Unsuspecting, the sun shines ever so brightly; the Earth shrieks in mortal agony. Alas! The moon plots a coup; the kin of darkness schemes [...]
I stood on the third floor lifelessly, weighing down my body like an ant who didn't want to be swallowed by bricks. My toes were the only part of my body that dared to kiss the floor. Still, in my heart, I wished I could grow wings to ensure my safety. My toes didn't stand [...]
A drop of helium into my soul, like a spice. An ingredient for independence, or uplifting, or sadness. Like years becoming stories, folktales, near-lies. Because they're too old to be remembered, or forgotten— The taste of mama's breast milk, the taste of African earth, The taste of pap, the sound of my favorite lullaby)— How [...]
Our history pants hopelessly Under the burden of our complacency Like an old palm-wine tapper with a huge gourd Balanced upon his crooked, creaking back. Our time, tired of regrets Spread around its sodden sands for too long, Has turned a rooster with a penetrating crow– Deafening like the sounds of the trumpets of rapture, [...]
Mother won't bleed again to the breaking song According to the gospel of insanity of man. She says life is in the hands of a madman. She says Sunday is not enough To bless the memories of her son Who she lost in the hands of stray bullets. Mother won't bleed again In that house [...]
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