Walk with me and I'll show you a desert, A ghost of a green land, Where the rivers have turned into mirages. I'll show you a ship sinking deep down the sea, On whose deck, justice had once held hands with humans as lovers do. I'll show you a community where the rain falls on [...]
I sleep in a hut of palms with you and the restless woodworm as the sun comes up with the elegance of the hibiscus you leave on a pilgrimage of wishes I watch over dry banana trees and wannabe mangoes and I lose to cards with Monkeys When in the afternoon all [...]
For three days it has rained intermittently The stalks have altered their stance into an eternal bow / and the roads are now mud-colored. My neighbor’s house now glugs water through an open roof— the aftereffect of an ardent rainstorm. My dad says God is attempting to cleanse the earth from darkness and the [...]
Memory is the story you were told about a city which fell off an atlas into the hands of assailants, who slashed the tongues of your elders, and smothered the night with bullets and blood. You were told that the sea was freedom when your fathers and sons drowned with chains into the blueness of [...]
We are chandeliers with crystal brightness, The sun embraces us from her residence We have sinned against our souls & soils, Forgive our faults & let this hunger go down With the setting sun. We are rivers flowing into springs, Cliffs, gulfs, we fall into ourselves —water. No one resents water, may this thirst [...]
Help me to forget The land with devastated buildings, The smokes without fire, The trees lying lifeless, and The soldiers running restless. Help me to forget The forever dead ends, The runaway parents, The massacred children, and The whirlwind that swept their hope. Help me to forget The konga without boom boom, The [...]
As giant ants march ahead in nightly arrays Demonstrating against the ruling humans Along the main street of every major city Hordes of vampires flood in, Screaming aloud, Riding on hyenas and octopuses, Waving skeletons in their hairy hands, Whipping at old werewolves Or all-eyed aliens standing by With their blood-dripping tails Gathering behind [...]
~ tomorrow, when God calls from the heavens, we will say Amen because we have learnt that broken things don't fly they don't soar, they search through the dirt waiting for redemption. ~ today, we will lift our voices like cherubs and sing away the filth that clads our body. with black-winged cherubs screaming [...]
Last night, I heard you sing out the scars in your voice. It was a depiction of how death lurches in your throat, And grief burns like an inferno in your tummy. Your wings drop like dried leaves in harmattan. The winds beat your wings As your feathers flutter to the song of the [...]
You held the sun By the throat, Made love to darkness. She screamed your name —But your name, Sopona, Is not to be spoken— We fell to the Wrath of earth. The air we breathe Stalks us Water can't cleanse this curse. you are death, You are antidote. The sun is your wife, The moon, [...]
Sub-Saharan Magazine 