Akpata Magazine

Tag: poetry

  • ‘The Past Future War’ & ‘Mane’ – Mark Kennedy Nsereko

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    The Past Future War 

                   the oldies think they’re gold                                    the futures eager to occupy spaces
             the seedlings think they’re rubies                                  the pasts unwilling to leave positions
    the former crowns the latter the future,                                  the latter insists on being in charge,
           yet never call themselves the past.                                  as the formers remain inexperienced.
                       

    the past decides for the futures,                      the oldies think they’re justified
                          decisions require experience.                       the seedlings are just entitled
                            the oldies think they’re gold                       the oldies think they know best,
                         the seedlings are but, newbies                       the seedlings deserve less.
                    

    the justified wear their medals of toil      Why have the entitled,
                         the entitled tire rather too quickly      if not to bequeath your titles?
                      the justified preach hard work pays,     the oldies think they’re gold.
                                 the entitled are not believers.     the seedlings think they’re rubies.
                                       

      the oldies are certain they’re intelligent,
                                                                     the intelligent assert subordination,
                                          like at a latter age comes sage.
                                                                  sexual morality and cave ways.
                                       The seedlings rejoice in their ignorance,
                                                                     the ignoramus want life on their own terms,
                                        they’ll know better when they come of age.
                                                                   gold belongs in the ground.

    Mane 

                                                         I was taught my hair 
                                          is a disease, grass to cut short; dispose of
                                   those weeds. Routinely scoured bald for school, while
                       the Indian kids played with their hair ribbons. Teachers zealously 
                hunted us with scissors, to make paths on our scalps. They grinned ear to
              ear as they mutilated our bodies. We were taught our hair was shame. They
           called our hair unkempt, for they couldn’t fathom that a mane sprouts not to be
         kempt. To them my hair was shabby, for they saw it through the colonialist’ gaze
     whose mandate they elevate. Employers demand qualified men cut their dreadlocks to 
     get hired, weighing competence by the length of the strands. Do clients seek our tresses
      or our prowess? They say men                                                    who plait hair are bayaye.
        Count the country’s                                                                        biggest crooks filling
         public offices with hairless heads.                      Forever too quick to dictate what a
            respectable man                                                                              should dress like.   
             Today, I grow my                                                                            mane carelessly,   
                 shear when I                                                                            want, not when   
                   they tell me.                                                                          those who find    
                       me feminine                                                                       call me she/     
                            girly, to                                                                     emasculate        
                                 me. I am                                                            flattered   
                                       for woman is a synonym for beauty. What my     
                                           mane does                                 is accentuate  
                                               me. I bask in their stares as I whip my    
                                                      hair; contempt or reverence.  
                                                          A crown of pride I wear.  
                                             

    Mark Kennedy Nsereko is a Ugandan writer. His work reimagines beauty, draws darkness, and reveals bits of what keeps him up all night. His writings have featured in the poetry anthology I Promise This Song Is Not About Politics and Brittle Paper.

  • Signs – Nozhan Resalati

    The fireflies shine in the pitch darkness.
    Unique flashing pattern to find a mate!
    Dazzling, alluring, sparkling, mysterious,
    More than a flickering light for a date!
    Isn’t that a sign of appreciation?

    Waking up in the morning,
    Drinking a cup of tea by the window.
    Watching the sunrise through the rain,
    Sunlight kisses a rain droplet.
    Rainbow colors. Like your dreams.
    Isn’t that a sign of imagination?

    The baby looks at its reflection
    In the mirror and laughs. For the first time.
    Luster of eyes, wavy hair, radiant smile.
    Breathing, fogging, rubbing, crying!
    Isn’t that a sign of curiosity?

    You’re lying in bed, in puppy pose,
    Arched back! It’s driving me mad.
    Igniting my flame, killing me again,
    With your hot lips on my skin.
    Isn’t that a sign of passion?

    It’s been thirty years since
    Like a journey through time!
    Although you’ve lost your memory.
    But I know that you are mine!
    And you’ll always be my cherished.
    Isn’t that a sign of faithfulness?

    Author’s Bio

    Nozhan Resalati is a writer and an ESL teacher based in Iran. He writes short stories, flash fiction, nonfiction, and plays. He is in love with words and passionate about literature and cinema. His works are forthcoming in Bending Genres and Bull. You can find him on X @nozhanresalati and Instagram @English_journey86

    Featured Image Credit: CreativeNK

  • The Blue Bird Left No Joy on X – Agboola Tariq A.

    in a video,
    i watch how chaos chases a boy from home.
    on the runway,
    a rifle points him towards heaven’s gate
    & a bullet catches up with him.
    like a pinball arcade,
    a boy is fired into strange horizons
    & the only way home is a road that leads nowhere.
    in a country not far from here,
    blood has washed humanity off its borders.
    bones are mistaken for bricks,
    pandemonium sways like pendulum,
    rockets swinging from both sides,
    & there, a boy stuck at the center of chaos,
    where the only thing that brings light is fire.
    he watches how fire eats up his home
    & doesn’t spare his family.
    tears flowing into storm,
    but it isn’t enough to kill the fire.
    in another video,
    a girl is badly hurt.
    her voice
    collapsing like her father,
    her home, her country.
    her body, buried under burning clouds,
    becomes a log of hope.
    & the birds,
    have taken all that’s left of it.           

    Image Credit: Starboyscotty

    Author’s Bio

    Agboola Tariq A., Swan II, is an unfolding poet from Western Nigeria & an undergraduate student of law at the University of Ibadan. He explores in his writing, self / identity & spaces he occupies. Some of his works are forthcoming/in Brittle Paper, Eunoia Review, Olumo Review, IceFloe Press, The Hellebore Press, Variety Pack, Fiery Scribe Review, The Poetry Journal & elsewhere.  He tweets: @Agboola_Tariq_A

  • Two Poems by Emmanuel Yamba

    Greatness is a Survival Story

    When you were born, your body was offered to God –
    the priest held you in the air before the congregation,
    before the altar, and there, surrender your life. The man
    of God said, he saw greatness in your eyes and your
    mother grew a butterfly and named you Emmanuel. As your
    days became to stretched, your mother didn’t know she couldn’t
    live to see her crying baby walk with smiles planted on
    his face out of secondary school. Or that of his father that
    was going to be missing for a time long like forever. She would
    feel sorry to also know that her father’s daughter would grow tire
    of calling you son and misnamed you, yet you kept your body. The
    priest didn’t do well, he should’ve told her greatness is a survival story.

    Glossary of Things We Inherited 

    TermsOperational definition 
    abomination this time a man gun did not mistake a man for an animal but, another man offered his daughter to a rich man for a reasonable price, learning slavery from his ancestors.
    brokennessthe streets bring back memory of the war – violence, you packed in a corner of the road to see how a boy hauled scissor out of his side to carve the body of another boy into wounds.
    catastropheyou know God’s angry when he steals the sun and send heavy rainfall. once it turned our home to pool & everything floated like the way a brother lost in the sea, was brought to the shore after two days.
    darknessafter the civil war, we were found without form & void, darkness grew over the face of this city and we spoke light, till this day, our voices are still struggling for existence.
    elegyis another name given to a country who still knows nothing other than keeping homes of lifelessness in its body like a cemetery. today, i peel this country off my lip and replace it with nothing but watch if our wounds will heal out of time.
    frustrationyour phone waited for you to make your bed and walked out of the table, tore the window screen and found the street. never to return.
    griefwhen God gets tire with silence, he answers with grief. he inject it into the veins of our country till a boy couldn’t find his father after the war, a girl raped at 14 became mother & your mother jagged language still translate the anger in widowhood
    hopenot everything falling beneath the ground is buried, some are seeds planted to grow into trees. hope is a metaphor for living in a broken country.

    Bio

    Emmanuel G G Yamba writes from Monrovia, Liberia. He’s a graduate of the University of Liberia and SprinNG Advancement Fellowship. His work has been featured and forthcoming in The Shallow Tales Review, The MUSE, SprinNG, Inkspired, Funminiyi Anthologies, Libretto Magazine, Salamander Ink, African Writer, Kalahari Review, Odd Mag., Rigorous, TVO Tribe, Ibadan Arts, An anthology for Abunic and elsewhere. He’s on IG as yamba86163

  • To the Kids – Emmanuel Omonusi

    To the kids who don’t have pools
    At the back of their house
    To the kids who fate rouse 
    Their hope in steady bloody spools 
    To the kids who kneel in torn blouse
    And call on God to see them and choose
    To the kids whose flowers quit bloom
    In spring, and fall during the rain.
    To the kids who trust a faith 
    And stare at a worse smirk from fate
    I am still a kid and all that I ever did 
    Was to satisfy the hearts that so earnestly thrust
    Commands from old at my battered chest
    And the day I refuse shall refuse remain of me
    Bones crunched under the teeth of toil
    And no worth attached to the chronicles of me. 
    Hence, to the kids who pound forward
    The days of hide and seek are at end
    To heaven do you ascend
    After staring at your future 
    Through the glass sheet of hope.

    Emmanuel Omonusi is a final year student of English and Literature at the University of Benin.

  • 12 Caroling for a Dead Lover – Ejiro Edwards

    Dear lover,

    Now that the earth has opened up her bowel to have you for dinner,
    I expect your haunting ,

    Tell me what to do with your bones ?
    Should they rise up and walk again 
    Tell me, Are you afraid of the dark?

    Do you alternate & walk backwards searching for the light?, 
    your two hands, ready to block the fist of the devil from mapping your face like you did mine?,

    Should I wear your teeth as confetti? 
    Should I borrow your navel for a Belt? 

    Your belt swift as lightning, always too fast, too in a hurry to leave it’s position to strike
    Usain Bolt, is that you?

    Beg you permission please, let me use your scrotum for a bar, 
    you were always beating the life out of me, 

    Excuse me, 
    I hear four pipers piping on my losses,
    Four children lost from your fist, 
    Bruce Lee, is that you?

    five bruises capping on my knees 
    sixth eyes grazing through thick darkness, 
    Seven summers mourning our daughters
    Eight maids are milking from my sadness
    Nine bartenders attending my drinking 
    Ten paid mourners mourning on your funeral 
    Eleven, my heart is rejoicing,
    Twelve, I will come caroling at your funeral.

    Ejiro Elizabeth Edward is a passionate lover of the arts. She is the convener of Benin Arts and Book Festival; A literary event that aims to promote the arts within Benin City, Nigeria. She is also the winner of several awards across the literary field. She is the editor of Malimbe Magazine; an Inflight magazine that covers local airlines within Nigeria. She also works for Ouida Publishing Firm. She is the recipient of the Pearl Hogrefe Fellowship Award and is pursing a Master’s program at Iowa state university. She has an infinite desire to impact lives through the Art.

  • The Night Turns to Day – Anita Okoeko

    In trembling and fear, 
    My sober soul like a sheep,
    Through the dark, nothing in sight can spare,
    My thoughts like a cargo is shipped, 
    The obstacles on the way ever ready to clear,
    Again my thoughts shipped, wheeled and spilled,
    Down through the depth of my spirit,
    That awaits underneath aspiens, 
    Every sound of the dark in this forest,
    Does nothing but reads a meaning to.
    In sleep, I feel the cruelty that abounds in the jungle,
    I awake to the reality of how hard hard it is to juggle,
    Juggle through the ups and downs in the forest, 
    But in a weak spirit thinks the end would fumble.

    Yes, my sober soul,
    The obstacles on the way, longed to clear.
    But what is of a soul that aspires so much if the spirit is weak?
    What is of a soul that expects much if the dark ceases to flee?
    I’ve had expectations in life that should fetch me happiness,
    But bitterness each day, the tongue of my soul tastes,
    I have thrived by all means to see what becomes of the strength,
    Might and power the dark holds in the end,
    But I’m made a fish of myself by it’s arrogance.
    A fish without fins to swim, 
    Meant to drown in the rivers of suffering, pain and shame!
    No longer can my spirit take this, for weakness and defeat it has accepted.

    My soul rises in search of the golden waters even in the dark,
    And finally, the hope of a new dawn is here.
    The scourges and tastes of bitterness is quenched,
    Quenched by the sweet and delicious taste of strength, 
    Reaffirmation, consciousness and prowess,
    My soul is determined to see what becomes of the dark,
    Patience and endurance patting it on the shoulders, 
    Nodding their heads in affirmation,
    Affirmation and confirmation that the game would soon be mine.
    Like wheels clogged, slowly, the dark begins to fade,
    The awful and wearisome sounds often made, 
    Begin to sail away,
    And then the sounds that bring hope, 
    A bright future, the evidences
    Of what my expectations in life should be, 
    All of these I see in limelight,
    My weak spirit in a bid to survive has awoken,
    Awoken and seen the result that the end of the dark has brought,
    True to my expectations,
    The Night has been turned to Day!

  • For Beulah – Psalmuel Benjamin

    Maybe it was symbolic that I had 
    Mourned you before you morphed 
    Out of your tender flesh. I slept in 
    Black clothes. You aborted my sleep
    With cries. I roamed around the room
    With clenched fist against pain but 
    ‘Twould be madness to punch the 
    Wind. Your mother had this darkness
    In her eyes. Her shoulder was heavy.
    Motherhood stretched her breasts 
    And Grandma’s back bore your body.
    I knew the demons were present but
    I didn’t know they came with the 
    Grim reaper. I’d have prayed in 
    tongues through the rugged night 
    And teased God to pretend that you
    Were another Hezekiah and Grandma’s
    Back was the wall you faced with 
    tears of supplication for another full
    Day to breathe and laugh and eat 
    Biscuits and tell Mommy again “My
    Mummy, I woke up” 
    I hope you remember that I poured
    Prayers into your forehead through 
    My palms, that night, before returning
    To bed. That’s our last contact before
    News got to me that you were on 
    Your way up, all ready. To and fro the 
    Medicine house, we missed the 
    Emergency flight of troubled mothers
    And back home, ’twas the debris of 
    Your being on grandpa’s bed. I once
    Cursed death for taking a random 
    Kid at Grandpa’s accident. Today, 
    Again, I curse death for breaking this
    Home like a robber and choosing 
    Your body as a window to burgle 
    Out joy. Sorrow is the simple song
    when  a soul rolls out and the body 
    Becomes a dead log. I believed that
    Dead bodies could be Adam-ed again
    Sustained with explanation that Gene
    Mutation and life expectancy would 
    Only mess you up for eternal beauty.
    Hear, my baby, your uncle is lame
    And he can’t defy this art of disappearance. 
    Your picture is the background of the
    Keyboard I wrote this poem with. 
    And like stale morcha, I can still 
    Smell the whif of your abandoned skin,
    Brush hair with bonds and white 
    Round neck you vomitted on — sparing
    The blue love design on the chest.
    We’re still preaching to your mom
    And fumbling for accurate words 
    To lessen the pain from the pinch 
    Of your death, I mean your departure,
    I mean your holiday, I mean your 
    Sweet stay in God’s safest palms
    Where mortality cannot reach.

    Psalmuel Benjamin is a writer and poet from Nigeria. He’s got poems and other writings published and forthcoming on digital magazines and prints. Facebook: psalmuel Benjamin oluwasheun, Insta: spokespsalmuel 

  • Recollections II, Dawn, and Falling by Ayiyi Joel

    Recollections II

    For a friend. For Kafaya.

    Aging is quite cruel.
    & grief is a small room, a shoe, a set of milk teeth
    You never outgrow, it never falls off
    As memory never fails you
    As language does to a body empty of god,
    The way chattering and your high pitched voice left you.
    I don’t know how it works or why I’m fashioned that way,
    But I’ve come to realize that a wound reopened
    Stings me more— two shot in the same spot.
    & what breaks open a scar if not remembrance? 
    A new bleeding taking space & shape.
    It is Friday & I picture you still stuck beneath
    That bus, caught under that danfo till it became
    Unbearable for you. Till you could hold it no longer
    And let out the last whimper in the hospital
    Just adjacent the school that same Friday
    When you had gone out for the Jimoh prayer.
    No one saw all of this coming and no one knew you were leaving.
    Some of us saw all of it and some heard.
    We thought you’d return to us but, like the bird
    Noah sent the last time from the ark, you never did.
    It’s nine years now, after primary six, the adhan calling
    To prayer and I still find you bleeding. Salaam to all my dead.

    Dawn

    For Toheeb and others

    This time, we’d begin with laughter filling out mouth
    The way light floods a room when NEPA do not flop.
    I mean we’d be bright as the unravelling of leaves
    On a tree once bare of its glory.
    The day will go on as it should, no one
    Would drown in the pool of anxiety about what route
    The next meal would take to his table
    & night too would come calling as the beacon
    For a good rest— saviour of a weary body,
    Not a threshold into burning weeds and offering throats
    To the burns of liquor. Maybe the days
    Would be gentle on us like breeze on skin.
    & life will be something soft like the insides 
    Of white Agege bread on our tired palms.
    & our stories would take another turn towards dawn.

    Falling

    Burning out steadily, like a candle with a lit head
    The poem begins with my suffering. I should be 
    Happy. I think I should be. Not this broken.
    Not this sad with a glow, dimming.
    Addiction is to the body what fire is to wax.
    & I am searching for balance in the wrong places/things.
    Talking about what you love the most can also hurt you,
    The way a fish won’t believe what water could do
    It’s tender skin when heated to a boiling. 
    I mean, I am falling apart. 
    I am dying in the hands of what I love the most— love
    & addiction. I think I am soaring too far. The pills keep me high.
    The fall is imminent. I know this
    In the way mourning trails a loss
    You don’t know, love
    How much this laughter and smiles camouglages.
    One pill to silence the voices up there.
    To shut the demons out
    One shot to drown paranoia in waters.
    Two shot to unremember the ache.
    & half a bottle to not feel. To tuck them feelings away.

    Ayiyi Joel, TPC XVI is a young budding poet from Edo state in Nigeria.

  • 4 Poems by Chinemerem Prince Nwankwo

    Portrait Of Catch and Quest

    —this poem breathes:        precision with[out] end. 
    searching for reason . man & the finesse of dredging.
    the River:   trawl & trawlboat. portrait of catch & quest.
    find the depth —naked rostrum of plunging. catch —
    artefacts of longing & becoming. tell the River, grace of 
    shores. every bound:   the lingo burning to know, bosom
    shape of history lingering. paddle & carve fingers in the
    waters: time & memories. Isn’t it sprint of souls winding 
    in the canvas of time? or the largesse of a poem evolving?
    man —pustule of perfection angling in the et cetera of 
    being. say, a creel of self spawning in the glimpse of dawn.

    I, Decimated Self

    elegy:           she appears, 
      breaks the dead &
    rocking in         sawdust. 
            fold the sanity —
    breaks them. piece & 
    pieces apart. —goads of
    flesh prodding in grief. 
    deserted. —everything 
    at hedge of beholding. &
    you:         driveling in the
    demijohn of self. anesthesia,
        soul off the hook &
    ballast. once wore God in 
    blotched melanin. & your
    heart grappled the pain &
        it pageant away. matted 
    & tuft of a kinky spirit —
    you & the guts of no glory.

    microcosm as a body of death

    [for souls throng to the weight of life. & for a poem gazing

                                          the body in fighting arsenals]

    splinters of inner voices: 

    —he hangs a gaffled breath. holds the grapnels 
    of grief in no salvation. say his flesh ripples of  vile 
    blood. & light of his becoming alters in darkness.  never
    yielding his slouching body a miracle. why is he    an 
    anatomy of a suicidal blood? & his soul a   pendu-
    lum swung from sanity? the grisly scenes in his head
    & the daily ruffled notes soaked of solitude craves  
    an escape, the tethering symphony of goodbye. if 
    man is an owl, he’ll hoot into night loom. he’ll own  
    his soul in crucifixion. & won’t he anguish in drool gasp 
    of venom & gall? again, when life happens:  flood as
    of Noah’s, absorbs his bawls of fragility. & he sketches 
    as an apparition of things in nameless bodies. in 
    celestial pedigrees. those tiny echoes raising a fiery blast, 
    make ashes of his   protruding force to be & to
    become. his head curricles the dream of sepulchres. 
    suicidal ideation akin to him as flesh skinned to bone.       
    nay, he’s a man. yes, he isn’t a deep water. bet       his 
    body bares no oasis but the residue of a living desert. 
    pray him a good spirit ‘cause it’s no easy feat to look the 
    river without drowning. without transiting to no    return.

    nostalgia

    of a poem delicate & svelte. of things shaped in the knobs of memory. how we become & became a roadmap of a never ending you & I. perhaps it’s often said [in a soulful lingo] love is sweet with the right person. the right sacred bosom & hearty alley. the sun & moon dazzled. they always gaped at the artistry of our naked desires. say it’s a heaven’s gaze upon two ravishing mortals. I remember. yet if I do, they say it is a love poem. say it’s the art of escaping the universe. & morphing into your same shadows. bet love is spiritual. deciphered by the mouth of two eyes. two flames flickering at the sight of a single spark. you & I against the storm. against roving waters with familial siege. crystal //& pellucid is the heartbeat of a two-to-tango. maybe a poet is a love poem hidden in many couplets. one day a lover will return more than roses but an empty heart to threshold the finery of reminisces.

    Chinemerem Prince Nwankwo, SWAN IV, is currently a final year student of the Department of History and International Studies, University of Uyo, Nigeria. He is the Poetry Editor, The Cloudscent Journal and an Assistant Poetry Editor, Arkore Arts. He tweets @ CP Nwankwo.