— for my dear Etop Precious Iniobong — Monsieur le Paka-paka-paka, twenty boys,barefoot,chased a ballthrough dust and dusk. They shared breath,shared salt,shared spit,shared bruises,shared breadshared the suninside their laughter. But time…time grew teeth. One found war.One found work.One found wealth.One joined the army.One boarded a bus.One forgot his name.One buried another.One wandered offnever returned.Others?Forgotten! Now the ball lies stillin…
I was seven…seven…just seven A seed…not yet called sapling. She,a cousintwice ripenedbreasts like twin orangesstraining thin cloth,hips like two drumsbeating beneath her wrapper. She said:“Let me show youhow fire sleepsin a woman’s belly.” I was a lambtethered to her whisper.I was a drumshe beatbehind shut doors.She said the bloodtrapped,mapping my buttocks,pulsed her budawake,called the wet godfrombetween her thighs. I…
(In celebration of Workers’ Day, I wrote this poem, inspired by Barr. Femi Falana’s (SAN) speech at the 70th birthday of Comrade Dr. Osagie Obayuwana). They said:“Relax, Baba, your sweat is safe!”They took our blood,bottled it in bonds,then drank itin Senate meetings. They said:“Retire with pride!”and handed usempty envelopes,tea without sugar,life without teeth. Wewho built the bridges,welded the rails,typed…
They all look alike now—women carved from the same cartoon,hips like overstretched commas,backsides inflated like National Assembly’s budgets. BBL, they chant.Brazilian Body Lottery.A ritual, not for the faint-hearted—or the flat-bottomed. In this temple of silicone saints,the entry fee is your natural self.You trade it for a gourd-shaped gospel,where “natural” is a slur,and “authentic” is a sin. They line up…
I used to laugh when movies said love can make a woman lose her mind.I called it fiction, flowers, and foolish scripts.But I watched it unfold, real and raw, on my guy’s streetLike a slow-burning drama shot with no director, no pause button. It began with long walks that had no destination.She’d leave her house in the evening—no bag,…
(For Chief Barrister Feni Keni KoyundeSleep with anyone and get pregnant) Oh Great Ones!Call your children to the square!Let the drums speakTum! Tum! Tum!I have a story to sing!A tale of a man with wings of wax,who flies wherever the aroma of stew rises! Wait—Have you not seen him?The man of many tongues!Today, he is the crocodile of justice!Tomorrow,…
The man with a dove in his chestwalks softly through the village breezebut in his compound,his wife tears thunder from cotton clouds,cooks insults in the pot of peace,and scolds the mortar for being quiet. He offers laughter,she stirs storms.He plants kindness,she harvests thorns.And the town calls him “weak”as termites eat his roofwhile he prays for rain. But the man…
He rose,without the gilded luck of throne-born sons,but with the raw hunger of a man who knewthe iron tang of turned soil.His fingers carved roads from gravel and ghost,watched the land kneel—an old houndlicking its master’s palm.He shouldered mountains,their roots snarling at his feet,and with each cracked nail,he wrote the futurein a languageonly storms could speak. Forward!He moved like…
IIn the house of sighs, she lit the wick—moon-eyed, hush-hymned,cloaked in crêpe of cope(a shroud she stitched herself).A bonfire of silk apologies,kindled by her matchstick sorrow. When the roof spat soot and grief,she danced among ashes—chanting trauma-trauma like tambourine,a dirge of didn’t-mean-to—while the neighbors wept in buckets,their tears slick fuel for her next performance. IISaid she:“I suffer from kaleidopsyche,the…
The land is a market, but who owns the stall? The traders have vanished, but the thieves stand tall. They sell the rain, they sell the road, they sell the trees where ancestors strode. They sell the fire, they sell the clay, they sell the dawn before it turns to day. And the young? They flee like startled birds,…
What happens when you challenge the establishment?…
The Great Delusion invites you into a…
—for Professor Alofoje Unuigboje— by Majekodunmi Oseriemen…
By Majekodunmi Oseriemen Ebhohon They say the…
