Habib Akewusola is an NYSC member serving in Jos North, Plateau State, Jos Nigeria. Called a social critic by colleagues, Habib’s poems are frequently published in Nigerian dailies and scores of online literary and political platforms. He was a Nominee Nigerian Writers Awards 2015 & 2016.
After a fall
After a fall
Familiar voices pet me insults,
After a fall
Two-third of my earthly
Stock litter as crumbs.
Betrayer preaching gospel,
Adviser misspelled noble.
After a fall
Esteem dropped,
Grace had been knocking.
I rushed, she couldn’t wait anymore.
After a fall
God rings a final call,
Beauty of today is tomorrow,
Spiritual exercise never
Guaranteed luxury.
After a fall
I eat my words
Sank in thy thoughts.
Failure visits all,
Repeat, then master fault,
To rise becomes your job.
Horse pee too
Life savers hospital
Emergency ward,
1,2,3 antibiotic lies.
God prefer praises,
Silent melodious lyric.
Humanity is far from over
Civilization definitely will start all over.
Wire shall replicate vein
Robots shall bare human name.
Government might trade her people.
Horse loving a lady,
Sex lost her norm and sacred,
Jezebel widen thigh to rape.
Deliver look alike dog face,
Brown and black hairy horse tail.
Beginning a new race, ‘Robotic-human-animal-sexual’.
Collect money contact Aids,
Diseases sell faster than hotcakes.
Miracle for foreign exchange,
Taboo went with ancient of days.
Patiences far different from wait,
During patience, tiny moment count,
During wait, busybody gives up after a little weight.
Love and opposite
Love is cure
Love is brief,
Love sweeps of a feet
Love a soul thief,
Love sees
Love spread across a sea,
Love thick
Love thinks,
Love dwells in a being
Woman and me,
Plants and a pig,
Love is scary
Night shield every,
Love is merry
Bad times equally share his,
Love is smart
Love cheat math,
Love is myth
Love is destined to meet,
Love is neat
Liquid to ovulation bred me,
Love is dumb
Love kissed my chewing gum,
Love is the Sun
No fee before she sets on,
Love is God
God that is in you,
God bless God
Gong await our tune.
Barine Ngaage
Dr Barine Saana Ngaage is an Associate Professor, who teaches African Literature and Creative Writing in the Department of English, Faculty of Arts, Niger Delta University, Amasoma, Bayelsa State.
African arts
Chisels eat slices of wood
in the darkroom of craft
where raw material is the shadow of reality:
chisels eat pieces of wood, skin off shadow
and crystalise concrete images;
this art grows through brilliant fingers
and emerges in the season of joy as
masquerades of delight.
Fingers and legs
create rhythmic movements
as Akwete is awake with dexterity
in variegated colours of the rainbow
to clothe beauties in delight.
Female fingers of Ogoni nurse clay
in its tender, obedient form
into seizes and shapes of pots with
nature stamps of animals
and men on them.
Rainbow threads walk like a millipede
In the tender fingers of women
On wood in gestation craft-rooms
Till clothes emerge in market sheds.
Flesh becomes sculpture
Of founders and Greats in cinematic
Flowering of images from invisibility
To reality of cement and bronze works.
Modern songs of African wits
are bullets in stanzas against colonialism;
they have chased barbarity from
inhuman walls of aching joy.
Strings and fibers stream
into markets awake from death to reality
in basket shapes of delight;
common materials from forests
create precious wealth.
Modern plays lament false jewelry
in lofty houses of beauty
seen afar through historical lenses.
Songs, tales and plays pulsate
with images which ride on native icons;
they glide on native and foreign rhythms.
African Arts wear a new face
they turn in different directions;
the past stands sturdy
the present pivots the arts on
A new wheel of time.
Inspection
The command exploded – “stop there”.
The screeching tyres of thought revolted
“Your white shirt riots
against your grey trousers.”
“Sir, your inquisitive tongue
riots against mannerism”
“Why is your hair scrapped like a prisoner’s?”
“Why should wild bush rat query house rat?”
“Your books have slapped
you on the wrong side!”
“You have read n
ature from the smart end”
“Why the conflict of name
s on the
particulars – Lingua and Linguas?”
“The clearance officer’s net
pulled in an additional ‘s’
“Your tug-of-war tongue
must visit the headquarters”
“I must call the clearance
officer to brush off the ‘s”
“Ha! Ha! Ha!” Black officer
danced the song of error joyously,
timing his steps to rhyme with duty and self.