Poetry

George Osodi

By

Agbaakin O. Jeremiah

Dear Mob

is your face

not a placard of rage?

i know how your loss

has distorted the things

about me- this nebulous art.

but wasn’t it you that blamed them?

when they first tried my case

with maddened noise

saying nothing.

for your eyes have seen swifter justice

now you swear:

justice is justice!

even the ones conjured by their clubs

and uneven stones.

in my gasp, I enter a trance:

as you rain your rage on me

even Death steals a scoop of hot sulfur

from my barbecuing flesh-

powdered cologne to prepare

a feast for a welcome home.

but I don’t scorn your careless doors

nor the folly of your booby traps.

you swear these pebbles pelt evil

from the land. but today,

this incantation only dies

surely, the spell shall live on.

but how does a corpse hold

the map of the living

to return the drug

you thought I stole.

but how could I neglect

a cousin dying of the flu?

Blood Lust

nothing quitens an ink-lust

but cancer growth of words-

maybe semi-malignant;

stubbornly defying chemotherapy

in muse applications.

but the arousal of muse wears off

faster than a cockerel’s orgasm.

unless it spreads to others’ eyes,

other hearts begging for

an infection of healings words-

clogging turbulent blood

as an adder’s venom

in the bloodstream of unholy slices of silences.

nothing sates the blood-lust of my quill

even an abundance of chapbooks,

my name scattered over the web,

a pseudonym is pseudo

it will not do.

at times, I am warmed by anthologies

of stillborn poetry-

infantile syllables bleeding red

on my LCD screen-

(red is the font colour of peace in Mubi)

wrapped in the brittle hard cover

of self-doubt

intoxicated by self-praise.

Agbaakin O. Jeremiah

Agbaakin O. Jeremiah, a NIGERIAN poet and campus Editor is a final year law student in University of Ibadan. He won the maiden Ogidigbo Poetry Prize, PIN Poetry Challenge; was longlisted for Dwartsonline Prize and is a six-time runner-up of 2016 Briggite Poirson Poetry Contest.

He is published or forthcoming in Sentinel Quarterly, BPPC (Loops of Hope) Anthology, Irawo Anthology, PIN Quarterly Journal, Kalahari, Praxis Magazine, Sub-Saharan Magazine, African Writer, Kreative Diadem and elsewhere.