Poetry

Anouk Delafortrie/ECHO photo

By

Agunbiade Kehinde Adeshina

refugees

when home becomes a furnace

where bliss kisses smoldering embers

& tears of agony find abode in our eyes

as we watch our dreams in shrouds of phantasm

with blisters of despair on our body,

we talk to our heels.

when the aftermath of war clotted & rumble in our bellies

and the men are forced out of the boys-

boys that know the name of bullets

with unfettered corpses lying with carcasses on lone bloody cities & forests,

we need not to be told that home is no longer a place to be.

so, we talk to our heels.

when journalism become our profession because we write sad stories,

and we become counters that counts tolls of death,

and now that children know no face of their parents,

we talk to our heels.

since we now dance to the rhythms of songs from barrels,

swaying our buttocks to the beat of blast,

we do not wait to be told before we study the atlas of safety.

what kills a man

when a man finds desert in his purse

and takes no meal not to mention a dessert,

his sighs become the water he drinks to aid the digestion of a thousand worries that went down his throat.

a man stares at what grinds him into debris,

burns his heart &

slams the empty doors in his head

and doctors warn him to be wary of his pulse.

what else kills a man if not the emptiness that breathes in his dead pocket?

Agunbiade Kehinde Adeshina

Agunbiade Kehinde Adeshina writes from the ancient city of Ibadan in Oyo state,Nigeria. He is a budding broadcast journalist. He believes literature is a tool to correct the abnormalities in the world.