Empty Page “The Shattering Of A Heart When It’s Broken Is The Loudest Quiet Ever”—Carroll Bryant I think Adele lied when she sang “never mind I’ll find someone like you.” Do you think she ever did? Do you think there are really people like other people? Like the way the person smiled, laughed, talked, walked, […]
Empty Page – Joemario Umana. Read More »
Looking through the Lens of Words into an Empty Morning Cloud: A Review of Tolu’ A. Akinyemi’s The Morning Cloud is Empty Tolu’ A. Akinyemi, who has published one poetry chapbook and fifteen collections of poems, among which are Dead Lions Don’t Roar, Dead Dogs Don’t Bark, Dead Cats Don’t Meow, A Booktiful Love, City of Lost Memories, Born in Lockdown, etc., has been consistent not only in his thematic leaning on
We Only Care About The Beautiful Things the clock is moving backward, & the sun is stealing the traces of our smiles. everything bears the negative meaning of its name—the smiles we pretend to be missing, the embrace of the light, and the dryness of the sky. we only care about the things with flashy skins. the wind kept swinging between two end-points: water & hell. water is blind, the hell has flares. father said, the thing next to water is flame. the flame is blind too. yet, we only care about the beautiful things. there is a garden on our palms. water is red, roses are red. everything looks strange from within. roses are beautiful, and red water is horrible. & we only care about the beautiful things. we are servants of what refused to be ours. we are boys, we are men, & sometimes we identified as commodities on a market stalls. the market, a dark room. the stalls, a thorn bed, massaging the curtain between our skins and bones. it is all monstrous. but still, we only care about the beautiful things. Contributor’s Bio Mubarak Said, TPC XII, SprinNG & SAF Alumni, is the winner of the 2023 Bill Ward Prize For Emerging Writers (Prose) and
We Only Care About The Beautiful Things – Mubarak Said Read More »
Weals from the Rain “What ear to our sobbing hearts?” -Birago Diop. We lost them– our brothers that darted outside to set the drums to the catchment & never returned. Yesterday night, we longed for rain on our roofs. & it rained–it rained cats and dogs. This morning, Our verandah was lost in the flood of
Weals from the Rain – Arikewusola Abdul Awal. Read More »
IF ALL THE SCARS IN MY HEART WERE LADIES, THEY WOULD HAVE BEEN GROWN ENOUGH TO BE WEARING BRAS After Zainab Kuyizhi The walls of my heart has grown into a bonfire I wear these scars like old habits. once, a girl searched through my heart & ended up not finding flowery sinews or veins,
Shapes of no more Victor Uwaifo said: you buy shirt shirt tears if God creates soul soul will go back to its owner the body that we use minimally would turn sands so i could not tell you to stay & if i break cascades down goodbye, goodbye handful of body-sands thrown to the teeth
Shapes of no more – Osagiede Best. Read More »
Anxiety is a way of life Filter Like a sieve, I am drained Of every dewdrop of happiness Through the mesh of my hollow body. And I– dust in the fireworks of light Escape the drizzling storms of darkness. I– billowed tusk of winterbourne Streaming down into a gorge Of landscaped realities Acculturate the mimesis
Anxiety is a way of life – Adesiyan Oluwapelumi. Read More »
An Interview with Oyinda Shoola. Interviewed by Olaide Oluwafunmilayo Soaga (Features Editor, Afrihill Press). As a poet, what is your writing process? My writing process is the same regardless of the genre. It goes one of two ways after a profound thought worth exploring comes to mind. Sometimes, I ignore it and refuse to write
An Interview with Oyinda Shoola. Read More »
Pashing a Roadmap of Gloom [5:20 am]: I woke up with all my woes written boldly in my heart, I woke up with all the silence of yesteryears reigning in my body. My rosary is a strangled neck aiming to carry its burden with ease. The night before, a girl tried to carry my third
Pashing a Roadmap of Gloom – Aderohunmu Abdulrokeeb. Read More »
No One Wants to Write an Elegy The disposition of the gravelike an openmouth.Cut is the stalkthat might have grown fullystraight. We trampledew-wet grasses finely latticed with day-oldspider webs. No onewants to write an elegy.The cruelty of sweet-smellingearth, the wet thump as it splashesoff the shovels. And already there is nothing left to see. As
No One Wants to Write an Elegy – Ridwan Badamasi. Read More »
