A Memory of a Man Drowned by the New Ways – Rasheed Ayinla Shehu.
A Memory of a Man Drowned by the New Ways I sit with my grandfatherWhile the half-moon illuminates throughThe darkness of the night.We chatter, like birds cherrypicking between cerealsWith their beaks rummaging in our lane of thoughtA memory to fill the gaping spaceA blackness in our white dentitionOf the generation between us.A night like this, with another half of the moonBuried in the belly of the ravenous sky birthsScores of memories – a bit of us dead in the past,Reincarnating in a form in the present.We do have a picture of a shark opening his jawTo house the drowning us in his belly for food:A period to unseal a pulsating wound,To seek survival in its yellowish pus. “I wish he had traveled in a caravan just like me,” Grandpa muttered.“Through the thickness of the forest, the heatsOf the sun, heading towards the Sahara;Balanced on a gasping camel with the height…