Poetry

Abiyamo

 Let my verse nudge your consciousness

To the standing mirror before you

The sun shines in sorrow

The moon moans

The sludge of supremacy

Causes their nauseous nonsense

But you are the easement of all circumstances

 

The dialogue of naked soles

Caught on your tongue’s lullaby

To sleep the heirs of men’s agonies

Never feel as warrior, else,

Adversity overtakes your lullaby

Never feel inferior, else,

Nations lack your value

And run into chaos

 

Short Bio
Bada, Yusuf Amoo is a poet born in Agege, Lagos. He had his primary and secondary education in Agege before moving forward to obtain National Diploma in Mass Communication at Moshood Abiola Polytechnic, Abeokuta, Ogun State where he edited an E-Anthology titled African Eyeball. Hispoems are available on The Union Newspaper, Newswatch Times and other publications both electronics and hard copies. He is currently a literature student of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife.



A SOLDIER GETS HIS DEATH

After a mutiny charge of a group of soldiers on terrorism

as the odd smell of asphalt
 in the incongruous road of his heart,
a soldier sniffs death.

He feels it as the snap of life
from a lanterned night;
he gets his death as a token
of gift from his country,
he gets death as a token
of love from his country –He gets death

A soldier wants to drink his last cup
of coffee as reeking as it is,
as last swill from his beloved country
a coffee of blood, as a token of medal
when I ask my soldier,
“where is your insignia of triumph?”
slump-shouldered, he raises his head
like a conquered hero
his face, a tempest storming me to quietness –
words start forming without its sounds.

Tomorrow, a soldier will be wreathed with death
as banquet of honour from his fatherland.
He shall grow ghostly wings,
his face shall whiten like snowflakes
and be filled with gleam
like the sun. His legs shall be tail of rocket launcher,
his song might be plaintive
but a soldier is getting his death
tomorrow. Under the roundtable,
a death awaits a soldier patiently.

A soldier gets a wrap of death
and pockets it within the prison of his soul
to let it mature till the bullet
opens another life for him. Crossing
through Konduga, a soldier generously encounters his doom
as a simple theory of words. His gun, mutinous now,
to fire or say a metallic fiery word.

A soldier is going to get his death
soon, a soldier will get his death
the death he has long traded with
soon, he is going to get it as a parcel of parting
as a fair for his broken bones and drained blood.
Soon a soldier will get his death
as a simple commission of his martyrdom.
Tomorrow,
a death will be written on a simple piece of paper
and a soldier will get it.
                                                      Salawu Olajide

GIVE MY UNIVERSAL LOVE

Give me my universal love
where my heart will open
like prostitute’s curtain
to every body of winds that swirls nearby.
Give me my universal love
beyond the geography of my body.

Give me my universal love
where my legs can walk
into the continents of your skin
without the race of your minds
and my miseries hashtagged beyond Baga
and my echoes unfurling, past the Euphrates.

Give me my universal love
and then, I will know
I have found a God
which my knees can go down to
in my supplications
the tasbih and rosary have found a conclusion.

Give me my universal love
instead of a drought,
let my tears be semen of rains
dropping on your breasts
and your innards,
and a new world shall grow like cactus.

Give me my universal love
not the swoon of terror
over Hebdo,
not the fire and brimstone from ISIS.
Give me my universal love
and you will stop looking at me
like a hog
                                                   Salawu Olajide