July 2018 Vol. III No. VII
Not your ordinary poetry magazine!
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International Poetry الشعر শ্লোক ကဗျာ ליבע ਪਿਆਰ өлүм
African Poetry with Tendai Rinos Mwanaka
Another Day Here
The voice of the Masjid
Arouse the cockerels through,
And each dawn in my sleep,
Just before my eyes gasp her first and I,
I hear your voice calling softly in my head.
It's been silence since you left. Deadly silence
Come get me paradise. Come get me...
Fifty years laying on your side.
Fifty years making pillows off your chest,
The hairs softly mating mine, in unison,
Our hearts beating as one, temptatiously within.
Loving you is dying each new step of the way,
With you gone, I am a bundle of dead matter walking.
Come get me paradise. Come get me...
The imam screams the salat a third time,
The fourth more loudly than before,
Your voice quickly melts into shadows
Taking flight too fragile for walls to screen.
I am awake. Yawning.
Akor Emmanuel Oche writes poetry and creative non-fiction. He is The Secretary General ofAfrica Haïku Network and Manager of OCHEBOOKS PUBLISHING. He writes from Lokoja. Nigeria.
The Invisible Hand
And I lay 'neath the earth pondering
Particles of my body into the wind,
Scattered all over the place like a bad dream,
But I wasn't alone, I was with seed,
It looked at me almost perplexed and bewildered,
I didn't have any answer,
Maybe the sun might- I fathomed,
Or the moon- I reckoned,
They've been here for ages,
Watching the brave and the weary
Struggle in a world for an honest or dishonest pay-
Hay to make sure they live through the next day,
Yet again like a pillar of salt,
Void any remorse they could only watch.
Tree roots sprang through my veins,
CO2 for O2 was the bargain-
I mused, how? Skeletons don't give back
But then, all it needed was clay from body parts,
A stream nearby, nourished its leaves
Providing canopy for my broken pieces.
I lay for as long as I could,
Washed off by the rain and dews
Into a river of forgetfulness,
Alas, things have moved on since I left,
No more flowers on my grave,
Never mind, I'm one with the ether
Awaiting the next chapter
By the Invisible Hand.
Beven Nebafor Awusa has been an enthusiastic Cameroonian writer for over a decade, and has never feared to write what comes to mind, reproaching socio-political vices and advocating for equality, peace, love and respect.
9 one one
This is a bullet in fine uniform
A bouquet of bloody fists
With a leg-icy in law
And there’s a brain behind
To teach this
You don’t need a shooting permit!
That’s no squirrel.
In front:
We
The people in no uniform
Write the Hashtag in bold
#US990/2015
#US419/2016:2
#TG500/2005
#TG16/2017:4
We tweet our song on the screen:
We shall overcome
Sooner than later
This time.
Patron Henekou is a poet (Soufflesd’outre-cœur) and playwright (Dovlo, or A Worthless Sweat), and co-organizer of the Festival of Literature and Arts (FesLArts) at University of Lomé, Togo. Patron is the 2018 African American Fellow at the Palm Beach Poetry Festival.
African Poetry Editor Tendai Rinos Mwanaka is a leading poet and writer of the new generation of African writers and works hard to promote African writing through anthologies he has curated and co edited. Mwanaka has been shortlisted and won several writing awards, including being shortlisted for a record 7 times for the UK based Erbacce poetry award, 3 times nominated for the Pushcart, The Caine African Writing Award etc.
Kazikwa
Africa’s children.......
their desolate moons festoon too many inane eyes
their hungry winds exhume their starving cries
a never ending hostile season sucked their smiles
tiny fists and feet hurling stones
unborn bones infested faceless foetuses
begging without words
their desperate deaths shall dwell at our laden tables
scrape our wombs
castrate our worlds
bleed us wounds
inhabit our words
the barren sky breaks the sun scores
a hand not a hand
a mouth not a mouth
a child not a child
no laughter
no toys
no games
no dreams
we will never know their tormented names
little slow stunted steps meagre minds forsaken
unknown beakless birds
their unspoken plead
pitiless shadows of a different war
a milkless mother comforts croons
empty spoons
humanity mocks
nothing shocks
fatherless figure sticks
thin thread twigs
brittle silhouettes
bulging eyes
like animated anatomies hollow palms has-beens
urge unto our plasma screens
from callous coffinless places where we have never been
into our luxurious family rooms
between million dollar ads and fads
diseases famine we have never seen
our earth is not holding them what is their deserving
whilst they stare voiceless at a heartless heaven that they know nothing about…..
Mari Ballot is an author and poet living in South Africa who has been passionate about poetry and nature from an early age. She writes about atrocious political injustices and the complexities of corruption.