March & April 2019
Vol IV No II
Not your ordinary poetry magazine!
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Published bi-monthly
International Poetry الشعر শ্লোক ကဗျာ ליבע ਪਿਆਰ өлүм
African Poetry with editor Michael R. Burch
PRIDE
The vice of pride
Is a bride without a price
Like a vessel, she dazzles
Only to become fickle in a twinkle
Her ego rises
While her personality falls
Like roses in a mall
I am a victim
Just one in a team
For we are much and many
Uncountable as all the world’s money
And it’s not funny.
Hear now people: Be humble.
I bet you won't crumble
It’s not a parable
It’s reality
And I know you know it!!
Chukwuemerie Udekwe is from Agulu, Anambra State, Nigeria, and is an undergraduate student of Philosophy. He aspires to reach out to the world through his writing.
IN LOVE
There is that time in life
When we fall in love:
That is where we change in life,
Our minds confused by love.
We start to forget about parents
Who raised us in difficulties.
Let’s stop to watch and act.
Let’s inform our elders
About what we are supposed to do
In order to survive
In the world of love.
Maybe we can survive.
Love is a part of life,
So let’s learn about it.
Zakhele Mncwango is 22 years old, and from Nongoma, South Africa. He is a student at Unisa, working on a bachelor's degree in education. Zakhele lives in Mashu and likes to write poems and stories.
The Future Africa (let the future be)
The future of Africa is . . .
When Aisha and Sarah will bond as sisters
Where Emmanuel and Mohammed are brothers
Where their strife is to surpass one another in love-works,
The future of Africa is . . .
Where hard work is celebrated and not frustrated
Where a woman’s worth is beyond the other room’s door
And who-is-who is determined by the-good-you-do and not by who-you-know
The future of Africa is . . .
Where our varieties unite us, rather than keeping us apart
Where our ambitions will not cost the life of another.
Ehoche Edache Elijah is a 31-year-old trained Biochemist from Nigeria. He is fascinated with the world; everything seems to speak something, and that makes him a life student of poetry, letting the world tell its story.
What you won’t find on your contract offer
Two men not uneasy walk in
then with open arms
share warm ‘good mornings’
with two on my right and one on my left.
I get sickle faces like question marks
& outstretched hands like exclamation marks.
It is Monday at Pops International, Abuja
& it’s the flyleaf of work.
This page is littered with letters
of inflated taxi fares & unfriendly doorknobs
hellos with sickle faces & interrogative smiles
recurring jargon & stony bean porridge for lunch
smitten co-workers & jealous cohorts.
New beginnings are moving
from a rich mesocarp to loam.
New beginnings are going
from eggshell to the mesosphere,
where even divinity doesn’t know the future.
CKD
I know the pulse
At his groin
I have been there
Initially twice a month
Then twice weekly
His bean-shaped balls
Lose differentiation
Progressively/regressively
Till his phallus runs dry
In this renal ward
Life goes away
Like the ending of a stream
Of piss
Tup
Tup
Tup
We men have stories too
Stories of birds taking back feathers
Stories of love, ice and sinking friendships
Stories of toads, mocking our lonely strolls
Stories of unconfessed crushes
who now sleep on the chest
we had both called an ironing board
Stories of unreturned gestures and greetings
unreturned phone calls, unreturned affection
returned and unreturned engagement rings
Stories of teardrop-responses
to the call of song lyrics that use
stolen voices to lampoon our lives
Stories of how we killed the radios
that tried to sympathize, using Akon’s voice
To say she never took the time to know us
Stories of sighting two adults in bed
The consent glistening like the condom wrap
The woman's face familiar as a wife’s
Stories of falling-outs with TVs
TVs that show Westlife’s Fool Again
when they should show the rainbow’s colours
Stories of reluctant manhoods
who know the woody smell of letdowns
who know he that is down need not fear a fall
You-don’t-care-enough stories, you-care-too-much stories,
You-are-not-the-one stories, I-am-not-the-one-for-you stories,
I-gave-your-name-to-pastor stories, you-make-me-distant-from-God stories,
Yes, we have stories too
Stories with mural lessons
Kayode Afolabi is a chronic cakehaholic, doctor, and a ripening poet. His first poetry attempt was a tweaking, at age 11, of Auden’s “Lullaby” into a never-dispatched love note.