I Don't Know by Abike Benson

I Don't Know

I don't know, and I won't pretend to know

I don't know bad. Do I know good?

Witchcraft was her means

She got all for them making others cry

Her own children are nobles

No one knows the secret

And then she dies.

It is a befitting burial. Golden casket

Food and wine like a flowing river

Sound of music everywhere

Then it is testimony time

"Abiyamọ tòótọ́ọ́" they praised her

But is she really good?

I don't know, and I won't pretend to know

I don't know ugly. Do I know beauty?

What a dark face!

Wrinkled hands, all covered with hair

Monkey can be ugly

Its mother always see differently

How convenient?

You call it ugly

Or you don't just like it?

It is in the eyes of the beholder

It is what it seems to you

But is it really ugly?

I don't know, and I won't pretend to know

I don't know love. Do I know hatred?

Riches attract with fleet of cars and affluence

He is a royalty. She easily falls for him

How convenient?

Beauty attracts with gorgeousness

She will have crowd controlling problem

I mean men controlling problem 

Is it really love?

I don't know, and I won't pretend to know

I don't know life. Do I know death?

I'm alive. Or so I think

Maybe I am not. Am I just confused?

But those in heaven live still

When they are dead here 

The living dead!

I cannot explain the expression.

I don't know, and I won't pretend to know

I don't know generous. Do I know stingy?

I thought I knew

Until someone was given a cap

And had his head taken from him

Beware of money givers

What if he's buying virtue not for sale

How then can I know?

Trade by barter ring a bell

But never found its synonym.

Words can be misinterpreted

Actions misjudged

The physical eyes have limitations

A think lining covering the mind

Not like a big bowl,

The stomach cannot be opened

Many ambiguities in a single line

Relativity of words driving me crazy

How can I know if I don't know?

And why should I misjudge?

Concluding almost impossible

If I don't know. Yet, won't pretend to know.

Abike Benson

Teach Me

Teach Me by Oladehinde Ibikunle

Teach me

To speak, to write and to act

Without tenuating the tenets of truth.

Teach me

Oh, to love with the whole heart

Whether - or not - such love be unrequited.

Teach me

To douse my anger

When my heart is bedevilled with fury.

Teach me

That anger is insanity, sadness is folly

And happiness is but sweet ecstasy.

Teach me

To smile and try again

When the sadness of failure betides.

Teach me

My peace to hold, the impulse to control

When happiness holds the rein of my heart.

Teach me

To live each day in furtherance

Of yesterday at my own little pace.

Teach me

To live not by competition

But by the pursuit of internal happiness

Teach me

Yes, teach me of contentment

Even if everything altogether is a pinch of salt.

Teach me

Please, teach me to laugh

For each cackle of laughter, they say, is priceless.

Teach me

On my fellow, mercy to have

For my soul abhors seeing a fellow languishing.

Teach me

To be remorseful and sorry

Whenever I fall fallibly to imperfection.

Teach me

The good and the bad to know

And to discern when any of them comes disguising.

Oladehinde Ibikunle

The Sun

 The Sun

by Seun Lari-Williams 

In winter, I watched as the sun barely bothered

to get out of bed in the morning (as though

terribly ill), only to shut its eyes again

not long after.

In summer, I could swear I saw it rise

at just a few minutes past midnight, 

and then relentlessly refuse to go to sleep

at night (like a toddler).

As one whose sub-Saharan skin had only 

ever seen the sun rise and set

really about the same time each day,

I thought to myself:

How drastically different a fundamental fact 

can be to a traveler.

Even you, glorious, ancient sun – 

you, too, have taken a stab at my tiny little bubble.

Seun Lari-Williams was born in 1987. He attended Badagry Grammar School and studied law at the University of Lagos where he served as President of the Law Society. His first anthology Garri for Breakfast was longlisted for the 2017 NLNG Prize for Literature.

Gather My Blood, Rivers Of Song

Remi Raji

I 
Sometimes a man gets tired of going to sea as now 
when the voices I hear speak nothing but shame, and silence. 

When the calabash goes to the river and never returns 
The carver is drenched in tears, the drinker is famished. 

Sometimes all we have is the inheritance of loss 
the infidel body wrapped in the thickness of sins 

There is wickedness beneath the tranquil sea. 
And the heaviness above craves the lightness of love. 

So I return to the red sea that flows in the vein. 

II 
certainty is far behind in the coast, and it is up behind the hills 
each time you think you arrive there, it is uncertainty that lies waiting 

To embrace fire, you must breathe the wind

To claim the sea's presence, you must share the river's route; 

To die you must be afraid to live... 
And if you cannot kill the smoke, why do you start the fire? 

To become the sorcery of days 
You must possess the gaze that blinds beyond the light. 

III 
you were not in these places, but there's a scent of each in you 
i should know 
i wished you were beside me in lagos, mealha, cachopo, 
in portugal, 
the rustic air reminds me of the valley of a thousand stories, 
as in durban, south africa, which awakens the midsummer night's dream 
of the bright woodlands of Stockholm, Sweden, 
where I could read my palms and the fine letters 
of jared diamond's guns, germs and steel… 
the little streets knew our steps, lost in a circle of eden, innocent to the lights 
as it was in the delicate neck of the dance in addis, ethiopia 
as it was in salzburg, austria, where friendship was won suddenly by ideas and 
instinct 
as it was in Cambridge, uk where we organized parties for books and stars 

and i wished you were close by in the crazed joys of riga, 
and ventspils, latvia... 
and even absent in the many other places, you always remain 
as the sturdy baobab in my heart's savannah... 

in the mouth of night, every firefly has your attitude 
gather my blood, rivers of song... 

IV 
i love you as 
the sun kisses the day, 
i love you as 
the moon wraps the tender night, 
i love you as 
the rivers run into the rimless sea, 
i love you as 
the wind caresses my naked skin 
in the promise of rain, 
i love you as 
love is; and because they say love doesn't last, 
i don't want to love you anymore, 
i just want to be, 
with you. I want to walk your coast 
in silence, in laughter, and in tears, 
one with you as the colour of night. 

I want to marry you again in the age of enlightenment 
You will be my muse 
You will kill me and resurrect me 
You will make me dance to the song in your eyes 
You will make me all over and I will be made 
You are the lovely stretch marks over my bones 
You're the sweetness of day, the lovely mystery of night, 
and the everlasting breath... 

i want to do to you what needles of rain do 
to the parched earth 
i want to do to you what the morning sun does 
to butter nuggets 
what the honey bee does to the pollen in the shrub 
i want to hide in you, and hide you in me, 
that the world will end and come alive again, and again 
i want to love every alphabet that spells your name. 

Gather my blood, rivers of song.

Remi Raji

Remi Raji is a Nigerian poet, scholar, literary organiser and cultural activist. Raji’s first collection of poems – A Harvest of Laughters (1997) – has won national and international recognition. 

Lockdown

Lockdown

by Collen Xumalo

I am on lockdown in a small shack

praying hard, hoping Mr. Pres hear my cries

no need to send soldiers,they worsen da attack 

da hunger will probably kill me b4 da virus does 

I'm on lockdown with a monster inside da house

 I only feel safe when I play outside 

my step dad touches me like I'm his spouse 

he took my virginity & killed my pride 

we're on lockdown under unbearable conditions 

people shout "stay at home" from afar 

judging us based on what they see on television 

vivid pictures, they can't see our scars 

we have been on lockdown all our lives 

fighting to escape, see da sunshine & stay alive

Collen Xumalo

The Other Ninety-Nine

The Other Ninety-Nine 

by Seun Lari-Williams

You go around telling how the

shepherd left us,

the remaining ninety-nine,

in search of you, 

the lost one,

until he found you.

You say, when he found you,

he carried you on his shoulders,

rejoicing.

That it made you smile sheepishly.

You go off singing, off-key,

a love song about

how special you are.

You’ve always liked to feel special

though.

And that’s your weakness.

Call us the jealous brother but

you do realize he didn’t leave us

in an unsafe place, right?

You know he’d never do that?

And you do realize he’d do the same

for the rest of us –

each and every one of us?

Can you imagine how he’d have felt

if when he returned, he couldn’t find the

remaining ninety-nine?

No, you can’t.

Because you can’t help thinking there’s

something special about you.

You say, when he got home,

he called his friends, his family, 

and his neighbours

to rejoice with him.

But did he offer them meat? 

Did he say to them:

“Let’s kill and eat one or two

of my other sheep

because I found this one”?

Of course, not.

You know why?

You’re not special.

You know why?

We’re all special.

Seun Lari-Williams was born in 1987. He attended Badagry Grammar School and studied law at the University of Lagos where he served as President of the Law Society. His first anthology Garri for Breakfast was longlisted for the 2017 NLNG Prize for Literature.

Squid Game Naija

Squid Game Naija 

by Seun Lari-Williams

Green light, red light. 

Where you for see light?

If to sey money dey am, 

maybe we for tink am.

But for Squid Game Naija,

na for only our life we dey play.

Start.

Obi Chikolobi 

Obi out! 

(But Obi for no die if to sey 

doctor dem no dey on strike). 

Ada chikalada

Ada bang!

(Container fall on top Ada

for Ojuelegba).

Tinko Tinko 

tinkoloko Tinko.

We no see uncle Tanko again, 

as we no get money for ransom.

Farmers, form a big circle

at the back of your homes. 

Now, who is in the garden? 

Ten chubby, graceful cows.

Boju Boju, o! O! 

Now open your eyes.

After round one, 

one hundred farmers shot

in the head.

On 20/10

youths played Ten Ten. 

Several raised the wrong leg.

All of them dead

(Accidental discharge by

Ungun knownmen). 

Pikin sef dey play o. 

Like police wey dey find thief,

pikin sef must find

mama and papa wey 

fit give dem food chop -

before dem even born dem.

No be me go tok 

how many pikin die

for inside and outside IDP camp 

for only last year.

There is fire on the mountain. 

If anybody run go Mountain of Fire, 

abeg help me ask 

why e be like sey na we

be de ten thousand 

falling at the side.

Seun Lari-Williams was born in 1987. He attended Badagry Grammar School and studied law at the University of Lagos where he served as President of the Law Society. His first anthology Garri for Breakfast was longlisted for the 2017 NLNG Prize for Literature.

The Meeting

The Meeting

by Seun Lari-Williams 

A pandemic meets an old man on the road. 

Who is this who is not afraid of me? 

You must be religious, I believe. 

Which of the gods do you worship? 

I am not religious, the old man replies, 

I must go about my business. 

You must be immune, then, the pandemic says,

or perhaps you have found a cure? 

I really don't care, the old man groans, 

my business is urgent, I must go. 

Then surely, you are foolish, the pandemic retorts. 

Have you not heard the reports? 

I am hunger, the old man began, 

I've been here since the world began. 

Wars and diseases, they come and they go. 

None has lived as long as I have. 

You burn at both ends; your end is near. 

I burn slow like fine firewood. 

Keep them indoors and fill them with fright, 

but when l knock, they come right out. 

Your reputation precedes you, the pandemic responds 

and bows before the old man. 

They kiss and hug and shake hands like old friends and 

smile knowingly at each other. 

The old man takes his leave and continues his routine-

knocking on doors and turning knobs.

Seun Lari-Williams was born in 1987. He attended Badagry Grammar School and studied law at the University of Lagos where he served as President of the Law Society. His first anthology Garri for Breakfast was longlisted for the 2017 NLNG Prize for Literature.