ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
Madu Chisom Kingdavid is a Nigerian Poet, Folktale Writer, Historian and Aviator. His poems have been published or forthcoming in some online literary journals such as, Bombay Review, Kalahari Review, Lunaris Review, Expound, Indiana Journal, AfricanWriter, One jar, Afrikayons, WRR, Hearts journal, Praxis Magazine, and elsewhere. His poem "Forgive Me, Mother" was nominated for the Best of the Net award by one jar press. He was the First Runner-up at Korea-Nigeria poetry feast award 2019. He lives everywhere and nowhere.
Also by Madu Chisom Kingdavid:
Songs of a Broken Home
Before Frustration Killed Her
Forgive Me, Mother
Survival, Surviving, Dying
i.
In motherland, we break the concrete
pants of nightfalls
to be our own daybreaks.
We are broken things hanging
on the nipples of shrapnel.
Our caked sweat floods the streets of survival
where our tired feet have
left marks on the coal of privation.
ii.
Here, sometimes survival is roads of Golgotha.
Many wearing crucifix of nameless trials,
marking fourteen Stations of the Cross,
hoping that there will be a resurrection
from the catacomb of malnourished dreams.
iii.
Everyone says, "If I die a sinner, there's no need of hell,
God knows I've been in hell all my life."
iv.
Home is a cold furnace that burns and moulds
you into balls of limbo.
v.
On June 12, 2018… when brother wanted to leave
my mother rolled out a prayer mat for him:
"you'll return from the rainbow nation
with the breast of water."
Yesterday, in the street of Johannesburg,
the mob cut him into endless goodnight.
The poem opens the wound of my country where extreme bad governance has pushed millions into an untold sufferance. Daily, millions toil and break on the streets to put food on the table, hoping that someday things will get better. A friend, in search of green pastures, left hometown for Johannesburg, and was killed during the xenophobic attacks.
Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published monthly by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
