ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
Olaitan Junaid is a reader, writer, & sometimes, an editor. He is a lover good poetry. He studies English Language & Literature at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife. His works have appeared or are forthcoming on Ngiga Review, African Writer, Perhappened Mag, Ghost Heart Literary Journal, & elsewhere. He lives in south-western Nigeria, where he writes from.
Poets Resist
Edited by Elizabeth Ruth Deyro
July 29, 2020
Edited by Elizabeth Ruth Deyro
July 29, 2020
What do you see when we die
— for boys lost in the duty of love
What do you see when we die
if not bullets kissing at the holes in the body of lovers?
on a blood-stained dagger dripping water & yellow flowers,
the sun reflects the carcass of a boy lost in the crevice of his own body.
& This time, another boy my brother was tempted to fall
but the angels did not remember to hold him from crashing against the earth.
There is fire burning beneath my skin but I can’t say I’m dying
when a glass of water hangs between my teeth.
In it, a boy is tearing at his own body
so love could walk out of the convex vestibules of his bones.
For every muezzin's call, there is a boy on the street of Lagos,
lending his voice to the wind as his blood makes atonement
to tongues of fire roaring at his skin.
While birds clatter Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'uni on their beaks,
their claws make counts of boys decked with tires on Kano roads,
like hands twitching at rosary in memorial of prophets.
It’s 3am & My head dipped in the river now un-wears the ashes of boys
painting asphalts in funeral black.
So, I unbuckle this body in measure of minutes,
my breath a small animal breaking away from a garden of nettle
into the mouth of a city,
Where boys, hand-in-hand, can honor Jum’ah, & listen to sermons on love, un-judged.
iVerily we belong to Allah, and verily to Him do we return."
"What do you see when we die" is an elegy that tries to capture the brutal treatment of queer souls in the Nigerian society. It also addresses the forces guiding their deaths and ends on a note of resistance that comes with hope and longing.
Poets Resist is published by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
