Catcalls – Jumoke Verissimo

Each girl eats her own eyeballs,

floating heels,

confidence-padded into breasts,

kettle-mouth lips

blow off the steam of male gaze;

in a market world women are

crafts.

 

Her designer labels with absolute names

the reason for her aching ankles

becomes the shame,

beauty the reason for the spare time

becomes the shame.

 

The horde’s hoot hang to her feet

as she flees from a body being stripped

of a dress that homes

shame.

When a girl discovers she’s dressed in disgrace—

wearing a blemish no foundation

power

can hide—she moves away from

herself.

 

The market stalls are no shelter for men,

trading in leers that rush after short skirts

teeth spaced for the

tongue to wag;

there’s no signpost to read their

folly.

Here are men who once

bargained with brains

now they trade their hearts

as ignorance wares.

 

And when tongues rip the cloth

off the girl

the shredding men’s eyes will go

home

to cover a sister, a mother, or a

partner

shame them with another

performance

a poor showman of his market

failing

For My Unborn Daughter -A Peom

​Your mother found her voice at 28.

Just incase you’re wondering, this poem is to my daughter – at 12 …
Sorry, I changed that to 5, because these kids are much smarter these days.
Your mother found her voice when the world had stopped talking
It was late.
She had swallowed the world too many times, all those times; the only sound that came out of her mouth was the swallowing.
She swallowed everything through a listening pipe, filled her belle with seasons and wars, and war cries and goings and cumming and everything else that made the world go round.
There were days – silence was the only sound you’d hear no matter how loud you tried.

And so, your mother mastered the art of swallowing her screams.
Conceiving everything – even the things that have no place inside a mother.
Your mother was once a world – a world, pregnant with its past… a past so present she could feel her future kick –
In pain, she swallowed her scream…
There were still days when nothing seemed to be coming out of anywhere – no matter the force you try.
The only time something tried to break out, was the world forcing it’s way out of your mothers mouth,
Not knowing whether to come out as a scream or a whisper or even … a song…
That was the day your mother – for the first time, tasted the lisp in her mouth,
Everything she could have said but didn’t say, all those years stood wobbling with buckled knees on her tongue,
Her lisp had grown with age – she could even taste how sour it was.
The salt in her saliva couldn’t save the world in your mothers’ mouth from decaying.
Every night, she dreamt of the oceans, of the dead fishes still floating, because she was taught that salt is the only reason dead things float  in deep sea. 

Your mother sinks in her dreams, unable to scream out and beg the salts to leave the oceans for a second to wrap her up in a heap and wait for her to climb back up before the salt return to where they belong. 

Your mother never came back from that dream. 

Daughter, wherever you find yourself, if you’re ever wondering if you should be somewhere else, don’t be confused with the words on the map except where it says “you are here.” 

Patience Tiencepay Lawal. 

Liberty is a many-colour-coat made of Rags

Coming out of my closet, I carry my heart about
           like cufflinks.
It is my way of being transparent- that is coming out wearing
                 my heart
on the cuffs of
                 my sleeve.
It is my way off attracting like-minds.
I find my kind of people everywhere I go
                             or
any closet I snoop in. 

It will amaze you …the number
The caliber of people
hiding away in their closets,
coiled up upon themselves,
trying to get smaller and smaller,
                    or
just hoping to vaporize.

I am not one of them,
I come out all the time,
even though I am timid
For self-validation,
I like to look in on them-
those still hiding away
                                    in their closets-

Amongst this run of
                  Homo
                          Sapiens,
hiding away their
sexuality
in the Closet of
                        Marriage
are the most gifted beings-
humans
and
            women.

And many they are that will never come out of those
                   dark places
to get some air in the sunlight. They dread to be
                gay,
to be outspoken
You know like the
                             feminists

I was one time peeking into such
dark
      dreary
              airless
                      gloomy
closet,
and I found a feminist
          housewife
                   mother
a one who really could use the
                   liberty
of getting some
fresh air and sunshine

“so, what are you still doing in there”,
            I probed. 

“I went in
             for the feminist rants,
  and stayed in
             for the kids.”
she replied. 

I knew she isn’t coming out
of that
          closet
anytime soon;

so the answer
            to the question of
“why don’t you come out from that hole already”
was out of the
                    question.  

Great many
        are they
              who are like
I am- timid about coming out
and walking in the
              gaylight,

but
if liberty
is a
Many-Colour-Coat made from rags,
I still will wear mine
and strut about in it
– even if I only do that
        in
          my
             closet.

Christopher Raphael Okiri

Have You Seen Her?

Five young men stood in the clearing, each bloodshot eye marked by a white chalk ring, an unending circle of love.

As they swayed to blood rousing beats from a fusion of flute, drum and fiddle, their black loin wrappers shimmered under the blinding sun.

Shaved heads tilted back, chiseled muscles vibrated as their hoarse voices rose in a collective roar.

“Please, have you seen our sister? She’s the first fruit of our mother’s womb. Pray tell, for we must know if you have seen the one whose ringing laughter filled our father’s home.”

Heavy silence from those watching threatened to suck up the air.

“We have not seen her,” they cried. “Not since the day she left our mother’s bosom, waving as she held on to her new husband’s hand for a journey of no return.”

Faces contorted, their twirls and stomps sent up showers of fine red sand. “Who knew giving out a daughter was such a dangerous thing to do?”

Covered with sand grains, the swaying crowd shook heads as tears ran down their faces.

“Did you ever see our sister in that faraway land?” Their roar asked. “Was she happy? Did she talk about us? Despite the time and space, we never forgot about her.”

Stilled by the lone wail of the oja flute, the young men held out upturned palms. “They told us the earth opened and swallowed her. No one said the hands of her husband pushed her into the hole.”

“Our eyes are heavy because we have not seen our sister. And the fresh grave yawning before us says we shall see her no more.”

Yejide Kilanko © 2014