WORLD POETS MAGAZINE

The Salt of the Niger Benue   Construct a box of Iroko and the salt of the Benue. Slot the windows into the grooves of the wood, tight as the grip of the Isoko fisherman’s salt-worn net. We make lanterns because the g ulf has a way of swallowing the horizon whole. Inside, the wick is a white needle stitching the dark of the Lagos lagoon to the dock. No oil remains silent here; it cracks, a small, bright friction of earth resisting the tide. Feel the pulse of the palm oil beating against the glass’s hot, yellow tooth. The light is a thumbprint of fire on the coastline, reminding the waves that we are still awake, tending to the small, fierce architectures of the night. has a way of swallowing the horizon whole. Inside, the wick is a white needle stitching the dark of the Lagos lagoon to the dock. No oil remains silent here; it cracks, a small, bright friction of earth resisting the tide. Feel the pulse of the palm oil beating against the glass’s hot, yellow too...

Zeal What’s your age? she asked. Do not believe the grey hairs, I humbly replied.       New Social Etiquette      I d  i    s     e      n       g        a          g            e             (myself)                         from the SOCIETY                         to be engaged on                    ...

  A Poppy   In the shopping area among the cars and the advertising signs, in that spot where no one pays attention to it near the sidewalk, sprouting from a crack in the tar a poppy fragile and alone stands tall, courageous, scarlet.   How can we not be optimistic?     (Translated from French by Alan Dent)   The Stranger   Greet the stranger who’s knocking at your door he longs for the warmth of your home because it’s cold outside   Greet the stranger he comes with the sun that you may not be aware of although it sleeps within you   Should that sun awaken it will make   fairer and stronger – it is the sun of fraternity.            (25 Dec. 2023)   The Massacre of the Innocents   It’s written on the Bible, according to Matthew That Herod, renowned for his cruelty, Having learned a new king was to be born in Judea Had all the children under two in Bethlehem Massacred. Today, historian confirm Tha m...

      Chapters of a Biography                                                                       1. How can I persuade you, after so many years filled with catastrophes and light, that we never left this place, that always the same black snow fell on our fields, that instead of water we drank the truth of ages.   2. The circling of the falcon – all afternoon we patiently drew its circles. First music lessons: pine needles taking notes in the air.   3. Like a sea without its sky The huge glass eye of the unknown.   4. Memory: whatever the wind desires.   5. They were the sap that failed to become fruit the ic...

  Cavern   The dream is sown with multiple stains, and you are anxiously crossing over, a storm rolling over an apron while you abandon our speech, my house, our panic. Yellowish under the old sun, the cobbler beats on the anvil of the broken guilt, I cry with him as if at a funeral, but the beating leads nowhere. I wipe away the stains on the floor of the dream, while the fright still remains about today, about here:   we have no home, our only home is a poem, but God looks upon and behold, it is good, he claims, even though the ancient Greek scribe with sculpted shoulders and beautiful gray beard instantly rolls his eyes.                          (Translated by the author)     Ceiling, Autumn   I have something to confess, and it's not accumulating below or under me but above It won't burst out from beneath our feet, but will be water, in pea...

          Emigration (The last flight)   On the beach of the sea that separates Africa from Spain lies a dead turtledove   perhaps on its way to the warmer south?   She lies on her back, wings spread as if one more time she wished to embrace the sky. (from “Poetic Reflections”, Ukiyoto Publishing, India 2026) What will remain Everything that ever lived is sooner or later erased by time.   What remains is the beauty on earth which man created before: beautiful constructions, sculptures, words and music.   But what will remain of us —for those who come after us— as a trace?   What else but tasteless constructions, pollution of water and air, the greed of the now. (from “Poetic Reflections”, Ukiyoto Publishing, India 2026)       Against the tide   Poetry seeks its path against the tide.   It cannot change the path of man whose future is uncertain and distant. But sometimes it can be lifebuoy f...

  Poetic Art   A cow grazes in our memory blood escapes from the teats the landscape is killed by a shot   The cow insists on its routine its tail scares away the boredom the landscape revives in slow motion   The cow abandons the landscape we continue hearing the lowing our memory grazes now in that immense loneliness   The landscape leaves our memory the words change name we are left weeping on the blank page   The cow grazes now in the emptiness the words are mounted on her the language makes fun of us   (Translated by Ron Hudson)     The Messenger   She took the words out for a walk and the words bit the children and the children told their parents and the parents loaded their guns and opened fire upon the words and the words whimpered, yelped slowly licking their blind wounds until at last they fell face down on the bloody ground And then came death dressed in her best garment and stopped at the poet’s house to call ...

  You cannot bypass this planetarium   Oh God how vulnerable we are, oh God yet how beautifully vulnerable we are   distance to the right = distance to the left distance up = distance down distance forward = distance back   O OO OO OO OO O OO OO OO OO   this village cannot be bypassed this ancient settlement cannot be flown over with a compass, sunwheel nor with a fan of perpendiculars   poured out flows the sacred reverence about the great goodness spreads the myth of blessing under the celestial chime of heaven   O OO OO OO OO O OO OO OO OO   to the right and to the left — the sky above and below — the sky inside and outside — the sky inside and outside the sky   people kiss time pressing the earth to the sky children kiss space pressing the sky to the earth   they walk in circles, they walk in circles they walk in circles through the sky   the earth and the sun over the people space and time over life in the chariot of death, ove...

  T he Siren   The smell of gunpowder approaches as the siren of the third world war is heard; frightened are the people and the birds, the trees, the sky, and the earth: I will not go to your war—not now.   I have spoken much of food, spoken of multinational lamentations, of rivers of blood— and now I am terribly weary from speaking of such slaughter. You did not listen.   With flames in your eyes, you produced gunpowder; you split the atom, and sold the poison of agony. I have spoken often of flowers. I have described the shimmering flow of rivers, praised the beauty of blue skies, like the restless tidewater, and laid our pain and weariness in golden letters of poetry.   I have traced the cries of newborns, tirelessly, across the corners of this planet— so that you might soften, even a little. But your empires— you have adorned them like dazzling teeth with the glow of terrifying nuclear fire.   The wild siren of destruction blare...