3 Poems │ Shitta Faruq

May We Find Light After the Dark

the journey is not too far from our legs;
because the dust is a milkwood crescent
adjacent to a sturdy boulder. we seek
the path from the oath we took on our way to hell.
Hell is not what we yell at, but because we break
the bits of our destinies into small sweats,
the light is cascaded into waste bins

I call insanity in sane profanity. the liturgies
of a dark poet
who finds solace in suicide, depression and lines
of melancholic lungs & a son tampering the
words of his mother – sun set bad luck, and
a light that refuse to glow. we sit by the graveside.
our ears hear the silence of the wolf’s howl.
The light is trodden by a dark soul, and so
we meet the priest for revelation who told us
words of despair. a son without
a sun, sin with angry jinns…

and we split blood on the stones of
atonement; we stink, the dark is what we
eat. our flesh rots, we bite our tongue, we turn
our hands into an itched vagina. that is why the
light to our dark is scared of coming…

so then we continue to wallow like a cursed
earthworm in the pains of salt; in the darkness
of the pang we never knew when it’ll
release itself from the manacle that binds us.
our penis stuck itself to the goddess of the earth.

we never knew the light is near!

---

Matthews’ 8 Beatitudes to Racism

a soil is a beatitude in 8 verses, broken like the
tears in my face. & the race of
an athlete, black like the bottom of a pot once upon a time.
\negro\ \bitch. : \slayer\ \ditch\,
our mouth is a denied catastrophe of madness
pronounced with loathe.

& how a loamy is a soapy darkness, infertile
for the reproduction of a transformation
for the rebirth of silent \voices\
\deafening\ the air with
Wailings… \songs.

& cacophonies of drums…

But for today, I will be a learner of words.
\beatitudes\ beautiful for mournings
on mornings, for shackles, bangles, fetters
and iron rods. \metals.

• Blessed are those bones cruched in the symphony
  of unyielding voices \ for theirs is a fine lyrics of transformation.
• Blessed are the soils, trampled upon by merciless
  weeds\ for their belly is a myriad of abundance.
• Blessed are the poor in might \ for their strength
  is a David defeating many Goliaths.
• Blessed are the Black sons called rogues \ for theirs is
  a name of sweetness.

& for the superiority of the elders of the whites,
dominating the atmosphere of cruelty….

• Blessed are the Male stones red oil
  swallows \ for theirs is a food of pains.
• Blessed are the thousand whips, lashing punctures
  severely on silent skins \for their thorns is a
  perdition of torment.
• Blessed are the potters, molding men into
  many melancholy and more \for their
  pang is a noise of sorrow
• Blessed are the racists \ for racism won’t
  depart their doors.

this soil is broken into sad laughters.
derision that at least your mucus is
a handful of shameful thickness.

---

May Our Feet Lead Us to the Light

we burn from the incense that scents in the trauma
our feet walks on,
we pronounce our plight with shaking flames of tongues,
tomorrow and the next day we are a metaphor for thorn
our bruises mark many maps of thousand miles, we sing
melancholic songs…

the lines we see on our skin kills our soul, we see
death
we are a rainbow of stakes, I open my eyes to
see the water in the mirage,
this feet we trudge with is heavy, and our
heart is a minus of breath
yesterday, we died, we woke up to die again, and
dig our graves with blood spillage

now we see no hope, but pray the fire that
burns us quench
we curse the misfortune many times and still
pray not to miss the fortune.
the viruses, we light our hope for, to
die in the circles the sun fetch
and everyday we sit by the fire to see
our fate tunes.

May we find solace after the pains of the night,
May our feet lead us to the light…

---

Shitta Faruq Adémólá is a late-teen Nigerian writer and poet as well as a prospective lawyer. He believes in the power of poetry as an instrument to heal the burns in a heart, the tears of an orphan and a home to Noah’s ark. He has work in, and forthcoming in The Trouvaille Journal, Eboquills, Parousia Magazine, Ngiga Review and else where. When he’s not writing, he’s listening to Simi’s sweet voice or admiring Fair Ladies. Hi him @shittafaruqademola on Twitter.