In my previous poem I was a boy
& yet again, like a seamster,
I want to weave my past into my present.
O Lord, help release a butterfly from this
network of webs; I want to savour every
blossoming petal in this garden & not feel
a thorn in my wings. I want to lie at the
precipice of my mother’s cuddles & not fall
into the thrilling trance of travail. I really want
to flush out my worries through the dreary dams
of my eyelids & not stain others with the alkalinity
of my tears. but here, everyone’s clad in an outfit that
succumbs not to pollution. I mean, in this
world where aid is a direct antonym to manliness,
nothing fuels the heavy wheels of compassion.
Poem in which Juice Wrld’s “Lucid dreams” plays on repeat
In the beginning / you sang like a nightingale / flushed out your feelings in torrents of flatters / while my heart became a septic tank of sheer fantasy.
Love surely knows how to defy the laws of gravity / knows how to make you fall without knowing it / at least, not until the brake is applied fast.
You sat my soul down on wheeless vessels / yet, your moves were fast & furious / you drove / drove hard till my sanity vanished with the speed of light.
See, I still wonder why my sanity wanders / is it because it got lost in lust? / or perhaps, because I am naught but a pawn in this chess game of love? / ‘cause now i look into the mirror / & I don’t even recognise me.
Inversion
What is left of a day without the glimmers of light?
What is left of a voice if its resonance can’t be felt?
In this poem, light is a metaphor for every voice
yearning to be heard & voice is an euphemism for
every youthful soul ASUU is striking; every innocuous
flesh bullets are kissing, every farmland gore is irrigating.
Wherever you are, take a look around. There’s always a thorn
in every dark corner ready to perform Chinese acupuncture
on you, always a kettle of vultures waiting to prey on your
demented figure. Yesterday, affliction gifted me with a pair
of binoculars & forged my mind into an asteroid that
plummeted my etherealness to space. From there, I saw a
fatigued mother feeding herself to a smothering fire – she’d
rather burn to ash than watch her lads starve to death.
The eldest is nowhere to be found, some say his hands are
now chisels that work in the devil’s workshop.
But when you ask about the father’s whereabouts,
they say he adds up to the queue at the polling booth.
Alaro Basit, 4/4 of the Next Generational Poets (NGPs) is a versatile creative who scribes, speaks and raps from Oyo state, Nigeria.
His work has been shortlisted in the ‘Man-Up’ competition and Write the World poetry contest where he happened to be the only African on both lists.
His poem has also been published and shortcoming on Woven Poetry, Brittle Paper, and the “Word for Earth” Project published on Amazon. Say hello to him on twitter @alaro_basit
