Lycanthropes
She told me,
she fears the night
for then, all banished monsters
retreat out of nowhere, recycled into the mind:
daylight guilt drift in
as swans in swarms, offshore to roost.
Werewolves of be slain thoughts spring forth
like a country-song retrieved from
dusty war-chest in Scunthrope museums.
These lycanthropes will leave you alone
to your daylight hubris,
of how strong her own mind is.
It’s 12 am;
you’re a refugee
fleeing from the war-torn city of daylight
in Yemen and slaughter in Marte,
your soul skitters into sleep:
that still, monochromatic embassy of dreams,
like a lake with no ripples,
but only dreams of how you couldn’t
stop the blind mob from offering that boy as burnt offering;
but instead, committed the scene (sin) to your phone’s memory
and later fed Twitter the blood
as Isa fed the five thousand.
Tonight, these werewolves will visit your soul
for night has lasers that reveal
the blood on your palms,
their very favourites, on your sweat-wet bedspread.
Amnesia
When I wrap my eyes
in the feathers of sleep
do I daydream to elope with my soul
in time, way back or furlongs forth;
perhaps, or in space,
to very immodest regions,
so that my ebony skin may sip
the memories of ice or hot lava-
I swear, sleep is an extension,
a bending of the mind
the brain coerces to rest.
but how can I rest
when I’m in the battleground
with no saber, or shield
against these sharp darts
of revealed anecdotes.
at times, my soul is a canvas
and these latest dreams are painters
breathing Muse over-dose into still-born poems,
emaciated flash fictions,
It’s always cute how you promise to write that
until daylight nightmare comes to wipe
these memories clean,
dismembering best-seller imagination
while still I lie.
Agbaakin O. Jeremiah, a 22-year old NIGERIAN poet and campus Editor is a final year law student in University of Ibadan. He won the maiden Ogidigbo Poetry Prize, PIN Poetry Challenge; and was a six-time finalist of 2016 Briggite Poirson Poetry Contest. He is featured/forthcoming on Tuck Magazine, Sentinel Quarterly, BPPC (Loops of Hope) Anthology, Irawo Anthology, PIN Quarterly, Kalahari Review, Praxis Magazine, Sub-Saharan Magazine, African Writer, and elsewhere.
Recent Comments