ABDULKAREEM ABDULKAREEM
Somehow, somewhere
Plethora of tongues plot themselves into prayer
for a journey bereft of guns, for a journey bereft
of claiming hands, but see how the miracles of their
tongues fell in contrary? Somehow, somewhere, another
tongue is praying for a journey that detests explosion,
but see how the tongue of the fire christened them into corpses.
Here, a mother bird watches as the cobra sucks
on its chicks— helpless, powerless, or which kind
of bird attacks a cobra with a beak, with a beak?
I hold a requiem by the throat of this poem & it pales.
Like a drunk reeking of gin— it hobbles towards home.
Home is on fire. Home is a fire. Or home is the fire burning
its citizens. There are many voices at the mouth of this poem
screaming, screaming. At home, I stare into the TV & there
is another bloodshed somewhere, somehow & I pretend I’m
not pained, I pretend a moth is not eating the water
reservoir in my eyes. How many chaos do we keep patching
with cement? When will Abuja stop being a monolith
on the chest of its citizens? There are many death
in this land than the sky can withhold—I go into song
& a parable spills from my mouth like a colony of bats:
It is little by little that pig’s nose enters the yard, or how
many little foxes have grown to destroying the vineyard?
Boy, do you know where we are going yet, do you?
Abdulkareem Abdulkareem, Frontier III, is a Nigerian writer. He won the University of Ilorin SU Writers Competition (Poetry Category) 2022. In 2021, He was longlisted for the top entries of the Nigerian Students Poetry Prize (NSPP). He was also shortlisted for the PIN 10 Day Poetry Competition, 2022. His works appear/forthcoming on POETRY, Asterlit, Poetry Column-NND, Brittle Paper, Rulerless Magazine, Ice Floe Press, Claw and Blossom, FERAL, Rigorous, Windows Facing Windows Review, Olney, Salamander Ink, Kissing Dynamite, & elsewhere. He reads poetry for Agbowó Magazine.