SALIM YAKUBU AKKO
What it Takes to Become a Poet
someday i would borrow
my brother’s body, try
twisting it with lines
& gag his brain with poetic metaphors
and see how it looks
to become a poet.
someday i would venipuncture
out his cold blood, transfuse it
with mine and see how
poetry will burn his body
like a candle flame.
i see in my eyes
a man walking with no skull, &
his skin smells of the scorching
sun that burns rambled poetic verses. his
voice resonates that of a man who has no other tongue,
but one that breaks the
poetic volcanoes like a tinted glass.
& i wonder how a man that has
never seen the metaphor of grief
would call himself a poet.
Salim Yakubu Akko is a World Voices Magazine’s Nigerian correspondent, a poet and short story writer. Has been published/forthcoming on Brittle Paper, Trouvaille Review, ILA Magazine, Ice Lolly Review, Spill Words Press, Upwrite Magazine, Applied Worldwide, Scratch Poetry Magazine, Arts Lounge, Nantygreens Magazine, The Beatnik Cowboy Magazine, Literary Yard, Calabar Poetry, Giallo Literary Magazine, Teen Lit Journal, Magazine, Daily Trust Newspaper, The Nation News Nigeria, The Guardian Newspaper, Independent Nigeria, Nigerian Tribune Newspaper, Opinion Nigeria, My Nigeria, African Fingers, The Campus Watch, Today Post Nigeria, People’s Daily Newspaper and elsewhere.