Lament | by JK Anowe | African Poetry

i do not know
how to lure souls
from dead songs

how to imbibe loss
how to inscribe intercourse
on the latrine floor

i do not know
the eleventh thing
about God

that neglect comes
with moons of rust

but this is home
where it is safe
to serrate sugarcane

and from your nose
pick mucus with toes…

where it is safe
to forget naked
soles on gorse

maybe watch blood
drizzle from wet ghosts…

*

i do not know
how to play-fore
how to unknot
the sign
of the cross
how to filter
ejaculation
with a hoax

maybe cuddle
from dusk to dust
‘til the wind
bids us part…

but this is home
where we doff
our hearts before
we fart

where love is
too late a road
to roam

********

Post image by Jim Chuchu via African Digital Arts

About the Author:

JK Anowe was born in Nigeria in 1994. He’s presently a degree student of the department of foreign languages in the University of Benin, Nigeria. He speaks English and French fluently, with a spattering of Igbo. He writes/edits poems/short stories for Parrot, a magazine run by the aforementioned university. He’s working on his first collection of poems.