HUGS LIKE A HOUSE ARREST

 by TOBY ABIODUN

I should confess

that I find it tough trying to write  you into a perfect song

maybe it's because

what I feel for you isn't plain sheet music 

it is complex 

like a violin, there are strings attached 

but I keep writing 

even in dreams

hoping I'll wake up one day to find you perfected

I keep working, 

hoping when I am done, people will call you dope music like you were made in a coke studio 

And  I promise to write about your high and lows

write about your eyes and nose 

promise to strike every chord and hit the right notes 

 you can leave the door to your heart closed 

 I'll move in with the right keys

I'll make symphonies from the trembling of your cheeks 

and melodies from your heartbeats

I'll pause your pulse, stretch it to a crescendo 

so when the world listens to the pitch

they will want encores 

the sound will hold their ears captive - they'll call you a trap song. 

Sometimes I look at your being and what I see is a museum of artworks, 

Nature's handwork, 

A modern collection of antiques, I mean beauties -

From eyes that present the past and mirror the future 

 To a hairline representing queens and their closures-

where they end is where you begin. 

You have eyelashes like a bouquet, my heart is the size of a thousand vases, 

Your love has me rooted to a spot but I see us going places, 

You're the standard, other girls are just random faces. 

We gat chemistry like science but your body spells literature

Skin so bright, some lit creature 

I call you the hit effect of God's spoken word 

but find you too complete to pass for the product of a rib

I am staring at the poem written on your body and I'm in love with the waist line 

Your body is the truth, on it I want to lie

We have that strong connection, who needs WiFi?

Your bosoms the hot-spot and your behind puts my exes behind 

I get an adrenaline rush when you look me in the eyes

You are a storm rising inside of me

Jesus, please be still. 

I get caught up in thoughts of you, 

I call this the rapture 

You put your body over me and I become a fraction

I'm okay with you,  how do they define dissatisfaction 

I feel you like a form there is a column you must sign

They hear wedding bells I say eternal alarm

You blow my mind,  Hussein (who send)  Sadam

You have hugs like a house arrest 

Every touch feels like a caress

They say you and I share a drive 'cause our hearts beat in one accord 

You're my success story, losing you means failure and that I am too broke to afford. 

Sometimes I wish to be your bathroom door so you can always pull me close

This Adam and Eve kind of love got the room looking like Eden, damn, who needs clothes! 

Your absence leaves me feeling like a bankrupt company 

  baby at nights I fold. 

Nights spent together be looking like a freestyle session 'cause I see you off the top

Like a car left unused in the garage, I need you to warm me up 

The way I fell for you gat me feeling like a phone call, I need you to pick me up. 

I'm catching deep feelings like how well do you love me

Statistics show you mean a lot to me

I feel wealthier than Abraham 'cause you're more than a LOT to me

This your heart be like exam,  of all the men na me love you pass 

In my world you're first and last, the only student in my class 

I want nothing from you 'cause they say nothing lasts forever 

We make a pretty good team, there's nothing we won't do together 

Like getting to the top, getting ahead then getting a head

I promise to never fall out with you cause if i do 

 e go be like soapy-

 that is na me dey do myself!

THE TENDER ROOF OF OLUWERI

by Yusuf Balogun Gemini for Ruth Chidinma Ochei


Thousand words would not fill a basket,

broken jars would never house the torrent of Oosa Oke

but if sixty seconds make one minute,

then sixty rubies would make a ~thousand~ ~jackpot~ —

scratch that,

a ruby is enough gold,

if you'd have sixty of her,

then that's Paradise.




But only cowards hide under words to tame wings,

only lazy men pen hieroglyphs on the beak of Awoko,

men like us glide gracefully to the

tender roof of Oluweri,

just to keep memories in seashells —

Ruby,

this land is not a definition of your aura,

you are the jingling trinkets on the loins of Mother Earth,

you're the running zigzag dots on the crystal plate of heaven's gate,

you're that constant deep rooted, watered in the muds of Eden,

you're that reason

why my poetry is now

d

i s

t

o

r

te

d

like the running waters of Nigeria,

Ruby, you're the peaceful chaos I read of in chronicles!




Ruby,

women like you find a home upon the vagina of waters,

for whom among your enemies shall swim in that pool

lest be stricken by thunderbolt?

Ruby,

women like you walk on waters,

you look so much like the irises,

how then can you drown?

Ruby,

women like you doze on water,

you're the oil bean pod that was spoken of by Okigbo,

how then won't you stay afloat?

Ruby,

you are the reason why my poetryisnowcongestedandconjuncted.




Ruby!

I have appeased the candlelight of my father,

I have found bay at the shores of aro gidigba,

that they may stare at this unrepentant son of mortal

and forgive him of his shortcomings —

isn't it the greatest of sacrilege

to dare qualify a ~goddess~ in mere words?

Strike that, you're too huge to be a goddess,

even Leopold would walk to Senegal tro and fro, never to find an answer still,

phrasal phrase that a thousand words may not be right for,

clausal clause that a thousand words would not make lose water,

Ruby, now that my poetry is ```the fallen wall of Jericho,```

_the broken scrotum of dickfuckdick..._




Ruby,

would you find relish in the relics of beauty?

Ruby,

if I reminded you of your uniqueness,

would you wash your feet

with the waters of Benue,

coat your fingers in the green white green soil of t'is land

and like a certain ruler in his seventies,

leave to return again...?




This poetry is ellipsis...

How do you end magic, darling?