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!

OTHER PEOPLE'S SUNDAY

linesandlyrics.blogspot.com

I have watched families eat together

through windows I was never invited behind,

a father stealing meat from his child's plate,

a mother complaining about the mess

while secretly smiling at it.

They make ordinary things look sacred,

school runs, arguments, birthdays,

someone shouting from upstairs,

"Have you seen my keys?"

and another voice answering from the kitchen.

I used to wonder what such noise felt like

when it belonged to you,

whether family laughter has a different temperature

when your name is naturally included

in the chaos.

Now I know envy can be quiet.

It does not always want what another person owns.

Sometimes it simply wants to borrow

one ordinary evening

from a life you never had.

---

About The Author

Nasirudeen Muritala is a poet and writer whose work explores childhood, identity, family, belonging, and personal growth. His writing is shaped by memories, experiences, and the questions that often stay with us long after childhood.

Through poetry, he gives voice to emotions and experiences that are sometimes difficult to put into words. His work is an honest reflection on becoming, finding belonging, and learning to build a life from where you started.

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?

LOVE IS NOT ALWAYS TIDY

linesandlyrics.blogspot.com

I grew up in a house

where love did not always

sit at one table.

There were different doors,

different rooms,

different versions

of belonging.

As a child,

I did not know

that a family could carry

so many invisible maps.

I only knew

that some people

seemed to know

where they belonged,

while I was still

learning the shape

of my own name.

There were good days.

There were plenty.

Laughter had its way

of finding us.

Someone would call

from another room,

food would appear,

children would become noisy,

and for a little while

the house forgot

all its complications.

Then came the whispers.

Rumors have a peculiar talent.

They never knock.

They enter through windows,

under doors,

through people

who swear they are only

telling you what they heard.

And misunderstanding

can turn a familiar face

into a stranger

before breakfast.

There were days

I felt singled out.

Not always openly.

Sometimes it was only

a look held too long,

a silence that answered

a question nobody had asked,

a feeling that said,

"You are not quite

where you thought you were."

Then came the day

my father disowned me.

I remember the wound.

But I remember

my mother's face too.

That is the strange thing

about family pain—

you can be hurt

by what happened to you

and still ache more

watching someone you love

hurt because of it.

My mother carried

her own disappointments

and still found strength

to stand.

Perhaps that is where

I first saw resilience.

Not in someone

who had never been broken,

but in someone

who had every reason

to become bitter

and refused the promotion.

My family taught me

that love is not always tidy.

It can share a wall

with disappointment.

It can survive

awkward silences.

It can sit beside pain

without asking pain

to leave first.

I no longer need

my childhood

to have been perfect

to be grateful for it.

The house gave me

some bruises.

It also gave me

a spine.

It taught me

that being misunderstood

is not the same

as being wrong.

And that sometimes

the strongest person

in the room

is the one

who has learned

how to leave the room

without losing herself.

My family did not teach me

how to please everyone.

It taught me

how to stand.

How to hear an opinion

without turning it

into an identity.

How to walk through

being misunderstood

without becoming

a stranger to myself.

I carry all of it now—

the laughter,

the rumors,

the difficult days,

my mother's tears,

my father's absence

and the strength

that grew quietly

between them.

I did not choose

everything that shaped me.

But I have chosen

what I will become

because of it.

---

Author's Bio:

Shakirat Ayodeji Bioku is a multidisciplinary artist, poet, and performer whose creative journey is rooted in storytelling, oral tradition, theatre, traditional cultural dance, and spoken word. She began her performance journey creating and delivering custom celebratory eulogies and performing in local theatre.

Her writing draws from lived experiences, exploring themes of family, identity, courage, love, resilience, growth, and becoming. She has performed her poetry on various stages across Nigeria, bringing together the intimacy of poetry with the energy and emotion of live performance.

NOT BECAUSE I AM SENTIMENTAL BY GIDEON ADEYEYE

There is a strange silence that enters a house after the last person leaves. 

Not the peaceful kind. 

The kind that knows where 

everyone used to sit. 

 The dining chair with the broken leg. 

The mark on the wall

 from when we were children. 

The corner where my brother 

used to throw his schoolbag. 

The kitchen where my mother

 shouted because nobody wanted to wash plates. 

Even the arguments seem to have left an echo behind. I returned home years later and discovered that the house had become smaller. Or maybe I had become larger. 

The ceiling looked lower. The hallway looked shorter. The rooms had lost their old proportions. 

 I stood where we once gathered and could almost hear us. A laugh.

 Ordinary life!!! The kind we never photograph because we assume there will always be another evening. 

 There wasn't. Not exactly. People grew. 

People moved. People married.

People died. 

 Some relationships became birthday messages. Some became silence. Some became "we should really visit soon," until years passed. That is the cruelty of growing older: 

You begin to understand that many endings do not announce themselves. 

There is no music. No final speech. 

Sometimes it is simply the last Sunday everyone sat around the same table. 

The last Christmas before somebody moved away. 

The last time your father carried you without saying, 

"This is the last time." 

 We do not know 

which ordinary moments 

are secretly historical. 

 That is why I am trying to pay attention now. 

To sit longer. To answer the phone.

 To take the picture. 

To stay at the table

 after the food is finished. 

To ask, "How are you really?" 

 Not because I am sentimental. 

Because I finally understand

that time does not steal with violence. 

It steals quietly. 

One ordinary day at a time. 

 And one day you return home and the house is still standing, but everybody who made it home has become a memory. --- 

 *About the poet* 

linesandlyrics.blogspot.com

Gideon Adeyeye is a Nigerian-born poet and spoken word artist based in Manchester, UK. His love affair with poetry began in 2018 during his final year at university at Dwelling Place, a programme organised by FCS. Watching poets perform with such depth awakened a fascination with the power of spoken words. With vivid storytelling, Gideon turns lived experience into poetry that feels both personal and universal. His work often journeys from pain to purpose, from hardship to hope, asking what we become when life demands strength before we are ready. For Gideon, poetry is more than words on a page, it is testimony. A way of looking back at where we have been, honouring those who carried us, and declaring that our beginnings do not have the final word.

OF A CERTAIN SAMURAI

 

AWARD WINNING SPOKEN WORD/PERFORMANCE POET, OLAYINKA SAMSON AREMU (THE SAMURAI)  

SPOKE THESE WORDS 

I came across this quote online sometimes ago, “Everyone can write, but not everyone is a writer” - I believe many have seen or heard it too. Then like a plate of “jollof rice”, a revelation was served before me; “Everyone speaks poetry, but not everyone is a poet”.

I am saying this from my vantage point as a Yoruba person. My mother’s language, Yoruba, and poetry are interwoven. Let me give you some examples; “Ebi n pami” can literally be translated to the English language as “hunger is killing me”. In that sentence, you see how “hunger” is given animate attribution. You understand that when you are not eating you are dying. Let me give you another example; “gbe otto mi” which is translated directly as “swallow the truth.” “Truth” is given a physical form and swallowed, like it is a pill, to keep it from the knowledge of people. There are countless of examples of poetry in the everyday Yoruba language. A Yoruba speaking person speaks poetry almost every time he/she opens his/her mouth and is unaware of it. And I believe it is like that in every language.

Now the instance, in that paragraph above, brings this question, if everyone speaks poetry, does that make everyone a poet?’ For me, the answer is “no”.

Poetry is a skill; a developed aptitude.  It is a talent that requires you to learn the power to do it competently. You are not a poet until you are self-conscious and you make conscious effort to put yourself into it; train and hone the skill, write with blood, and perform with your soul.

Still and all, poetry is easy if it is your calling. It is a voice and can come through you if you give yourself to it as a vessel. Don’t belittle yourself because of all I’ve said. I just want you to understand that poetry is a craft, a form of art, it requires learning for proficiency and you can't skip that.

If poetry has called you or you are willing to make yourself a vessel for poetry, go on, and use your poetry as a tool to transform humanity.

In the next edition, I will tell you how to know if you are a poet.

CURLED FROM KULIKULI POETRY NIGERIA PUBLICATION 

WHAT IS LEFT OF WHAT IS RIGHT?

What Is Left...?

by BANKOLE KOLAWOLE

These villains in the land of Prejudice
Sitted in terraces, funding dareDevils...
Painting innocent  faces with faeces from Boko bum...Issh!!!
 
Insult, added with salt upon injury
And we lavish in abject penury
Still, we are GIANTS of Africa, in ironic luxury
 
Heroes are compelled to romance prison floors for no reason in particular
Villains and their pals flirt, wine and dine in ivory towers
Embowered by Prospect-Destruction-PoliTHIEFcians and LegisLOOTERS
 
…What is Left of What is right?
 Rapper Ayo, sorry Papa Ayo.. Ah! “Ese”
Buys a 10 million dollar private jet
Hires it to F.G for “HARMuNation” without fidget
 
…What then is Right of What is left? 

Bouncing babies birthed amidst bruises,
Bright brilliant beloved beauties
Now butchered, like barbecue, burnt silly
By beastly bastards bombing baboons
Book-haters claiming Boko-haram goons.
Only in cartoons can one act with such ‘boom boom ka-boom’ affront.
 
Venting vengeance on vulnerable victims
Molding men into murdering machines
Yet sentencing; soldiers saving souls – our super-beings,
For reacting against secreted sores served by their superiors
 
…What is Left of what is right?
 Boko harasses our caves with her ruthless plight
And our I.G.P bags a national award, dressed in Brocades and laces, gorgeously bright
Despite gory sights of lives battered in shattered sites
 
Villain "Jemisi" gets a pat on the back and shoulder
Discharged and acquitted for re-discovering and re-inventing wings and feathers
For pounds and dollars to fly in billions and trillions, like birds of a feather.
 
…What is left of what is right…?
Arise o compatriots! Nigeria's call obey
To uphold her honour and glory is vain
Let’s keep discovering and rediscovering, inventing and re-inventing, wings and feathers
For pounds and dollars to fly in billions and trillions, like birds of a feather
'Cos it pays, for what is left of what is right is jet bomb letters
Impeachment orders, empty promises of shelters for our heroic 1980 football players,
Plus death sentences for our PATHETIC but patriotic Army officers. 
 
But, one day Mr. Revolution's tree shall bear fruits
Ballot boxes tell truths
Rights right wrongs in full
Three men no longer stand in twos'
Pot-bellied fools with their tools into the abyss!
And then our dear country Nigeria shall be “peaceFULL”
 
PS: “Ese” in stanza four, line one (1) is word for “sin” or “iniquity”
This piece was originally written in 2015, and have been traveled across the breadth and length of Nigeria. Was once featured by Legit.ng in a video work, see link below
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1A5jqEdjZJ/

BANKHALL

 BankHall

(By Adigun Olusola Clinton a.k.a SolarSpeaks)

 

You've slammed doors against me

When we had to war with words.

I ran up

Yet you followed!

 

I've heard you a couple times

Singing sweet solos

And I can't wait to see your debut single...

 

I've banked in your hall-

Watched you credit our goodluck

 debit our wealthy 'cursed-tomers'

And corporate hoodlums.

 

I've watched you curse their stomachs-

deep as the bottomless pit.

No wonder they can't stop to eat

Arc Angel said, " They seem constipated

Cos they still don't give a shit..."

 

I love Apple

But I can't eat Steve's left over.

So you've taken Steve's job to provide me with full yummy and punny shaped apples from your poe-tree

That leaves me chewing my cord.

All for free!

 

Really I'd like to pay you in US dollars

But I'm still paying so much attention to

The Forex news so you'd have to wait

Till I get some 'change'

 

 

Then I'd afford you at least a sleek Honda Accord

Let's hope all things go under accord.

 

But like in Paul's word

It seems death loves to rain (reign)

Cos he's always an August visitor.

 

So my fellow Bard

Learn to number your days

write your ways in Alphabets

And ensure to put them in upperCASE^

PS:

ADIGUN OLUSOLA CLINTON WAS THE 1ST RUNNER-UP AT ONE OF NIGERIA'S FOREMOST SLAM POETRY COMPETITION (WAR OF WORDS SEASON 4, 2015) WON BY IBUKUN AJAGBE (IBQUAKE) WHILE BANKHALL BAGGED 2ND RUNNER-UP