Taofeek Ayeyemi
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Bio:
Taofeek Ayeyemi “Aswagaawy” is a Nigerian lawyer, writer and author of Tongueless Secrets (Ethel Press, 2021), Across the Full Moon (Mamba Africa Press, 2021) and aubade at night or serenade in the morning (Flowersong Press, 2021). A 2021 BotN and Pushcart Prize Nominee, he has works in CV2, Lucent Dreaming, Up-the-Staircase Quarterly, ARTmosterrific, the QuillS & elsewhere. He won the 2021 Loft Books Flash Fiction Competition, 2nd Place in 2021 Porter House Review Poetry Contest, Honorable Mention in 2021 Ito En Oi Ochai Shin-Haiku Contest among others. He is @Aswagaawy on Twitter.
dirge for mother, or for the day she replaced her kimono
1999, my country decided to try a new style timeline adedayo agarau
my country is in a green-walled autopsy room /who killed her? /how? why? homicide adedayo agarau
at the coming of election i hold my heart like national pledge
this is how we insert hope inside pillowcases and follow its music
into the dreamland; how we lip-sing the hymn of
the promise land yet all we have done for decades
is sheer dreaming; how we queue waiting to unleash
the fire in our thumbs: we make this fire to make our food
it turns our foods to live coals, our kitchens to ashes,
our future to infinity. democracy is not the thorn
that tore the garment of our country’s butterfly,
this land is peopled by leaders whose hands swim in oil
any egret that enters exits as a partridge,
is peopled by fanciers of stones a palm oil monger meets them
and gets his pot broken into shrapnel, becomes bathed in it.
and they say if you trade the wares of sands you will
be paid the money of stones. democracy is water is music is aubade
is hope calling our part of the world a container and the stars a series
of holes drilled on its body for breathe-ing in and out.
is a kimono adorned in fruitful elegance
in loyal foppishness to bodies reeking of royalty,
nobility or no-one-ness inherited from mother’s pillaged peels.
this body is a country and my tribal mark is not the only evidence
of my nigerianness, the way fire eats up from the inside
the way we become decaying sacrifices pulling down scavengers,
the scars left on mother’s body after being dragged through six
decades of puddle her body still carries the mud
of independence malady wet and thick,
but her heartbeats are melodies of pre-independence.
my country is in a green-walled autopsy room /who killed her? /how? why? homicide adedayo agarau
at the coming of election i hold my heart like national pledge
this is how we insert hope inside pillowcases and follow its music
into the dreamland; how we lip-sing the hymn of
the promise land yet all we have done for decades
is sheer dreaming; how we queue waiting to unleash
the fire in our thumbs: we make this fire to make our food
it turns our foods to live coals, our kitchens to ashes,
our future to infinity. democracy is not the thorn
that tore the garment of our country’s butterfly,
this land is peopled by leaders whose hands swim in oil
any egret that enters exits as a partridge,
is peopled by fanciers of stones a palm oil monger meets them
and gets his pot broken into shrapnel, becomes bathed in it.
and they say if you trade the wares of sands you will
be paid the money of stones. democracy is water is music is aubade
is hope calling our part of the world a container and the stars a series
of holes drilled on its body for breathe-ing in and out.
is a kimono adorned in fruitful elegance
in loyal foppishness to bodies reeking of royalty,
nobility or no-one-ness inherited from mother’s pillaged peels.
this body is a country and my tribal mark is not the only evidence
of my nigerianness, the way fire eats up from the inside
the way we become decaying sacrifices pulling down scavengers,
the scars left on mother’s body after being dragged through six
decades of puddle her body still carries the mud
of independence malady wet and thick,
but her heartbeats are melodies of pre-independence.
the bridge of salt
no matter how remote the localityelection materials get there steadybut infrastructural development becomesa snail crawling on a bridge of salt.yet, electorates are found multiplying theirfingerprints on the body of ballot papers;they are found flashing cutlassesand election becomes a carnival of bullets.
