Today, I Spit Them Out Generously – Igbokwe Roseline
I sat and watched the letters break
Off from each word and they were headed directly,
Like an arrow, to the centre of my soul
Every Party is Another Party – Caleb Femi
Let the yout stand there and see us metamorphose
into our parents, uncles and aunties,
see our Miyakes, crop tops stretch into butter-gold
aso-okes that make our walk suede,
a mint November night,
Lens Theory #1 – Abigail Mengesha
Here, a stationed tank and rock barricades. There, one boy’s smirk flashing against the backdrop of patchy fields. Look away and they vanish. Look again and the armed children still look back
Lens Theory #2 – Abigail Mengesha
In the middle of the caving cottage, you are trapped in. In the middle of their one-arm embrace, the girl and her father are also captives. Unlike yours, their shackles don’t break by averting the eyes.
Self Portrait as Brenda Fassie or Jesus as a Bad Girl – Vuyelwa Maluleke
& sometimes I’ll sing at a funeral & a wedding at the same time
so you know, I’ve lived & died & seen it all
like to marry is a woman problem
like in both cases she is the outfit
Turning Bones into Sonatas – Eniolá Abdulroqeeb Arówólò
But there’s another
dimension to this where the ocean doesn’t
puke the whale out of pure neglect. It is
the miracle of hands that grants the
conjurer a success of magic, not his wits.
On The Relationship Between Moon & River & Bass – Ola Elhassan
tonight, I notice your skin in faint moonlight your arm moves slow to the ripple of the bass each percussive thud a different side of skin brought to life
a new dimension now apparent
Based on a True Story – Vuyelwa Maluleke
the woman you borrowed tonight narrows
like a riddle when touched or looked at
& what you are running from cannot catch you here
& what you sow you must hand over to the last song
to the feet half full
Restraint – Hibaq Osman
i wonder if you knew i could do that too?
that in theory (if only just for you)
i am capable the way a cat is
slink without reason, entering lives as we please
just enough teeth to leave a mark
Heart – Toju Lusan
The heart is limited in its pursuit,
valves opened and closed like doors
leading nowhere. What being
designs its own destruction, falls
short of longings it feeds the earth
In Defense of French – Cianga
instead tu me manque means
you are missing from me
[i.e, you first taste absence on a colonizer’s tongue]
no french word for longing either, nothing for
what the absence of Zaire does to me
Born With Partitions – Wale Ayinla
A replica of madness it is when a lamb is coughed out
without the skin of his mother.
History says that these boys are descendants of war.
Nearly all the mouth I’ve kissed pushed an ocean
into my belly
