
deep the droplets of rain for aloe blacc's "Ticking Bomb" my head's full of loitering ghosts fighting to be called anything but a hoax i reminisce on things yet to happen people shootin' darkness into my sun we are aliens lost in the storm in earth's breath our violins whisper doom say their strings are made from the nerve of a boy who wears the world insideout say the world's vampire feedin' on us to stay alive there's a little dirge in every sound from a piano it says an energy is killed at the punch of each key something must disappear must die in the birthing of another call it sacrifice don't talk about the end of our planet talk about its fears the world's got phobia for mirrors peek'd at one and bowed away rue ate open her searing shame she's a coward never braves to inhale her own fart roaches are long done eating the relics of my patience to a squirrel hurry i fled mama's cervix at the seventhmonth shock still tells me of the tombs i was running to of thesadness a boy was named after still tells me the world's god'sincurable wound my lips grew dumb drained of words till i was five aloe blacc sings in my ear the world's sitting on a ticking bomb i pray it does not explode now i ain't done having adrink my son he hasn't got enough rain yet we're damned to the toil to stall the bomb the timer sings dirge 'bout how one day the world will tire of our bore and slurp herself love's a soothing rain when the timer ticks its last second only love will wet us from burning
unbecoming
i was told i’m the incarnate
of a young soldier shot dead into a river
as the only praise for his bravery
the soldier begs my chi to plant cowardice in my veins
water it till it grows away from the reach
of fire of harmattan
to make his life a road long enough
to reach sunset to reach grand kids
i write impostor against his last name
when asked ’bout who made me
i think of my papa praying wonder
praying in a potter through my mama’s open thighs
maybe the soldier sneaked into the potter’s nails
grandma says she loves me like she did the soldier
she lies beside my chi praying him to keep me
from being eaten too fast too early
her faith gets lost in between
a wolf’s hungry claws and a fleeing hare
a glass plate falls off my hands to the floor gone
a song sung in your mind for long becomes you
i keep trying to stifle it to forget
the song ’bout him gets louder each time
danger tempts a man’s guts
shame that i should be hosted hushed by fear
there’s a cry in the far night a war howl
my hunger runs for a grip on my gun
grandma’s wound opens
her eyes watery the hope in them on its knees
before my chi

Muna Chinedu currently lives and writes from Enugu, Nigeria.
Omodero David Oghenekaro