LitPub

yes to the light  turning, delicate summer— language of wonder,  bone of miracle; I believe in love I believe in longing— somewhere a boy bangs  his fist against a wall—begging  magic to open  up; what does it mean to be lost in the light  of another—to let the rain  touch the stamen & stem—what does […]

May I be the drum. O, let the earth beat me with all its grief— the drumsticks of gloom slapping my hide— but may I still remain the origin of dance.    O, let me claim what was sent to claim me. Let the world beat me with all its woes but let me not […]

My name is Kaldi, the legendary founder of coffee from Ethiopia. I might have died many years ago, but my spirit is on an important mission to Nairobi. Our hero, Jonah the depressed writer and I were united by my friendly poison, which I discovered in the year of Our Lord 850 AD. The truth […]

               PRELUDE I remembered asking a parent of my year-two student, “How is Mohammed? He was absent yesterday and I was worried about him when I heard about the bombing in Bab Al Aziziya.” “They hit our neighbor’s house, Miss Noeme. It was three houses away from us. We had to run and stay with my […]

Ṣesí. T’ọkọ T’aya. Tóyìn. A pause. Ánklùs. This is how I know I am close to home: tarred roads give way to dusty ones narrowed by gullies that claim more of the road each rainy season. The names are of bus-stops leading to Òkè-Àró, a confluence town where my father chose to build his house. […]

I am not terrified  of the dark. I do not know  if the arms of God  would hold me  like poetry has done  every time my floater resurfaces  as I spiral beneath the waves.    When I break, does God break too? Why must I do all the breaking alone?  Look at all the healing  […]

The grey clouds enveloped the valley which nestled the school – an affluent boarding school for boys only. Sandwiched between two hilly edges, the school was part of a small urban growth point that benefited from Nonibe’s historical sites.  The school was  closing for the term that day and the queue was the last group […]

I it all started with a white school teacher  locking  her grade 5 pupils  inside  a classroom a black boy in a corner breathing slowly deeply      by the strength of his own legs frantically  climbing attempting  to escape by way of the classroom window,             possessed by the fight or flight   drowning     […]

but I’ll wash you clean. Bring me the bath water and soap, I’ll have to wash you off my skin          off my tongue                  off my marrows, till you transform into a scum-flow I’ll trap in a bath bowl, un-forgetting to spill the water and the baby into a memory […]

j.w i bless you for training my heart for war for making me believe it’s not every girl who prefers her lover black and smart and whatever e.w i celebrate you like the way a country celebrates its independence like the way our house celebrated the conception of a barren aunty remember in junior high […]