In Leave
By Fatihah QuadriPoetry

You were asleep when you were born, in my hand, your reflection split into two. The men who were hired to forsake your silence brought drums & took you out to it. I looked back at you interror, swearing by the stars. 

Efiko Mag Image for Shitta Faruq Poem
The Journeyman
By Khanya Mtshali | Peotry

He brought an honesty to work deemed unskilled and menial. A self-respect that towered over the egos of overlords occupying fancy positions, in a hierarchy of thanklessness. He had to work.

Efiko Mag - Image for Othuke Umukoro Poem
Joy is Coming
By Jimoh Abdullah | Poetry

& though I have lived so long in darkness, tonight I climb out of the cave to look up at the moonlit sky who sees me first and smiles. God knows, happiness and the sky long to see me

My Father Renamed Himself
By Nurain Ọládèjì | Poetry

A child’s need to be chased, to hide and be found time and again, is why my father is the ghost stalking my dreams. When I was a child, hunting for where to hide and wait for my friends…

 

Efiko Mag Image for Shitta Faruq Poem
Portraiture of Belief Eating at the Flesh of a Man’s Reasoning
Musa Abduljalal Aliyu | Peotry

My brother, held tight to his belief like a limpet holding onto algae, chewing it off a hard rock. So when he joined Boko Haram, we…

Efiko Mag - Image for Othuke Umukoro Poem
Bouquet
By Ahmed Hussain | Poetry

I am a sun, rising over a field of hays but once, I was a rose flower blooming amidst leaves of faded greens. For centuries…

My Therapist Kept Smiling At My Tricks
By Chinua Ezenwa-Ohaeto | Poetry

I have picked ripe and rotten mangoes by the flag and made them into a mosaic:
let everyone know about the…

Efiko Mag Image for Shitta Faruq Poem
To A Poetry Editor About Weightless Gravity
By Shitta Faruq | Poetry

In this poem, i remain a dog, barking at the unseen in the middle of the night,
Measuring its agitations by a quadratic formula,…

Efiko Mag - Image for Othuke Umukoro Poem
Collocation, Saudade 
By Othuke Umukoro | Poetry

In the grand canyon of things, have I been calling to dry sprigs, descending into sediment like infauna? Late at night making love,…

Two coloured drops
Mourning
By Amina Akinola | Poetry

for R, in memory of Domo A few hours later, you were trying to rebuke grief. You smiled, leg-working, lori iro to the rhythm of…

 

 

My Loneliness Is Killing Me
By Warsan Shire | Poetry

He smokes until he sees something moving in the smoke, remembers Joy like blindness: swimming at Jazeera Beach, gorging on…

 

War
By Samuel A. Adeyemi | Poetry

When they walked into the cathedral, God watched them walk. When the bullets prepared to  leave the gun, they left the…

Little Inhabitants
By Ernest Ogunyemi | Poetry

The poet wakes in the middle of the night to find that his room, Barely enough for his lean body, is a megacity for the little…