To A Poetry Editor About Weightless Gravity

By Shitta Faruq

To A Poetry Editor About Weightless Gravity 

This poem is how I catalogue my silhouette into burnt maps.
In it, a tongue ripples like the remnant of an Armageddon.
An after-war. I tell my mom in my dream,
  Dear mother, give me a furnace to heat beat my wounds.
          I chew crumbs of bones, and hold my phone upside down.
This poem is me experimenting
My diction in a funny manner.
Na wa o. I no fit write poems wey dey laugh. Lmao.
          Only a basket of burning and burning.
This poem is a mathematical expression:
         Here, there’s a logarithm of a boy ruined by ill luck.
   He’s log 10 in this equation, equating to a raging fire —
       A house crushed to ashes.
See, Sir.     I used to regret being in the sea.     Or what play does fire make with the waters?       Je ne comprend pas.
       This mathematics is another indices
Where cities that used to grow wings crawl with their skins.
That, is a misfortune of procreation,
Where X² adding to Y⁵
    sums up to a     w e i g h t less gravity, an unfortunate
equation of measuring a boy’s burden on a broken scale.
In this poem, i remain a dog, barking at the unseen in the middle of the night,
Measuring its agitations by a quadratic formula,
Where xy is unknown, and the courage to find it is a mystery.
Believe me, Mr Editor, this poem is a plenitude of scars,
The biography of a lost bird in the womb of the wind. I am failing at giving it
A full stop, because, ending a war is birthing another tyranny, another
bomb blast.
Just leave me alone, Sir, please, permit me to wake up from this dream…

What The Meteorologists Say About Tomorrow’s Weather  

I)

Today’s sun may give way to flood tomorrow morning with 95% of precipitation,

The wind at a higher degree of 52 mph. Houses may fall to the hands

Of the flood, bodies may bury themselves due to the upsurge.

II)

Yesterday’s rain is likely to transform into a sun, but one that invites combustion,

A raging fire that does not smile. The degree of its hotness may be higher than that of

Today, at a temperature of 199°C.

III)

The wind may grow wings to lift bodies into potholes.

It is likely to fly like a sparrow and, like a giant’s legs, crush houses into the sand.

IV)

There may be a new version of rain, one that falls without a full stop,

A rain without a comma, or an apostrophe. It is likely the walls of the streets will meet their death tomorrow.

V)

The cold may walk in, and bodies may freeze to death
Like an ice block. Heat may likely be a scarce commodity.

They stop here to witness the miracle… E