It’s 2 days to Val’s and we’re bringing love closer to home. Here are three Nigerian love poems and a link to a love chapbook.
This first poem is passion burning fiercely…
Monkey Love by Harry Garuba
hanging from the branches of your arms
dreaming of bananas,
I long only for things prosaic
things without poetry or fire…
Read the rest of it here: http://www.african-writing.com/aug/harry.htm
We like this next poem because it reminds us of innocent, untainted love – the type that has a young man scribbling lines in class while daydreaming
Love Songs (II) by Emmanuel Iduma
How long did you stand waiting
in dark rooms and Yoga lessons?
Labradors must have sniffed
your air, your being so new.
How long till we found the moon
lurking on the Seventh Dial,
bidding our time, ours,
like errant Byron, his mistress, their sin?
How long did you find me
so open armed:
our our-ness, we-ness
joint-ness, like Newfoundland Oracles?
Let them listen to us
move as though in a trance.
Our wakeness is our sleepness,
vice-versa;
dreamness, lifeness.
Let them find no explanations
for the moon dripping honey,
for you being Queen of France, of boulevards
of memory, of night time domes, mine.
Mine.
But love is not always smooth for everyone…
My Exorcism by Adebola Rayo
If I write or even think one more
just one more poem about you,
I will shoot myself in the head.
Before tomorrow comes, I will
remember the laughter of yesterday,
the love and joy that was our way…,
but when tomorrow comes, I will not
remember yesterday
for it will be the pain of today.
The awkwardness is in itself awkward,
this silence between us. Screaming,
spewing strings of words that loop
around my neck; tightening with each tick of the clock,
choking me to death, accusations.
This silence across the spaces,
spacing me out, echoing today;
we both hurled the heaviest we could find,
(a black eye for you, two broken ribs and a pierced lung for me)
the sharpest, the ones we knew would slice through
flesh, nerves, bone, to strike the soul.
Word swords.
I am gathering your missiles, to build
a shield out of, and weave a thick cloak
so that no more will they mark this soul,
that the wounds on this heart may scar, a memorial.
This fortress I‟m building, your legion will
never conquer.
Yet, when tomorrow comes, I will not
remember yesterday
for it will be the pain of today….
If I write or even think one more
just one more poem about you
I will shoot myself in the head.
For more love poems, download Saraba Mag’s chapbook, Giovanni’s New Room: http://www.sarabamag.com/giovannis-new-room-4-poetry-chapbook/
To keep track of our e-love blog fest, visit:https://farafinabooks.wordpress.com/2013/02/04/write-me-a-love-letter/
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