That day I will dance and shame people. I’d bring a pearly friend there. for rice don’t be shocked If I dance more than the groom when I impress lady friends and her Damn! Leon will dance for the first time and gods will bless our union like theirs. Ruddapoet

hello, i’m sorry i missed your call i’d called back, but dialed an extra 0 forgive me how’s your daughter now? is she yet as strong as her brother? is she as wild at least? i’ll call again without one more 0 my daughter sends her love. leonell echa

Dusk Because the sun now slumps into midnight, His weight willing down the world The same way a four-year-old might pull down Curtains, I am compelled to become crazy, maddened By the inevitability of this soundless, dumb Cul-de-sac inventing sound—the possibility of moths Learning to feel the weight of the wings against their bodies, The […]

Receiver I dream that I’m woken by the telephone. I dream the certainty that someone dead is calling. I dream that I reach for the receiver. Only the receiver’s not how it used to be, it’s gotten heavy as if it had grabbed onto something, grown into something, and wrapped its roots around it. I’d […]

Faisal Lyambee Aorabee —for Abdullahi 1. I saw the wrath of your zipper when we stopped for a piss in Mayo Dassa. The bald kuka tree gave up its birds when you howled in pain and walked back to the bus like a calf singing a strange surah with your teeth. 2. I am tired […]

Snow My father was a drunk. He married my mother the month he came back from Russia with whiskey in his blood. On their wedding night, he whispered into her ear about jet planes and snow. He said the word in Russian; my mother blinked back tears and spread her palms across his shoulder blades […]

THINGS by Fleur Adcock There are worse things than having behaved foolishly in public. There are worse things than these miniature betrayals, committed or endured or suspected; there are worse things than not being able to sleep for thinking about them. It is 5 a.m. All the worse things come stalking in and stand icily […]

all i’ll want you to do for both of us is to be a light be to us a candle burn slow, with humility protect the hearts of light and fluid don’t melt and drip and die on me care less about the colour; blue flame, yellow flame, white be to us a light for […]

the subjects are broken for they regret electing a king who can’t rule his own home one would have thought kings are fed with happenings so they digest his home – a mess; the kingdom too his chief sleeps with the first wife his son sleeps with the last were the gods asleep? how did […]

all I might have hated about myself I read on people’s lips, eyes and their gestures all what a man should not be I saw in people’s daily lives all of who I am and I’m not I’ve heard people conclude; so unless significant I wake up daily to hear, know, see and act like […]