thekNeworder

In times when collapse, confusion, recession and the threat of nuclear annihilation have become more obvious and in-our-face, we as young people from Kenya, Nigeria and the US with our instant Twitter news, instant coffee, instant milk, and instantly beautiful Instagrammed photos bingeing on our inconsistency, confusion and 'sophisticated ignorance' revel in the lengthiness of brevity; savour the briefness of the distance between our experiences as people express through mutant genres- extensions of our insecurities, confusions and happiness.

[thekneworder]

Peacock

He was starving to death He realised late Ignored to invisibility His new best friend, Paranoia In his ears Loneliness ever cooing comfort So, the first time he had a thousand likes Two thousand hearts Three hundred retweets He fainted and passed on And on his grave they wrote “Here lies him who was killed by love” - teehem

[thekneworder]

Mooning

'Tis our brand of sex Mine ear on her chest Soap music off her heart I head, I heart, atop breast Heave high, heave low I slave below But I king on crest Echo sound non relent Nigh twilight's breadth As direwolves mourn regret. - teehem

[thekneworder]

I really really do like the first few moments of Kaddish. Parallels could be drawn from the offer to play the cello directed at the red shoed lady to the offer made to the prophet in Surah Al-Aqaq. ‘Read! In the Name of your Lord Who has created all that exists. He has created man from a clot of blood.’ I still do like the parallel. The refusal to. Whether this is from an inability to(like the prophet’s), I am not sure. The spelling of the title to the piece is in excess of a ’d’. I am not sure if the creators’ intent was to draw a parallel to the Jewish Kadish.

Regardless, I am drawn to the genuine anguish of the true mourner. The pouring out of this something-like-anguish from the navel of the belly of the red shoed lady in a voice as stout as the Italian(I think) she’s singing in. It is the release of puking. The search for relief for the gut, the retching, the pleasure in the straining to let the diarrhoeal out.

The essence of the Kadish in Judaism is peace to the soul. Peace to the mourning soul. My friend lost her dad some time back. I am guessing the secret to handling the heft of that loss is the peace spoken of. That one prescribed and applied by a hand, decidedly divine, not seen: analgesic for the soul. The peace prayed for is no salve for the pain in the present. I am guessing it is no salve to the reality of non-belief in the nightmare of the reality of the happening. You can see it from the struggle Qudus goes through in the throes of his nightmare.

The waking. The confirmation of your worst fears. The quadriplegy of hope. The loss multiplied by the presence of inability. What do you do when you are unable to do? Do you stare at the wall blank? Do you pray? Are you rendered immobile by your desperation at multitudinous options for a solution? Do you imagine yourself walking from your quadriplegy and walking back to it to stew in it, to stew in your pain, and angst, and hurt despite the miracle of your unshackling by an imagination that has given your lameness wings?

I like the cry that is the song sung by the red shoed lady from the belly of her wheelchair. I appreciate the fact of the running from that mission to play the cello(the divine call) and the sequenced nightmare of debilitation, recovery and debilitation that could, and was, but was not solely due to the refusal to the divine call.

The piece is steeped in the reality of non-linearity of causality. A seguing of characters. Two characters telling the tale, throes of one person. That technical bit had me wowed. No, this is not a review. Just a 'comment on’. Saw this piece last year but was too high on Chivas to coherently talk about it. Goldberg did not infringe on my ability to type this out. Good morning. And big respect to Qudus Onikeku and his crew for a piece that stuck with me for 14 months.

P. S- I hope Mr. Qudus has insurance. As a casual risk assessor and safety professional, I felt uncomfortable with the nightmare on the conjoined stool scene(I admired the art and almost ad libness of that scene!). For the sake of himself and his wife, he should. Please.

-Ndu

[thekneworder]

A Game of Hoes

I love females Sleek, slim, thick and tall Creamy, rich, tasty, brief Love them angles and the curves Love 'em cold, want the warm Want them wet, hot and tingle I'm a story of daily deaths Watching butts wriggle I should stop But will is feeble Father says I sin too much Mullah's frown says too much But I seen too much They say you can't have your cake, eat it Is it sin if you eat and don't hit it? Hit and don't eat it? This weighs too much In my chest and down below How do I prove this? love? It's ways too much All females are snakes For they all hiss Yet I speak for you, you and you You know it's true, true, true This love is true And if you're man You have it too But you'll hate my love pretendedly* I care not Hate this love I want it all Yours truly You're welcome - teehem

[thekneworder]

Daffodil is Colour

Your name is daffodils rolling off lips, tongue- diphthong? You speak in colours, sprouting off culvert where the block of flats grew from somewhere at City Centre Your speech is flower Not flowery Plant your feet in day that ends at Manchester midnight All you need is not this summer

-Ogbeni Ndu

[thekneworder]

I found church on this dance floor The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof Who has won? Is God winning? Is this a God win?

- Ogbeni Ndu

[thekneworder]

This Lagos is When

This Lagos, our Lagos eating our watches for lunch Her lunch: smoked Hublot Lagos dawns gleam like knockoff Rolex. Omega for dinner, exhaus tion. -Ogbeni Ndu

[thekneworder]

Prescriptions of Ends

This brake was to save your life in descending descending depths of depression an autograph of gory was written on page of bridge at Ijora

A cheek bone clothed in skin lays as for sleep dented on tarmac This is no rest Did the doctor write you a prescription for bed rest?

This is no rest A broken shin, a pill of crushed vertebra scattered askew beneath felled okada

Who did the algebra? - 1 dented cheek; A crushed vertabra; A broken shin - All to be taken in the evening with a quarter pint of blood spooling, languid, on rutted Lagos Road

This end inept prescription This end latent blistering This end languid throes leaking, limp.

-Ogbeni Ndu

[thekneworder]

For Ebie

You're the green light in traffic

You cannot be ignored

Oasis to parched lips

My eyes were lured

NEPA in my Nigeria

Each sighting of you

This heart applauds

Putting out this words

Maybe I'm dumb

Or maybe I'm not

Someday maybe

I'll finish this poem

Or maybe I'll not

One thing though

You're who I want

- TM

[thekneworder]

Cruel Summers are Cold Summers : Of Cold Blackpool and Tentative Fur Cues

The English summer is a cruel one. As cruel as Nigerian harmattan to the nose. Those who look forward  to  this kind of summer surprise me like finding ekolo in my bowl of spag.

You note down how writers of fiction from temperate regions of the world extolling the balmy warmness of summer had concocted a broad conspiracy to deal a huge blow to the black man’s expectations.

Summer. Summer. You sly invention of a word! You vile concoction of a freezing, pale man’s kinky fantasy-dream stuck in an eternity of about-zero cum below-zero degrees ambience!

This is white conspiracy at its height! Jesus. Nursery rhymes, children books, temperate writes, novels. All written in the language of frozen digits, fingers tap-typing their fantasies(damascened with hope) into a black man’s reality.

I accept my inferiority, wholly, just like my forbears and Aganga, with his Mosanto, have. I worship the pale man’s God. And his order. And his structure. And his smelly smoking habit. And his cute love for his missing rabbit.

On me way to Blackpool, lover by my side, to revel in the summer of the pale man’s dreams, on a beach of pale gleaming cold sand and waves my mind imagines frozen in violence , via Chorley, I ask myself, ‘Anna’ s ungloved hands, how come it wasn’t frostbitten in the movie Frozen?

What language is being spoken by these Eastern European family with their Nana by their side?

Who are John Galt in my country?

P. S. - It’s Lithuanian.

-Ogbeni Ndu

[thekneworder]

Questions at the Toe-Dipping Edge of Oceans Frank Enough to Interrogate Drunk Women in their Third Trimester, and Everything

...what's a drink to a gourd? What's a gourd to a drink? What's a drink to an Umbilical who does not believe in anything...? -Ogbeni Ndu

[thekneworder]

Rain (Part XY)

Come hither Let me doctor your mind Knead your beating heart To the rhythm of mine Make me your Dibia* And I will bring rain to your southern crevices Along those hidden parts we will till Juices flowing, till will we Till harvest comes Again and once more again Our fire will wed rain as we together one Dig deeper into pleasures Two minds into a full karma Bodies entwined Speaking ancient tongues Time may cease to be But this solemn promise I make I will oh your every ah Till ecstasy is harvested And rain is once more put to sleep.

-TM

[thekneworder]

Rain (Part XX)

You wear lust so well

Too well

Especially when they barely conceal flesh

Your eyes, different tales of pain they tell

Until mine travel south and see the bulge

Yet, the full rainbow of your thoughts

They fail to reveal

Then your fingers break silence

Make conversation

And my deaf nipples peak

Eyes fixed, a mongrel on juicy bone

Paying attention

Like they hear your touch

My lips; a NO they try to form

But somewhere in this discuss

Speech has been lost

Hot all over

Yet, my body predicts rain

Our eyes become silent

Lost in lust mayhaps…

Your hands do most of the talking

And I sense there’s so much they want to tell me

Your tongue, thirsty maybe

Start tracing rain

Up, down,

Down, down, up

Straight into my oasis

Where wetness already dwells

My body has not lied

Rain is come…

- TM

[thekneworder]

Do Not Lie

these always turn to love poems

how honey

always turns up baked into my brownies

or behind your brown knees

listen, do not lie

sex is no more a riddle than cooking is

follow the directions

add a little more of what you like especially

hold what is allergaic

stick a finger in and see if it's still wet

  you are a fertile thicket

they are hard-boiled harlots

calling mother nature a dyke behind her branches

people borrow pleasures

from cellars

in hell

at night

when the sun has her back turned and cannot usher a proper welcome

crawl her under my skin

i desire this girl inside me

says no straight woman ever

however, I have yet to find a young girl

not admit she has once

or twice

or ten times wished to burrow her nose

into another females breasts

rib-caged armpit and knees

please, do not lie

you have found Mecca

and aren't concentrated on getting back

  (these always turn to list poems)

one thing many men cannot fathom is how a pussy

may not want a herculean thing in it tonight

too many woman have lied

suppressed the erotic in them until they've chained themselves to a cellar in hell

three things intimacy is not:

a sin

easy

unimportant

  halfhearted love will not be received here

no more than a half-blood in Compton

  come

sip rain from the ivory grail of my hip

move over my wounds

drag a lantern into my murky grin

go ahead

include

notice

silent hooves on my cobblestone heart

handle it like it is rotted driftwood

carry it like the moon does a wolf's howl

open it

hell

publish a book about it

  just do not lie

cl

[thekneworder]

Absence

"I am awkward with absence  and I wonder if one can avoid it, but all this wondering is just nonsense.  I know that as long as human relationships exist, then presence and absence are to be anticipated. They are inseparable binaries. One makes sense only in the being of the other.” Jacque Ndida, Absence.

I am awfully vexed that a Jacque Ndida could articulate my thoughts so. It itched my lobes so much that I stood, clapped then gnashed my teeth at my clapping. Mr/Ms. Jacque etched my very thoughts in syllables, words and phrases that I thought were solely mine.

Absence is the overbearing presence of the absent. I know this more than any. The absent never could understand how un-absent she is. How the very essence of her absence is the cuff of doodles the perceiver of this absence is saddled with.

To perceive this absence as present is a responsibility. A responsibility as grave as the chastity that is fidelity. It is all the more welcome for in the presence of this absence new, lasting affection, wrapped in patience, could be forged, torturously.

-Ogbeni Ndu

[thekneworder]

Talking drum

I am the drum

I have a voice

Meet my drummers

Their hands they are that lend me voice

They drum me raw

My voice is hoarse

They beat me soft

My voice is not…

As their hands caress

I bleat in leaps      

I know not what I say

Strange tongues I speak

I am that envoy

Who fears no Crown

Hewn from barks unknown

Howl and bark;

I’ll growl,

When tempest strikes the hands I know

My oriki gan-gan (Praise name)

My name, “Gangan”

My dance you’ll learn

My voice, when I lend

O di dan dan (It is a must)

Odi gan a gbo (The deaf shall hear)

-TM

[thekneworder]

4. Fat Girl

If you're a fat girl

hunch your shoulders over

as to hide the rolls of sin on your back

and you'll grow like that

looking like a cave

your shoulder blades will forget what birthright feels like

instead, you will mimic esmeralda's lover

and no other than your father

will tell you your back

looks like the mountains in a landfill

better fill up your cup of self-esteem, girl

because you look like you don't love yourself

the mouth of the cave brings more disgraces to bear

stomach slouches painfully over belt

knees buckle when men pass but fast

better suck in that satanic gut

unclench your shoulders

force a gap between your legs

as to mimic your healthier looking friends

arms slowly coming up to tug at shirt

a silent plea for it to not seep into the creases

what a dilapidated building

this pain dance has made of you

your friends will say: but you don't look that fat

they won't see how much gut it takes

for you to not take a knee to the bathroom floor

and a finger to your throat

your brother will say: but you’re the good kind of fat, shapely

as if there can be a good kind of an insult

wielded to dehumanize millions

your father will remind you of the how you're becoming a gargoyle

they won’t know the pop your chest bone makes

when you try to correct your posture

or how God is healing you

they won't know the automatic vacuum lodged in your stomach

how it still turns on sometimes when you think you’re being watched

none of them will know the Food Addicts Anonymous meeting

and how it plagued your soul

my life in fat girl instances:

8 – my uncles sit around and debate over whether my arms are baby fat that will fall away or my fate

9 – the doctor shows my mother a rainbow chart and tells her I am obese

11 – my aunt scolds me: if you don't like being fat then shut up and stop eating

12 – I kept eating

13 – where were my parents?

14 – when I stole the uncooked hotdog from the fridge & swore I did not

15 – where was God to tell me I didn’t need food to feel alive?

16 – I black out at the dinner table and wonder where my food went.

I had eaten it.

18 – and fighting a cold war with pennies in my palms and mountains on my back catching my reflection in the glass of a vending machine

19 – the doctor shows me the same rainbow chart and tells me I am obese

I want to scream NO!

I am a person,

with an attic full of names and explanations

but who is poised to listen?

It is all irrelevant

for when you're a fat girl

you've failed at the most pressing agenda of a girl – to be pretty

to be eye candy and not eye soar

surely, you've disobeyed God

tearing apart his architecture

with your lack of self control

Now I miss my mother

calling me beautiful so often

Only now I realize why she did that

she knew i'd be bombarded with bullets of hate

and was attempting to love me into a bullet proof vest

Hopefully,

as a payer for a light season

seasons my tongue

in the place of food

will come

evolution

- caira lee