Garden Poem
My mother taught me, every garden starts
with weeding. So to create life, we must first
deracinate. It is our nature to dress destruction
in clothes made of flowers.
Today, I picked a spot to place my garden
and sharpened my cutlass for work. A snake
leaped out of the grass and I broke its head
with a shovel. Minutes later, I found a nest
full of eggs and realised I had crushed a mother.
I buried them all together, broken mother,
and scattered shells. Soon, I will show the world
my garden full of bright green vegetables,
and no one will see the altar of death I built it on.
For every leaf I pluck, I will try not to think
of the bones tucked between its roots.
A mother, birthing life, used to birth life.
The genesis of a garden.
Flower Poem
After Hanif Abdurraqib
In this one, a sunflower is an explosion,
bouquets become synonymous with funerals.
Excuse me for only seeing scars
carved into every sidewalk.
You see, I once watched a man crush
another’s skull on a pavement.
Days later, that place became a shrine,
adorned with bright flowers,
so to me now, a rose is another word for blood,
a daffodil becomes a candle born from mourning.
Forgive me for giving them names they do not have,
but isn’t this is what the world does?
Tongues spray spittle on your face,
name you what they think
you should be.
Where I come from, a man screams,
I am not a knife, and is laughed to scorn.
Here, a woman says she should be allowed
to live, and is rewarded with a mouth full of roses.
Ehiorobo Derek is a writer, poet, and spoken word artist. His work has been published in Praxis, Poetry column-NND, Liquid Imaginations, the How to fall in love anthology published by Inkspired Nigeria, and the How to fall in love again, anthology also published by Inkspired Nigeria. He is also the 2024, co-winner of the Evaristo prize for poetry.You can find him on instagram @derekimagines, where he writes for al community of literary enthusiasts.
