Maybe it was symbolic that I had 
Mourned you before you morphed 
Out of your tender flesh. I slept in 
Black clothes. You aborted my sleep
With cries. I roamed around the room
With clenched fist against pain but 
‘Twould be madness to punch the 
Wind. Your mother had this darkness
In her eyes. Her shoulder was heavy.
Motherhood stretched her breasts 
And Grandma’s back bore your body.
I knew the demons were present but
I didn’t know they came with the 
Grim reaper. I’d have prayed in 
tongues through the rugged night 
And teased God to pretend that you
Were another Hezekiah and Grandma’s
Back was the wall you faced with 
tears of supplication for another full
Day to breathe and laugh and eat 
Biscuits and tell Mommy again “My
Mummy, I woke up” 
I hope you remember that I poured
Prayers into your forehead through 
My palms, that night, before returning
To bed. That’s our last contact before
News got to me that you were on 
Your way up, all ready. To and fro the 
Medicine house, we missed the 
Emergency flight of troubled mothers
And back home, ’twas the debris of 
Your being on grandpa’s bed. I once
Cursed death for taking a random 
Kid at Grandpa’s accident. Today, 
Again, I curse death for breaking this
Home like a robber and choosing 
Your body as a window to burgle 
Out joy. Sorrow is the simple song
when  a soul rolls out and the body 
Becomes a dead log. I believed that
Dead bodies could be Adam-ed again
Sustained with explanation that Gene
Mutation and life expectancy would 
Only mess you up for eternal beauty.
Hear, my baby, your uncle is lame
And he can’t defy this art of disappearance. 
Your picture is the background of the
Keyboard I wrote this poem with. 
And like stale morcha, I can still 
Smell the whif of your abandoned skin,
Brush hair with bonds and white 
Round neck you vomitted on — sparing
The blue love design on the chest.
We’re still preaching to your mom
And fumbling for accurate words 
To lessen the pain from the pinch 
Of your death, I mean your departure,
I mean your holiday, I mean your 
Sweet stay in God’s safest palms
Where mortality cannot reach.

---

Psalmuel Benjamin is a writer and poet from Nigeria. He’s got poems and other writings published and forthcoming on digital magazines and prints. Facebook: psalmuel Benjamin oluwasheun, Insta: spokespsalmuel 

Portrait Of Catch and Quest

—this poem breathes:        precision with[out] end. 
searching for reason . man & the finesse of dredging.
the River:   trawl & trawlboat. portrait of catch & quest.
find the depth —naked rostrum of plunging. catch —
artefacts of longing & becoming. tell the River, grace of 
shores. every bound:   the lingo burning to know, bosom
shape of history lingering. paddle & carve fingers in the
waters: time & memories. Isn’t it sprint of souls winding 
in the canvas of time? or the largesse of a poem evolving?
man —pustule of perfection angling in the et cetera of 
being. say, a creel of self spawning in the glimpse of dawn.

I, Decimated Self

elegy:           she appears, 
  breaks the dead &
rocking in         sawdust. 
        fold the sanity —
breaks them. piece & 
pieces apart. —goads of
flesh prodding in grief. 
deserted. —everything 
at hedge of beholding. &
you:         driveling in the
demijohn of self. anesthesia,
    soul off the hook &
ballast. once wore God in 
blotched melanin. & your
heart grappled the pain &
    it pageant away. matted 
& tuft of a kinky spirit —
you & the guts of no glory.

microcosm as a body of death

[for souls throng to the weight of life. & for a poem gazing

                                      the body in fighting arsenals]

splinters of inner voices: 

—he hangs a gaffled breath. holds the grapnels 
of grief in no salvation. say his flesh ripples of  vile 
blood. & light of his becoming alters in darkness.  never
yielding his slouching body a miracle. why is he    an 
anatomy of a suicidal blood? & his soul a   pendu-
lum swung from sanity? the grisly scenes in his head
& the daily ruffled notes soaked of solitude craves  
an escape, the tethering symphony of goodbye. if 
man is an owl, he’ll hoot into night loom. he’ll own  
his soul in crucifixion. & won’t he anguish in drool gasp 
of venom & gall? again, when life happens:  flood as
of Noah’s, absorbs his bawls of fragility. & he sketches 
as an apparition of things in nameless bodies. in 
celestial pedigrees. those tiny echoes raising a fiery blast, 
make ashes of his   protruding force to be & to
become. his head curricles the dream of sepulchres. 
suicidal ideation akin to him as flesh skinned to bone.       
nay, he’s a man. yes, he isn’t a deep water. bet       his 
body bares no oasis but the residue of a living desert. 
pray him a good spirit ‘cause it’s no easy feat to look the 
river without drowning. without transiting to no    return.

nostalgia

of a poem delicate & svelte. of things shaped in the knobs of memory. how we become & became a roadmap of a never ending you & I. perhaps it’s often said [in a soulful lingo] love is sweet with the right person. the right sacred bosom & hearty alley. the sun & moon dazzled. they always gaped at the artistry of our naked desires. say it’s a heaven’s gaze upon two ravishing mortals. I remember. yet if I do, they say it is a love poem. say it’s the art of escaping the universe. & morphing into your same shadows. bet love is spiritual. deciphered by the mouth of two eyes. two flames flickering at the sight of a single spark. you & I against the storm. against roving waters with familial siege. crystal //& pellucid is the heartbeat of a two-to-tango. maybe a poet is a love poem hidden in many couplets. one day a lover will return more than roses but an empty heart to threshold the finery of reminisces.

---

Chinemerem Prince Nwankwo, SWAN IV, is currently a final year student of the Department of History and International Studies, University of Uyo, Nigeria. He is the Poetry Editor, The Cloudscent Journal and an Assistant Poetry Editor, Arkore Arts. He tweets @ CP Nwankwo.