These Feet Are Not Too Feeble to Fly
Copyrighted, Clement Abayomi.
A memory of being mauls
my movement & thaws
out sprouting sinews.
Streaks of searing self-doubt . . .
unforgiving introspections
boil[ing] the blood in my veins.
I'm weary from dreary pasts—
longing to pall a pervious
soil of promising verdure
I gaze at the relics of
decomposing leaves.
I've anchored a long
siege of torments. I begin
to torture my tongue with
prayerful syllables to
silence mocking mouths.
But, a sole is not saved
from bruising its own
soul if painful memories
drag its anxiety along
reality’s thorny paths.
Hear. Countless cravings
become feckless adventures
when burdens begin to teach
falling & fallen feet how to
crawl. Crawl & ferry the body
to an altar of . . . of fateful prayers.
Risen. I watch this body
of dreams transforming
into an eagle. Backing on
the wind. Tempting the sky
with scalloped patterns of
forgotten naivety & innocence.
Dreams are tangled
somewhere in the web
of nature & I build myself into
a river of desires—coursing
through the valley of doubt
& forgetting my fear[s] in
the abyss of memory.
I've learnt to teach my
feeble feet that an eagle’s
flight from doubt is the
anchorage that fills its belly
with a surge of fulfilment.
Clement Abayoni is presently studying English Language at the University of Lagos.
Savannah Serenade
Copyrighted, Ajayi Oluwasegun Samson.
Adésẹwà mi!
You are the glowing moon among the crowd of stars.
My digits crave clutching the silky softness of your caramel skin:
the way a hunter's gun covets the velvet coat of a gazelle in the savannah.
My eyes trail after your lithe torso: the way a hunter runs after his quarry
in the woods. Lure me into the thick heart of this wilderness with your
hazel eyes. Until the sun grows gray. Until your swiftness wanes with
the graceful dance of the evening wind. I swear. I can hunt this game
from sunrise, when your swift feet sweep the morning dew, until sunset
when the gentle breeze of evening fades into a mild & tender night.
Adésẹwà mi!
Shall we sit in the amber heart of the moon tonight,
musing the melody of these silvery rays? Counting the shooting
stars in sighs, with eyes locked in ebullient signs of ecstasy?
If you are my Gazelle & I am your Grassland. Do you know that
every opening in this body is meant to be fed? Come, bend your slender
neck on my tendrils, like a crescent moon. Come. Brush your delicate lips
against my lush grass, nibbling its tender shoots. Come, gaze & graze.
Each bite is a gentle gesture on my green pasture.
Every graze is a serenade in the savannah.
Every caress strokes a soothing melody in the heart of this grassland.
Come, let me spread your velvet coat as my bed sheet tonight.
Ajayi Oluwasegun Samson is a bilingual poet and teacher from Osun State, Nigeria. He has been published multiple times in Ila and other magazines, anthologies and has won prizes for poetry-writing.
The Lonely Passage
Copyrighted, Sola Ajibogere.
Sojourner, you must set out alone
On your journey down
The passage of life, rid self of
Company pointing you all
Dogs' duels,
Cats' calisthenics and
Voices
Calling out to nothing
Along the sprawled passage running
Into oblivion; rather,
Hold as shield your skin
Against the elements:
Against sun's noon anger selling fever
To the passage girdles,
Against heaven's tears selling treachery
To the earth below,
Sojourner, you must set out slowly,
Lonely on your journey into the storm
Ahead, let your eyes be the mind's windows
Guiding you against the hawthorns
And your ears, mind doors
Shutting out all side talk.
About the Author
Sola Ajibogere from Ijesa-isu, Ekiti state, Nigeria, is a B.Sc. (Honours) Microbiology graduate from the Federal University in Oye-Ekiti. His poem, Sun-plea, was published in Eleventh Transmission. The Song of the Evening Harvest was published in Africa Poetry Magazine, and another, Of Farm and Life was published in Nigeria Poetry Magazine. His short story Beyond the Effrontery was published in 2024.
I am a Peregrine Falcon
by Abu Bakarr Meek Sesay.
I am a Peregrine Falcon, the sky my canvas.
I dive, I soar, a master of the heavens.
Beneath me, the city unfurls, a mosaic of motion.
Cars and people stream like ants,
Tiny, insignificant from up here.
I focus on one, a lone figure on the pavement,
Her life a thread in this grand tapestry.
She hurries, head down, unaware of my gaze.
To her, the world is a weight,
A burden she carries with stooped shoulders.
But to me, she is a single leaf in autumn,
Falling slowly, uncertain where to land.
I feel the wind’s embrace,
A gentle caress under my wings.
It whispers secrets of freedom,
Of the thrill in letting go.
The city is a web,
And she is caught,
But up here, I am free
Bound only by the sky,
Untamed, unclaimed, unstoppable.
My feathers ripple with every gust,
The earth far below,
Just a distant memory.
I am weightless,
A soul in flight,
Seeing all but tethered to none.
Abu Bakarr Meek Sesay is an English Language and Literature student from Fourah Bay College, Sierra Leone. He is published in What the Seashell Said to Me, held in the National Poetry Library, London.
Classroom Politics
Copyrighted, Ogechukwu Uzoezie.
In the quiet hum of chalk against board,
we find our rhythm —
a dance of words,
where understanding blooms
in the space between lessons,
the air thick with possibility.
I, the keeper of knowledge,
and they, the seekers of truth,
meet at the crossroads of curiosity
and the silence of their gaze.
No age can divide us,
no season too cold to break our bond.
In the classroom, we are all the same,
bound by the spark that refuses to die.
Through time, we change —
but the love we share,
woven in the fabric of these moments,
remains timeless,
a thread that stretches across generations.
Here, we are more than teacher and student.
We are the future in the making,
always learning, always growing.
And when the bell rings,
the heart still echoes with the lessons we've shared.
Ogechukwu Uzoezie is a teacher and writer from Nigeria.