ISSUE 7 | JULY 2023 | TRANSITION ISSUE
I.
The sun is on self-exile.
There’s really nothing here
to tickle a genuine smile.
These comic skits, memes
make mockery of our misery
but this is our way
of planting giggles on irrigated soils,
hoping they grow into flower gardens.
We dress our pain in metaphors &
there is nothing wrong with that.
II.
It’s always cloudy here.
Water breaks without warning.
The sky falls into a fit.
We duck at the sound
of laughing steel.
We run, anywhere
our legs lead
when sirens rip suspect air.
The land is on fire.
The land is ailing.
Hospitals hold prayer
vigils before surgery—
light is dire,
fuel is a fortune.
Doctors who are not on
queue at foreign embassies
are on strike. The ones
yet in school are home,
learning to knit
or write poetry.
Jide Badmus
Jide Badmus is an engineer, a poet inspired by beauty and destruction; he believes that things in ruins were once beautiful.
He is the author of four books including Obaluaye (FlowerSong Press, 2022) and What Do I Call My Love for Your Body (Roaring Lion Newcastle, 2022). He was nominated for Pushcart Prize in 2021.
Badmus has curated and edited several anthologies, and his poems have appeared in Disquiet Arts, The Shore, Kreative Diadem, Jalada Africa, Sub-Saharan and elsewhere.
He is founder of INKspiredNG, Poetry Editor for Con-scio Magazine, a mentor in the SprinNG Fellowship, and sits on the board of advisors for Libretto Magazine.
Jide writes from Lagos, Nigeria. He tweets @bardmus