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Unusual Metaphors | Jide Badmus

Unusual Metaphors | Jide Badmus

Unusual Metaphors | Jide Badmus | Agbowo Art | African Literary Art


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

Photo by KE ATLAS on Unsplash

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