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Mirror of Hope
Doors of amity begin to bellow
In the dream of our homeless morrow
With you, there would be no sorrow
In our land full of terror
Like Oliver Twist, in my dreams I furrow
To hanker this optimistic mirror
That bespeaks of society void of horror
Where violence is akin to a faded mirror
WreTcheD
i sauntered down our old town. now altered to a cemetery, the garden we used to play. two, three, four….&…houses, were wrecked. and the people i left, were asked to make mansions with the skulls of innocent men.
then, it was a garden full of ripped mangoes. now, a cemetery; a black one with hills. i could remember writing my name on the middle tree that drops juice, went to taste its horny, but found blood answering its sugary name.
i then met an old man, & he said the hills which i ride, are the graves of my townmen. and the dew which falls at dawn, is no more water, but the tears of chained, raped young women.
God, onto you i hinge, give me back my name. the dialect i used to speak, is now the language of death. for now, even my name is another name of grief.
Sadland
this is not the end/of the sadland/of the shattered souls/it’s a comma/a painful comma/not a full stop/open your eyes/bend your head/get another empty bowl/there are other tears/left/pitiful tears/of pain/
the sadland/is a poem/from which/in the bowl of my miseries/i picked/listen/it’s a poem/that paralyzes the hearts/that weakens the souls/
the sadland/is a land/where buried men/still cry to be buried/it’s a land/where the sparkling stars/rain fire/a land where a poet/does not have a name/ a land where to rape/is as to kill a pest/that’s my land/a sadland/
Home
to cry
is not a sin
for a home
is a body
we gather
at the balcony
like owls &
we cry
to lose a home
is to become an orphan
a street boy
is what i am now called
my home is a street
where i sleep with dogs
i am jus a herd
herding my home
but they burnt it
not my soul
to burn my home
is to burn my soul
a sheeperd
i am burnt
Salim Yakubu Akko is a Nigerian poet, a writer, and an essayist. He has been published in Trouvaille Review, Impspired Magazine, Arts Lounge, Upwrite Magazine, Scratch Poetry Magazine, Fevers of the Mind Magazine, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, World Voices Magazine, My Woven Poetry, African Fingers and elsewhere.