By Sanni Oluwatimileyin for Jimoh Isiaq
a bullet is a traitor. it begs the flesh to open into a wound, finds home within a boy's body & kills him. here, i am still trying to understand how time blindfolds us with ignorance in the face of a looming bullet, how a boy could be standing by the roadside, his body: a home for little pulses of hope, coursing like blood through tiny veins & in the next moment, he is sprawled on the ground, his cloth —once striped blue-white-black, now red & soggy, as he bleeds out an urn of maroon dreams / into a pool of crimson blossoms. woe on he whose finger sends death on an errand into the thin air to claim the bodies of boys feeding their minds with the meaning of resistance. i hold the image of the dead boy in my mind- scape, wondering if i can stuff life back into his body, wondering if i can undo time such that the bullet travels in reverse into the offending barrel with a bang a bang a bang like the sound of rebellion. This poem is written for Jimoh Isiaq, a bystander who was shot dead during the EndSARS protest.
8 Comments
Ismail Yusuf Olumoh
5/7/2021 10:56:40 am
I can see grief in the poet's soul—heart— by lamenting to the world.
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Faiza
5/7/2021 10:58:04 pm
Beautiful
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Omotola
5/7/2021 07:29:30 pm
This is a poem of lamentation.
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Seriki Theresa
6/7/2021 01:21:44 am
This is elegy at it's peak.
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Osemuche Hope Chukwudumebi
6/7/2021 07:15:46 am
Such a lovely piece. We are indeed blinded by ignorance and only God can save us.
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Praise
9/7/2021 04:16:19 pm
I could feel every emotion in every word as I read this. The poet has skillfully transferred the emotions that triggered this poem. It's such a lovely piece
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Sophia Adepoju
17/7/2021 11:56:32 am
I've always known that poetry had a way of expressing grief and sorrow with the utmost compassion and truthfulness.
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Emike Odion-osigwe
28/7/2021 07:30:54 am
It makes me want to cry. I think beyond the sadness that the poem is meant to portray is the confusion of how such a thing could happen. It's a great piece. May Jimoh Isiaq rest in piece.
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