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Amuda Abbas Oluwadamilola | Memories, Or How We Scavenge For Them

PORTRAIT OF A NAIRA NOTE AS A CANVAS

& Meffy said cash, and it went scarceth.
(The Book of Shuffering, 20:23)

I woke up one morning to find Sardauna’s turban turn crimson
— like our minted blood on suffering’s canvas.

In this nightmare,
Zik is a greenish blue statesman, scribbled on fraying paper—
our palms are too cracked to handle.
& the highest shade of grey
that couldn’t paint breakfast
was draped in devilish blue
we ran four -forty for.

So, I paint my own shade of the nightmare.

I stroke the ajami bar to read Babu Kuɗi
And swish black paint over Sardauna’s back
For the pyramids are a shadow of a once greenish myth
And only sacred cows graze on the national ca(sh)ke.

I flip the canvas over. I dab minted suffering// bank queues// POS charges// acrylic deadlines// on Meffy’s signature.

I trekked. I trekked. I trekked.
I stretched my cracked hands to Iya Alakara‘s purse
& froze at the frying shock in her eyes
on beholding my bloodied canvas.

=====

PORTRAIT OF REPENTANCE AS A SUITOR

I
this is the story of how piety wooed yar iska;
that lest she surrendered her poetry to the praise of ar-rahman,
They were the braying of asses and songs of the marketplace
Songs her waistbeads lent rhythm to on sinful nights

II

now piety had his way, mar’atus saaliha was born;
gone was the din of the marketplace in her soul.
an-nasheed became to her, a companion on starry nights
each verse a beautiful arrow striking at its appointed time;
just like tahajjud

=====

MEMORIES, OR HOW WE SCAVENGE FOR THEM

how does a boy exhume a box of butterflies underneath a grave of tainted memories?

does he crack it open with a rusty metaphor/ breathe in the familiar spice of assorted nightmares/ watch his longing for things unsaid flutter between past & present

or does he:

just. draw. lines. on. its. dust- sequined epigraph. like. the. zigzag. seams. of. an. unfinished. poem?

=====
Poems © Amuda Abbas Oluwadamilola
Image: Pexels/OpenClipart-Vectors/Pixabay

Amuda Abbas Oluwadamilola
Amuda Abbas Oluwadamilola
Amuda Abbas Oluwadamilola is a Nigerian poet, essayist, and librarian. A literature major at Ahmadu Bello University, Abbas serves as a correspondent for the Nigerian literary journal Literature Voices and as a campus ambassador for TECNO Nigeria and International Model United Nations. His essays and poems have been published in local and international literary magazines, including The Nigerian Review, Kalahari Review, World Voices Magazine, Synchronized Chaos Magazine, amongst others. A lover of cats, classics, and the African city Ìbàdàn, he tweets @aa_damilola.

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