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Voices from the abyss

I wake up in the morning sounding like a cosmic colossal catastrophe
About to unfold
I wake up every morning with a different voice
On some days I sound like agbero* Gbenle

On a day alomo* fraternizes with igbo*
On some other days I sound like the crescendo in the cock crow
On a day the cockerel is smitten with sore throat
On some days I sound like Spider and Rosco

On the day they broke bottles in a fight
Somewhere between Gambari and Patey
I wake up each morning with a different voice
Maybe it’s because

Sometimes during the night, I see myself
Cutting through the icy streets of the abyss
I witness the birth of Spider who was once Ayomide*
Born prematurely into polygamous penury

I witnessed the metamorphosis from larva to pupa
Caught in a web of neglect
Reeking of rotten decadence of decades
I see Abeke at fourteen with baby Abdul Rasak now

Rosco;
Thrust violently into delinquency by pressures of sudden acclamatisation
Hence, the need to belong to a family
He never knew one as he grew

He watched as Scorpion defended his boys
In a way his father never defended himself
I wake up each morning with a different voice
The one given by the streets I have walked on

Voices struggling
to find expression from
The icy streets
of the abyss.

Next articleIrredeemably incompatible
Yewande Akinse (Adebowale) is a Nigerian Lawyer, gifted storyteller, Poet and Author of two collections of poetry titled ‘A Tale of being, of green and of ing..’ (2019) and Voices: A collection of poems that tell stories’ (2016). With over 110 published poems to her credit and counting, Yewande is one poet who doggedly seeks to change the narrative one poem at a time. She won the World Bank YouthActonEDU spoken word prize and Project Knucklehead Prize for Creative Rebellion.

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