THE METAPHOR OF A BROKEN POEM
i swam into my father’s body/ coupling my palms/ like a lizard grumbling into mud, into fire & into the verses of/ the poem I never write. // so, I paint the moon / with the colors of stained aisle;/ a synonym for home/ igniting into crimson dress/ like one bathing with red wine. // each time I peep through my mother’s chest/ a city is born, filled with nightmares/ staggering before girls, my age/ that give birth to father// into yet another bowl mother puff her palms to caress the sun. // I remember years before // when nightmares were homeless flowers/ when fire was another home for water/ & darkness was another home for peace; it reminds me of when the moon twice / homed our names in between the lullabies of broken nights/ and the melodies of all that quenches thirst. // This night; the sky is cracking/ homing metaphors of broken clouds/ like an egg cracking or water splashing; // this time is (y)our broken heart(s) blazing / & we’re dreamless stars falling. // falling into fire, into mysteries / & all that homed the language of nightmares.// I’m sorry when next, I homed a home/ we shall gather the debris of our broken hearts together.
BEHOLD THE COLOURS OF METAPHORS
I guess I’m dying within me.Call it crashes, the devil’s smile—
or sprinkle of hazes, of dazes
and tara gazes to how the night
envelope our names within the rinks
and gadgets above my lips.
I hate mouthing the sky into fire,
daring my words like hips-mounts.
I guessed I’m breaking within
the veiled temple of mother’s teeth.
Her gazes falling from
the waterfalling heaven beneath
her wrapper, her butterflying hoops
chastising the lord— one dying
beside her lips, her broken faith.
Sing this song with me. I’m dying— no.
not dying, i’m revolving within
the gun, ambushed to snatch my breath
from my chest. To swallow an island,
home gods with the history of their
broken teeth— gods do, no— thus
is a speaking syllable that
water the portraits of how the morning gods
broke their teeth, to name their death
after the colours of dark metaphors.
Abubakar Auwal is an award-winning teen author of two forthcoming chapbooks: Portrait of gods as Metaphors, 1st runner-up for the Nigeria Prize for Teen Authors (Poetry, 2024) and Portrait of Broken Metaphors; winner, Arting Arena Poetry Chapbook Contest (2024). He was the winner of Splendors of Dawn Poetry and Short Story Competition (February-April, 2023), finalist for BPKW Poetry Contest, NYTH Poetry Contest, & longlist Brigitte Poirson Poetry Prize, Akachi Chuku-emeka Prize for Literature as well as Blessing Kolajo Poetry Prize and others. He’s the Editor-In-Chief at New Voices Magazine, Founder/President of Nigerlites Spoken Word Artists as well as the librarian of Hill-Top Creative Arts Foundation.
You can access some of his works through this link: https://linktr.ee/AbubakarAuwal. Social media: Instagram: @abuba_karauwa, Twitter [X]: @abusaddiq89
Art: Purple Stalk (Rising), an image by Robert Frede Kenter (c) 2025. twitter: @frede_kenter, IG: r.f.k.vispocityshuffle.
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