SURVIVAL FROM THE RUINS OF ASHES
In this poem, a house suddenly sinks into the oesophagus of the land / a mother wails, and cries, and God descends rain to cry with her as sympathy. This country has worn people I know different garments of sadness and sorrow, and has outstripped happiness from their body. To be a good son of this land, you have to burn 360 days throughout the years, and celebrate it with your friends, pouring water on your body after every circle of burning. In this way they cool your burnt body to extra burn for another 365 days, I say this life is not balance. Almost every time my clerics tell me to breath love into the eyes of my enemy when he sends me a poisonous snake, and each time my breathe is seized in sleep I intend to meet God for the complaint in my dreams over a misplaced joy. A boy’s body is pulled out from the burning fire as reincarnation from death and I watch the body with passion as it rises like the smoke from a burnt house. I learnt how to reclaim my body from the huggings of grief and say this is not love but lust.
I must not burn with my sadness but pull myself into the house of joy; joy is the laughter happening in a mother’s smiles, joy is a victory that knocked sadness in the ring of death. Survival is not for everyone but one who stood firm to emancipate his mind from the pangs of pain / do you know how the depressed day escape from the fangs of the night ? it begs by loving it, it tells me how a man can get himself freed from the claws of ruin, by loving the thing that wants to damage & destroy it. Burning is undressing the past pain and adorning oneself with another beauty, for a snake only becomes beautiful after loosening its skin…
Ariyo Ahmad is a Nigerian poet and writer. He has poems graciously published and forthcoming in Kalahari Review, Iman collective, Ngiga review, Ninsha Art, Ebo Quills, Mixed Magazine, African Writers Magazine, Upwrite Magazine, Words and Whispers, Olney mag, Nymphs Magazine, Madness Muse Magazine, among others.
He won honorable mention in the Fitrah review poetry contest, and is the Poetry Editor of fiery scribe review. When he is not writing, he finds himself relishing on Khalil Gibran poems and tweets My breathe is poetry🌼🌼 @ahmad_akanni
Banner: Storm Cloud, digital art by Robert Frede Kenter (c) 2021. Twitter: @frede_kenter
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