Poems by Emmanuel Iduma (Nigeria)

Published in issue 40 of                   The Ofi Press

Staring into Monochrome                                                                                  

After Victor Ehikhamenor’s Adam and Eve

Into monochrome

to find the balance of a voice

I know all things precise must exist

within the lines of a distinctive moment

walking in Ile-Ife

I stared at black bats hanging overhead

and figured they were white misfits

jutting in every direction

yet bearing intricate uniformity

One eye unfolds into another

one circle enveloping its kinfolk

the world around refrains

refracts

is testimony

is memory’s scaffold

the first man

the first woman naked

in a recurring world

the artist sees that his nakedness

like everyone else’s

is dangling

&

public gaze

cannot shun him

he draws it

strings that light bathroom bulbs

pubic hair of history

strands of nature

Like saying in a collective voice

You wear your father’s father’s father’s father’s father’s father’s face

and the artist will respond

so?

he’s moving in a Lagos bus

sitting 49  standing 99

all face and suffering are same

the blank canvas is the voice of a multitude lines

a few lies

it stretches into a dream with nameless figures

The is the outline of 170 million hearts

collected into truncated solitudes

happy sad moments

in the city’s bus

A monochrome crowd is seeking attention

Language must be these grey figurines

that foreshadow incoherence

their arrogant liveliness

their portent harmony

The wedlock of primordial gods

that limp in brokenness behind European sensibilities

the burning pew of brandished Pentecostalism

A rush of lines to the head

The artist knows the world is not flat

its edges have no stretcher bars

things fall apart

for the sake of convenience

we are swimming in a paint bucket

male and female

in the middle of the garden

naked