Saturday, December 14, 2024

Vandal Vox | Waiting for the Train

Today, not a pigeon in sight. You might think there’s been a hygiene improvement at the station. Yet, the filth is so vast that even a microscope would only reveal what’s already visible to the naked eye. Dirt without a name, from unknown origins, smeared across the stained seats, spreading across the floor like a...

Lawrence Winkler | Big Stuff in The Green Bar

It wasn’t the Youth Hostel. It may have been the same price, but no one was going to give you a daily task, other than minding your own business. The Iqbal was as far from the Fairview, as Mata Hari was to Mother Teresa. For three bucks a night, you didn’t get a window...

Ogonna Annette Onwudiegwu | Shards of Broken Hearts

I was ten when Nana came to stay with us. Dark-skinned and skinny. But for her breasts, she would have passed as thin. As thin as I was. She narrowly escaped. She had a lot of it. The kind that makes you think that God started from her head to create her, taking his precious...

Ismael Hussein | There’s Never Been A Finer Night

Time stood still. Neither one of us moved. The moon poured in through the window in milky white beams. We sat, motionless, held and frozen. “We have to tell someone,” my wife Hawa said after the first hour. “Yes, we must. “But who?” “Yes, who.” Ten o’clock. Ten-thirty. Eleven. We sat upright, awake, taking turns on the edge of the...

LAST MONTH...

Ebri Kowaki | The Igbo Renaissance – Notes on Place Names

‘Kunta.’ I am thinking of Kunta Kinte, from the 1977...

Zizipho Godana | Kitchen

We have been here for three hours. The clock...

Beth Brown Preston | Birth of the Blues

Birth of the Blues Was it Miles Davis' "Kinda Blue"...

Limning British and African antecedents in Omeke’s ‘The Hymns of a Deepman’ 

Title: The Hymns of a DeepmanAuthor: Joshua OmekePublisher: Austin...

Nana T. Baffour-Awuah | Subway Singer

SUBWAY SINGER I watch her pour outthe contents of her...

Katusiime Jeresi | Poop, Mercy, Poop!

There is moss creeping up my father’s wall. Despite...

Amani Mosi | Seventy Kola

Our village rests in darkness, deep as my own...

Marial Awendit | But the Bull Was Goldie

But the Bull Was Goldie What they told you is...

Georgette Uwera Nyiraneza | A Poem

MY DEAREST K My dearest K, Our last letter of the...