The Shallow Tales Review

Ask these questions Ask these questions to the wind that carries a leaf floating gently in air and settles on a pavement Ask these questions to the sun bathing the…

prancing around the crumbled walls of Gwato, we searched for answers as dripping red torsos leaked questions from men on transit. 3,650 days after the carnage, & these refugee kids…

(A tribute to all widows) As cloud houses rain And soil slurp every drop My heart caves the pain Of Khalid’s death The thirst for love Hits the floor of…

Of the tragic yesterdays Were toxins in the atmosphere Sores in the throat Veils across nostrils Stains in the blood From the wave of the unknown The stranger who enslaves…

Last year quivered us into barren climate, voluble longitude broadcast thick situations across our lungs, we shapeshifted from fragile maggots to calibrated caterpillars, thirst for freedom trapped in our throats,…

Heaven. Fluttering wings in airful embrace Glistening soles garbed in Efun’s crust Like the white man’s chalk – sprinkled on gates in sunspots. Hell. Seat of the cinders of the…

Mother Ochichi, You bare your naked breasts like nectars To the suckling pleasure of your children Whose helpless dehydrated throats seek succour To quell & quench the runnels running thirsty…

(after Praise Osawaru) while I await the Uber driver like a sinner who waits for salvation in God’s house under the scorching sun my eyes record two scenarios at the…

Before you, O’ Mother Earth, Bring we our sacrifices of blood. Blood from painful childbirth, Blood from the monthly flow. Out from the ground of dearth, Our bodies are left…