promise in my country is another way of gambling lives | Ismail Yusuf Olumoh

(cover photograph direction: Tobi Amida)


promise is another way of drawing

                  bloodlines.

& in my country, we all have a way

of celebrating victory.

 

silence, too, is a language of joy—

read my lips to make words out

of bird’s syrinx, its syntax.

 

on a map, my country is the boondocks

where a mother once cried

for her child unreturned,

& the day after, the water

vomited him, deformed,

like a pallet

of junky food.

 

here, rulers gamble more on lives

than forex, counting the number

of bodies seeding into the ground

like seedling maize, awaiting their

dynasties to harvest:

grievances/

memories/

& pain.

 

autocrat: i promise you free education.

there will be sufficient water supply,

& [fill the brackets].

 

the [ ] is not empty. it’s not full, yet, of promises,

but suffocation, hunger, hardship, & anything

that can wring the spirit out of a body until everything

becomes dry.

 

there is no right here, not even to movement

or life or education or love or vote

or be voted for. & getting back home

in skin colour with sanguine

stain is the language of joy.

 

God will protect you, my mother said, breaking

everything i unknown of tragedy before i left

Maiduguri. dad said, your mother refuses to eat.

God accepts prayer from an innocent child, too:

my brother prayed for my delay against the bandits.


Ismail Yusuf Olumoh
SWAN VII, is a writer, teacher, and spoken word artist pursuing a DVM at the University of Maiduguri. He is the winner of The Babatunde Babafemi Educational Foundation’s Prize for Poetry, 2024. His works appear in Palette Poetry, Eunoia Review, Rowayat, Eboquills, Strange Horizons, and others. He writes from Ilorin, Kwara State. You can find him on X @icreatives0.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Slide 1 Title

Slide 1 Sub Title

Slider 1 Description Text, Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Curabitur laoreet cursus volutpat. Aliquam sit amet ligula et justo tincidunt laoreet non vitae lorem.

Button 1
Button 2

Slide 2 Title

Slide 2 Sub Title

Slider 2 Description Text, Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Curabitur laoreet cursus volutpat. Aliquam sit amet ligula et justo tincidunt laoreet non vitae lorem.

Button 1
Button 2

Slide 3 Title

Slide 3 Sub Title

Slider 3 Description Text, Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Curabitur laoreet cursus volutpat. Aliquam sit amet ligula et justo tincidunt laoreet non vitae lorem.

Button 1
Button 2