Mother's birth/journey to grave

She died once more
After she was born. 

The husbands she married 
Were blind, since she gives joy. 

Her children spread;
Convolvulusly but not convolvulus. 

All her breath were shadows out. 
Not knowing she corrode in corral. 

Yet, her children were blind in proposals ;
On whom to titled a father... 

Since 70s, 80s, 90s, 20s, till date ;
All the cosmopolitans enjoyed her hood and goes away. 

May the spider-weavings of her children.
Fall out from their coronets. 
To rewind mother, back alive. 

FATHER AND SON
by Akinnmade Abayomi Zeal

HE traipses in with a souring countenance
and glinting eyes
Having survived jeers and taunts of the wealth drunk
mates
He nurses the bruises of his bullied legs
'Life has gone askew',  he bawled at himself.
'The world has wrenched away from its roost and doused.
While I was more child than now, the world finds peace with me
We used to smoke our candies and lollipops
We were fraternal with different twain.
We bathe in dust side by side with love
And hatred finds its place beneath the  soles of our boots .'

He comes away from his eavesdropping
To school the grudged hapless son :

'Peace! Be still! Steel yourself from grim I plea
I have found a remedy to your woes.
At Better Days College!
You will no longer bandy with your betters!
There you will be gorged with love and clemency.'

Numbed and stupefied he looks.

' Why Better Days?'
I have learnt to love here!'

'I had known that you might know no peace there
I had known that you flock there with your betters,
People of higher race and grace
People of luck with less love for your people
People whose colour of their eyes makes them betters
People whose saves are bloated!
I only took a risk!
I knew you will find no love but lost.
I knew your meager twain will wane you.'

'But why Daddy?'
Why should all this be in being?'

'The world has tilted scrupulously I tell you
You cannot know even full peace at Better Days College.
Not anywhere in the world.
Peace cannot romance with men as beast as they are!
Unlikely my Boy! Unsusceptible!
Less the day these classes are crushed
and made obsolete,
Less these colours of our skins are mere flesh
When men eschew their source and swim into one another,
Less that our worths make us not any better than our peers.'
I affirm :
'Peace for men will be hatred!'

THE WITHERING LOTUS

Our friendship was unique, kind and loyal
everyone wanted to mimic us
Friends from our childhood
We've been wining and dining as brotherhood.

We would dart into a dungeon together, 
We would fight for freedom & success
We supported each other like rhizobia and legumes
To fix our lives to this stage

Climbing each stairs, clearing each steps; 
We would laugh, and lay each other's
problems, to be shared and solved.
But, how come? We're now dissolved
I thought our bond was bound to eternity
But, he's blinded with money and disloyalty grows

He is greedy for gathering money
And we strove to secure it until our success
But he's a snake spitting out white saliva  full of spites.

Our stunning friendship like the moon and stars
has dimmed and quenched
Our white lotus was withering and yellowing
Our pure friendship ended with stain.

10


birth 

after birth



— Christina Chin



veiled in the curse

eve the queen of Eden

a dark symbolic thirst



— Uchechukwu Onyedikam



9


her tornadic aura...

impossible to resist

tumbling into nothing



— Uchechukwu Onyedikam



three boys

and two dogs



— Christina Chin




8


beneath devil's moon

a paradise for outcasts

to hear birds whisper



— Uchechukwu Onyedikam



in a quiet room

midnight séance


— Christina Chin


7


tunnel vision

hope will arise to dawn —

sapphire blue sky



— Uchechukwu Onyedikam



following 

an implosion


— Christina Chin


6


cultural dance

spin to the rhythm

of the djembe




— Uchechukwu Onyedikam



the traditional 

ritual begins



— Christina Chin



5


appeasing 

the incensed goddess 



— Christina Chin



she bends towards the divine

the arc of Ọ̀ṣun

rite of passage




— Uchechukwu Onyedikam



4


perceiving

landslides and floods



— Christina Chin



the pigeons have flown away

soaring in the rising sun

nature's freeway



— Uchechukwu Onyedikam



3


a winner 

on the rostrum… 



— Christina Chin



light of her eyes

swirling around his macho body

with thrust in her heart



— Uchechukwu Onyedikam



2


a record shortest day

as earth spins faster



— Christina Chin



laying trust on the universe

i bid farewell

to the passing trials




— Uchechukwu Onyedikam




1



where's she but a dream?

the beauty as well

a fabled city



— Uchechukwu Onyedikam



emerges and falls

in the river tigris



— Christina Chin

Wrappings in Bespoke, by Sanjeev Sethi, stirs up a heady brew of thoughts and elegant language. 

The very first piece, "Snatch of Schooldays" relates memories of riding the bus to school as a young child. Our protagonist "snakes his way ... contiguous to the leadfoot" to find entertaining classmates as he boards. Written in elevated grown-up language, this piece sets a tone for the collection. The bus is a repurposed military vehicle not originally made to transport children, yet the protagonist finds his way aboard. 

In a similar way, other protagonists in this book find their way into and through spaces that seem not made for them, where they must figure out how to fit. The most notable of these is older age, a stage of life that challenges the poetic speakers on different levels. Several pieces, including "Junior" and "Practitioner" explore the self-perception of aging people and the tension between the joy of accumulated intellectual insight and concern over weakening physical bodies and waning energy. 

Thought, reading, writing, and academic study also loom large in Wrappings in Bespoke. Pieces such as "Movement" and "Selfdom" reflect this, and other pieces ("Avoirdupois" and "Navigation") speak of people connecting to each other (or not) in personal relationships through the language of study and research. Some pieces bring an almost mystical tone to the celebration of the intellect, such as "Leave-Taking," which references horology while discussing the fine social art of the good-bye. 

While rarefied in tone, Wrappings is not without humor. "In Twos" mentions corporate employees joking with each other about hearing their bosses "let it rip." Some of the older age pieces present the physicality of aging in direct and amusing ways. 

While some pieces will require careful re-readings, Sanjeev Sethi's newest collection is not unreadable and will be enjoyable for many people. 

Sanjeev Sethi’s Wrappings in Bespoke is available here from Hedgehog Press.

BLIND MOTHER

I'm one of the children of that mother
With biggest and milky breasts in town
Who lives to feed the adjoining cherubs
But too blind to notice the malnutrition
Which's been drawn in crystal on her kids;
I've been down in the mouth all day long;
I told my mother and did she tell me;
Put in the ground thy ears o' son
And water them with stream of thy eyes!



SAINT

Beloved
On my journey
To thy world
I embark

Beloved
If I reach
There I'll dwell
Till sun dies

Beloved
I am saint;
I am sent
To clean your sin


NIGERIA

Behold,
Here, Nigeria is my home;
Where my parents, family and friends
Are born and raised by different hands
Do we have other place to call home?

Halt, o' brethren
Don't let others in our hearts
Plant the seed of hatred;
Lado, Ejike, Olu we're but family
Let's alone stand to face our face;

Hang on,
The land, where we sang while farming
Is now with our hands turned it abattoir;
Where we slaughter our own brothers
Who live to provide for us the foods

Listen,
Why o' brethren and when again
Shall we regain our senses?
Tell our brothers to put down their guns
So peace would be freed and go everywhere


WEARY WANDERER 


Home my abandoned heart, O' Dija

Let love be its eternal servitude

In your sacred kingdom



Clasp me in your arms, O' Dija

For my limbs grew cold

Strap my aching body to your back



Hold onto my hands, O' Dija

I'm an eclipsed moon

In your starry sky I reshine



I'm a weary wanderer, O' Dija

Take me to your pool

Let's swim and have ourselves anew

Riya and Tamal were very good friends. They both liked each other. Thus at one time they got involved in a relationship. They went to college together. Both of them were very brilliant students, the most brilliant students in their college. The results they achieved in the exam no other student could ever reach. They used to travel after finishing college. They used to visit different places every day. 

Sometimes they used to visit the children's park, sometimes meet on the bridge, sometimes get together at historical places. They thus became close to each other. They start getting to know each other. Riya was from a very wealthy family, but Tamal was not from that good a family. Tamal's family was only a middle class family. Over time they told each other a lot more about each other. 

One day Tamal said to Riya, "Riya, you will never leave me." Riya replied, "I love you so much Tamal. If need be you and I will die together." But it was only in their imagination, it was never going to come true. 

Their closeness could not be tolerated by their friend Kabir. He also liked Riya, but Riya did not like him. Riya was proposed to by Kabir one day, but Riya did not accept. 

Kabir followed them for days. Wherever they went, whatever they did, Kabir was taking pictures of them on his mobile phone. He also tried to find out what Riya and Tamal were talking about on their messenger apps. He decided to hack Tamal's Messenger ID. 

On the other hand, Tamal and Riya were unaware of this.  They went around as usual and Kabir followed them everyday. Kabir came to a decision one day that he would send their daily pictures to Tamal's messenger. Kabir sent the pictures to Tamal's messenger. When Tamal was looking at the pictures, Riya was with him. Riya said, "Tamal you take our pictures every day. You're doing this, right?" 

Tamal then said, "No, why should I take pictures? Kabir just sent me the pictures." Riya sees that indeed Kabir has sent all these pictures. Next day, after going to class, Riya said to Kabir, "Why are you taking our daily pictures, Kabir? I said I don't like you. Why are you not leaving me alone?" 

Then Kabir said to Riya, "Don't you know this Riya? Tamal asked me to take your picture. He used to pay me every day for that." Riya sat with her hands on her head. She didn't understand anything. 

Kabir said, "Why do you like Tamal? He's using you. He doesn't like you from his heart. He made your pictures go viral, because he will ruin your honor, he took the picture with me." Hearing this, Riya got angry and left there and did not go around with Tamal that day. 

Meanwhile, Tamal knew nothing about this. The next day, Tamal came to the college and said to Riya, "Hey Riya, why didn't you come with me today? You come with me every day. And even yesterday you didn't go for a walk with me. What happened to you?" 

Then Riya said to him, "You are not ashamed to tell me these things. You are a great big bastard. You played around with me!" 
"What are you talking about Riya?" said Tamal. 
Riya said, "I'm right. You don't like me, right? You should have said it earlier. I wouldn't go around with you anymore. You played love with me. In the name of love, you wrapped me in your magic. What do you want?" Money want money!" 

Tamal was shocked to hear Riya's words. He said to Riya, "Why are you talking so much, Riya?" 

Riya said, "I'm right, you paid Kabir to take these pictures, right?" 

Meanwhile, Kabir was trying to hack Tamal's ID. Kabir hacked Tamal's ID with the help of a hacker. Meanwhile, Tamal and Riya continued to talk. His friends started saying to them, "What are you seeing here, Riya, what are you doing, Tamal?" Then Tamal realized that these were Kabir's actions. 

But Riya was shocked to see the screenshot of the chat on Messenger! She gave Tamal a firm slap on the cheek. To Tamal she said, "Finally Kabir is right. You have finally ruined my honor." 

Tamal was shocked and said, "No, Riya I didn't do this." 

But Riya didn't believe Tamal. Tamal went home from there. Meanwhile, Riya broke down. She was being scolded by her relatives, her friends were shaming her, she couldn't bear it all. 

A few days later, Kabir proposed to Riya. Riya was surprised and said, "I already told you that I don't like you. And you and your friend did such a bad thing to me. How do you think I will like you?" 

Then Kabir said to Riya, "You have to make a choice. When I can hack Tamal's ID for you, ignite your heart against Tamal, then I can make you fall in love." 

Riya said, "What, you hacked Tamal's ID and made my pictures went viral?" 

Riya returned home crying without standing there for a minute because he did not apologize. Then she called Tamal and said she would talk to him. 

Riya apologized to Tamal in the afternoon. She said, "Tamal, it was my mistake. I misunderstood you. I thought you shamed me, I'm sorry Tamal."

Tamal remained silent. After some time he said, "I can forgive you on one condition. I must love you as before, then." 

Riya said with a smile, "Of course, Tamal. I will love you as before." Then they both joined hands and stopped as before. 

Meanwhile, Kabir could not accept this at all. When Tamal and Riya were returning home, Kabir with his friends stood in their way and said, "You love Riya a lot don't you. When Riya is not mine, she can't be anyone's!" and shot Riya. 

Riya fell on the ground. Tamal was then shocked. Tamal picked up Riya and said he will take her to the hospital. But Kabir and his friends did not let him go. They surrounded the road. They were smiling shamelessly. 

By then Riya had accepted death, before saying just one word, "I love you Tamal. Be well."