Weak
Flight-enabled insect hovers around
the oily surface of the
Marsh beside my
Step-father’s house.
My little brother and his peers,
So many of them, like unfortunate houseflies,
Afloat an uncovered pot of soup,
Slipping down from a thumping knoll
Of sea sand,
Like a dome,
Abandoned by a military officer, whose bungalow hasn’t
Grown taller than foundation level, in the
Last 10 years. The stunted building has
Began to grow green beards all over its
Rough body.
I hear a rumbling; the soldier is peacefully
married to alcohol. The cost of such
Marriage is usually extortionate,
Payments range from
Responsibility, to sanity,
Respect to intellect,
Reflection to perception.
That sort of troubled bliss is
for the stout-hearted,
Not the weak,
A weak alligator, with wounds
On the scaly skin above its two eyes,
Calling along a huge party of flies
slugs from the marsh towards the,
Mound, the many little tomorrows
Are cracking joy, like they
Do to biscuit with their teeth.
I spit tension into the air,
The boys scurry after their scampering
Intuition into,
diverse directions.
I lock myself and my brother inside,
and watch the world from the
Front window, like a movie.
A wiry man, with a tough face, like
A hard-bitten criminal, with
A hotchpotch of grey and black
Goatee,
Appears from the folder of enigma,
A long stick, point-mouthed
Like an arrow,
Lays in his right hand,
He fiercely pierces the alligators
Blade-crested head.
He leaves with the stick into the
bearded bungalow,
Gulps a bottle of fire-water, and
Covers his head with an army face-cap.
And I hear him say “it’s not for the
Weak” after the aftermath of the
Alligator.
D.M Aderibigbe is a 23-year old Nigerian, an undergraduate of History and Strategic Studies of the University of Lagos. His poetry and short fiction have been published or forthcoming in 10 countries, in journals such as Wordriot, The Applicant, Red River Review, Ditch, Kritya, Thickjam, In Other Words: Merida, The New Black Magazine, Black Fox Literary Magazine, Torrid Literature, Rusty Nail, Vox Poetica, Pyrokinection, Commonline, and The Faircloth Review among others. He’s a die-hard Inter Milan fc fan. His poetry is greatly influenced by Poets such as Octavio Paz, Seamus Heaney, Kamau Brathwaite, J.P CLark, Ilya Kaminsky, Natasha Trethewey, Naomi Shihab Nye, Maya Angelou, Gwendolyn Brooks, His Prose owes much to Toni Morrison, Nuruddin Farah, J.K Rowling, Stephenie Meyer, Helen Oyeyemi, ZZ Packer, Nick Hornby, and Helon Habila, and his plays would always be grateful to those of Wole Soyinka and Arthur Miller. His poems have also appeared in a couple of anthologies including the Kind-of-a-hurricane Press Christmas Anthology; Mistletoe Madness, edited by poets A.J. Huffman and April Salzano. He has also seen 2 of his poems included in the 2012 Best of Anthology, Storm Cycle, and his pieces have also been named The Beachies Award’s Most Memorable pieces of 2012.