Poet-Today ~ Hussaini Abdulrahim




Questions for the Man on the bridge
and the heart is a whore
the body, her palace of exploits
where men dig into women's skins
while shadows wander through the bush paths of their hearts
like politicians keeping emergency aces
ask the child who died faceless
standing on the threshold where death was the best encounter
whose mother only dwelled in the cozy shelter of denial
that poverty could only kill
but not open a grave of sores and frustration
that a husband who constantly chooses to return home
with sweat and grime and grease
of a sun's leftovers smeared all over his ambitions
does so with the legions in his body in full jolt
without hesitation
without any longing for that fresh scent of another locked in his chest
is man not the demon
or is it the world who navigates his pliant feet
One man who belched truth
said home is like bowing to God
the world hands you no choice
nature reeks of repetitions and conformity
said the bridge is a palace of indecision
where every ponderer stands on the precarious thread between feisty dualities:
love, hate;
straight, crooked;
islam, christianity; knowledge, ignorance;
open, close...
And he willed his mysterious lover
unseen in the air
tugging at his sleeves
while the moon which refused to shimmer
hid his shadow
o, take me to a world of no worlds
where the body do not torch the soul
for the innocence of the flesh.  

***

Hussaini Abdulrahim is a Nigerian writer and undergraduate at Usmanu DanFodio University, Sokoto, Nigeria.

He is the winner of WRR's 2018 Humanity Flash Contest, finalist for 2018 Africa Book Club short story contest, shortlisted for 2019 Nigerian Students Poetry Prize, 2018 Ken Egba’s Poetry Prize and Eriata Oribhabor Poetry Prize 2018, Wordiators Championship 2018 first runner-up, 2018 ANA Kano/Peace Panel Poetry Prize winner and runner-up in the short story category, also joint winner WRR's 2016 Green Author Prize, among others.

Some of his works can be found in the BPPC anthologies: The Train Stops At Sunset (2017) & Citadel Of Words (2018); Brittle Paper's Work Naija Anthology, Vanguard's HIV/AIDS Awareness Anthology, The Wrong Patient and Other Stories From Africa (anthology of the Africa book club short story contest 2018), excetra. 
He believes that words have the power to heal the world of its numerous ills.



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