The Arts-Muse Fair

            A BALLAD FOR NAREHET There was a time Sweet, sweat time Water turning into wine Spring aborting life Tame and shy There was a time of a shadow and a cross hanging across the road on a bed of nails And so Sybil said: "EineWahrheit, ein Land, einGott!" and we died like dogs "Beautiful dogs!" trying to understand and stand under the regime of middle-aged Gods while nervously sucking rotten milk from Madonna's breasts When we took the sandy path the swarm was beyond Caronte flowing into the heart of darkness into the inferno like a muddy river of sperm mixing with the salty Mediterraneo Among oil stains and fish we swam ON THE OTHER SIDE OF TRAIN TRACKS In the beginning was the Word That ripped the silence with violence; My beginning is screaming with my end Echoed among crossroads of alleys The shades of me Lie in fragments and await Lik...

Pic: Aminu S Muhammad We are trees With leaves that leave Whether seasons beckons Or not We are trees Stretching to the sun In search of chlorophyll For most leaves Are vain and restless We are trees Some floral and full Some scanty and frail And at each dawn We expect the rain We are trees Sown in different soils Some loam, porous or adhesive But then we grow And spread warmth and tranquillity We are trees With contours Deep, permanent or shallow We are trees Trying to love ourselves And to pave paths For what we fruits we birth Or love we spread, like roots. *** Zainab Manko is a Chemical Engineer, Writer, and Fashion Designer. An adventurer and a carefree butterfly, she is shy in her own way and loves deep thinking.  

Pic: Aminu S Muhammad GENESIS in the beginning there was music of moaning and of a creaking bed his lips quivered not with fever but with minty words her lids slid shut not in sleep but in daydream there was light from the mercury-vapoured lamp coating the sparsely furnished room in a blue film                  in the beginning I was there on that creation night crouching at the edge of the room aghast as I watched the duo spin the potter’s wheel mixing water and clay moulding me into being LIVING ON AS DUST because you loved to sprawl and roll on lawns   to kiss the grasses’ fresh lips and stroke their dewy limbs I demurred when they made to box you and to dump you six feet under the ground because I recalled the night we kissed by the campfire just before you marched out to war how your eyes glowed with the live coals ...

Pic: Aminu S Muhammad I STAND Here I stand in the secret place of my emotions under the shadow of my thoughts wondering: when are we going to enjoy the promises promised by these promiscuous politicians? Grey hair, married to the seat of power Yet, claiming we're leaders of tomorrow, but, when really is tomorrow if the labours of our heroes past seem to carry last these days? Today is the tomorrow we waited for yesterday like a watchman waiting for another day; We've been positioned to write night test with bloody ink putting us up to sit and think - CHANGE: truly a constant in life's equation. But, how do we fight this frustration forming fuming fuse of hatred and religion? We get started from the beginning like *Dó ré mí* scoring spitted words the way it should be; discarding sounds of silence buried in voices of audible men For "we begin to die when we remain silent to things that matter" Martin Luth...

''ITELE'' To the dusk whose sun, refuse to set while mystery clouds embrace it's vest. When faint lines with dazzling stars come bold to stand amidst the amphora's arm while shelves without books, shed ignorance with their dusty eyes they will see your rays Even dark clouds that trail your kerb to sink her casted shadows on your moonwalk steps, will see your rays. I   Y A   M   I      A   J   E This fallen breast Raised thousand clans The pains which danced around My little waist brought your fathers to life Your Ancestry is written With wrinkles on my forehead And your history is sketched On my simian line I was, before darkness I was, before light I waited for the birth of moonlight And I witnessed my shadow's death But forget this not That you share my strength For your umbilical cord Ties us abound one path And your generations shall Pay tr...