The Arts-Muse Fair

Pic: Aminu S Muhammad BETRAYAL The heart betrays, pretends to be stoic in its unfailing rhythms, yet reduces to inchoate stutters at the smell of perfume. Alien may be signature scent, but this heart falters at the memory of how you define and own this Thiery Muggler creation. The nose is accomplice here, deciphering the scent's various components, perfume, alcohol, an 'other' smell; the indelible scent of you. the nose betrays at the aroma of food too... Afang, spliced with Cameroon pepper or Nsukka yellow, and heavy helpings of periwinkles and dry catfish, escorted with baby-bum-smooth fufu. Achi-thickened Oha, sweetened with a slight splash of mfangadusa, but no ogiri. This nose perceives you instead of Abak Atama, spread lavishly, on soft rice. All with just a bit too much salt – the way you like it. In this, the mouth is accomplice too, attempting to acquire your tastes in your absence, smiling that sardon

            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 Like an agonizing patie

The  sound and fury  of Silence  Or Is Sheikh Shakespeare? Introduction Before he was forced to commit suicide in 399 BC for impiety and corrupting the youth, Socrates reminded his accusers that, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” 2. Sheikh Umar Dada Paiko seems to have reached the same conclusion in  aphthongs , his first poetry collection. It is a finely crafted work, part warning, part epitaph.  3. The book looks at our lust for life, the lies and illusions and vanities we pursue with such vigor and how they attenuate our vision, and concludes that we are on the path to perdition.  4. I am immediately reminded of Shakespheare’s Macbeth in that famous soliloquy over the death of his wife, the infamous, irredeemable Lady Macbeth, when he said, all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death.  Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by