LOVE IN A MORIBUND WORLD (VALENTINE LOVE POEMS) - DAY 4 - Features Salaudeen, Habeeb Adebayo & Tendai Rinos Mwanaka

QUEST

I    I am a caged canary
The urge to sing itches me
Here I am with no rhyme
Oh! Set me free to sing of love

L    I am the legged Cattle-egret
The zeal to dance overwhelms me
But no music to start the show
Free the canary! I need some lyrics

O    I am like a hungry lion
My stomach aches in pain
To devour, I have no prey
Oh come in earnest dear victim

V    I am the lonely love bird
Affectionately filled with passion
I feel of love in solitude
Oh! Come take me chosen one

E    I am the ardent lover
In my heart, your love swims
To hide it, I could not try
In tears, your love flows

U    I am like a trained soldier
In this case, no going back
Headlong I have fallen in love
Even though you’ve got no clue.

© SALAUDEEN HABEEB ADEBAYO  (17/06/2015)

Salaudeen, Habeeb Adebayo is a young man, a poet, playwright and a Critic with great zeal for scholarship. He hold Diploma in Mass Communication, National Certificate in Education in English and Theatre arts. A graduate of Theatre and Performing arts, from the prestigious Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria. He is currently a postgraduate student of Development Communication, department of Theatre and Performing arts, ABU Zaria.

KISSING

Constructing a meeting with her

She weaves an appearance

Allowing the impossibility to enter

South winds of desire rising

Ready to snuggle in cotton candy dreams

She kisses you: brown lips

Dark honey, the sweet lips

Dripped in spit like a newborn thing

Her tongue pushing in, bequeathing

Assaulting each other with love

Your heart is caught on her lips

Your cold, ideal slowly melting

Under her hot particulars

While the moon-red, soft

Inevitable, sizzles around you

It is a full moon rolling down

The stairs, like a heavenly

Body, gliding, crashing onto

The earth, the light, the weight

Of its heat pressing layers

Of your flesh down.

A deeply planted splendour

Burns beneath your breast

You are a teenager bursting

Into his surprising body,

Headlong and you, alive to the light

Telling you of steps to be taken

When the kissing consumes you

You face each other

With vengeance, ripped

Each other’s clothes, rolled

Around in the dirty

And make love like animals

So she is born, and you watch

Born of men, born in need

In lust that is in love

You are her world, she is yours

You have a partner for anything

Competition, copulation

Cooperation, conversation?

Tendai Rinos Mwanaka is a multi-disciplinary artist who lives in Chitungwiza, Zimbabwe. Contracted books coming out in 2015 include, Zimbabwe: The Urgency of Now (creative nonfiction), Finding a Way Home (stories novel), Revolution (poems), Democracy, Good Governance, and Development in Africa (scholarly essays, co-editor), Best New African Poets 2015 Anthology(poetry, co-editor). Other books published, Keys in the River (stories novel), Voices from Exile (poetry), Zimbabwe: The Blame Game (creative nonfiction). He is currently editing Experimental Writing: Volume 1, Africa Vs. Latin America with Mexican writer Ricardo Rodriguez. He is also a visual artist (photography, painting, drawing, collage, video.), sound/musical artist, mentor, translator, scholar, theorist, reviewer, editor, critic... Work has been published in over 300 journals in over 27 countries, translated into French, Germany and Spanish.