Ladder
This abode, magnet of ceaseless cleft,
multitude of soles crinkling to baseless fret.
The brawl, a constant whip, the litany
a clockwise prick, flogging lips into servitude
of the graceless, hinges on hefty motet:
To fall but not to fall too deep not too deep.
The ignition, an x-compound for dis-integration,
crystallised into cairns congregating on crania.
This weight, a thing of wild warbles, born
in a web of wonder, or anti-wonder. Either
way, our jaws are left jarring into a jungle
of injustices. Fire comes, we are not anti-ash.
Time comes, we are not anti-memory. Love
comes, we are not anti-melancholy. Flight
comes, we are not anti-arrowhead. We come
and go, coming and going wherever the axis takes
us. Either way, terminus comes, and we are not anti-
dust: Putrefaction and pestilence, fury and filth,
descent to every essence, death to every pith.
BIO:
Osieka Osinimu Alao is a Nigerian writer, poet, editor and academic. He was shortlisted for the Albert Jungers Poetry Prize 2022, First Prize Winner BPPC Soro Soke Edition 2022, and a winner in the Creators of Justice Literary Award 2022 and Second Prize Winner in the inaugural Rhonda Gail Williford Prize 2023. His works are featured in ANMLY, Ta Adesa, African Writer, Rigorous, IHRAM, Kalahari Review, Lumiere Review, Poetry Column NND, and elsewhere. He is @OOAlao_ on Twitter & Instagram.
multitude of soles crinkling to baseless fret.
The brawl, a constant whip, the litany
a clockwise prick, flogging lips into servitude
of the graceless, hinges on hefty motet:
To fall but not to fall too deep not too deep.
The ignition, an x-compound for dis-integration,
crystallised into cairns congregating on crania.
This weight, a thing of wild warbles, born
in a web of wonder, or anti-wonder. Either
way, our jaws are left jarring into a jungle
of injustices. Fire comes, we are not anti-ash.
Time comes, we are not anti-memory. Love
comes, we are not anti-melancholy. Flight
comes, we are not anti-arrowhead. We come
and go, coming and going wherever the axis takes
us. Either way, terminus comes, and we are not anti-
dust: Putrefaction and pestilence, fury and filth,
descent to every essence, death to every pith.
BIO:
Osieka Osinimu Alao is a Nigerian writer, poet, editor and academic. He was shortlisted for the Albert Jungers Poetry Prize 2022, First Prize Winner BPPC Soro Soke Edition 2022, and a winner in the Creators of Justice Literary Award 2022 and Second Prize Winner in the inaugural Rhonda Gail Williford Prize 2023. His works are featured in ANMLY, Ta Adesa, African Writer, Rigorous, IHRAM, Kalahari Review, Lumiere Review, Poetry Column NND, and elsewhere. He is @OOAlao_ on Twitter & Instagram.
