This month we offer lemonade bears, a new destiny of dew, and dug up gardens.
In May we look at:
dust
Submission guidelines can be found here.
love,
amanda lezra
Editor-in-Chief
Fortress
The dreaded month rebraids grasses from blood-soft soil.
terrain, lambent with trowelful crumbs of light.
we fall into colors as a vestige of loam.
the rebellious mushroom— a canvas for my melancholy.
each green here verbs a fortress,
each o sagging alphabet of lemonade bears
the origin of a plucked dream.
countlessly, I’m propelled by the urge to gravitate
in all of my leguminous strength.
a branch calls me to space as
a bird calls a murder of crow in a garden partitioned
to where I palm dew stains, unfolding a sleight of hand.
where do I fit in all of this magic,
all of this forest levitation?
my loin— a threaded heirloom,
a soft darkness scaring sunlight from its tactics of exfoliation.
a vegetative mess crowning my body.
I cultivate the habit to rot.
my survival, a pathway:
the way I turn dressed clay to an opening for leaves,
for a rustling that knows boundary.
Nnadi Samuel (he/him/his) holds a B.A. in English & literature from the University of Benin. His works have been previously published/forthcoming in Suburban Review, Seventh Wave Magazine, NativeSkin lit Magazine, North Dakota Quarterly, Quarterly West, FIYAH, Fantasy Magazine, Uncanny Magazine, Jaggery, The Capilano Review, The Spectacle Magazine, Contemporary Verse 2, Gutter Magazine, Carte Blanche, Dgëku, Agbówo, Gordon Square Review, Trampset, Beestung Magazine, The Elephant Magazine & elsewhere. Winner of the Miracle Monocle Award for Ambitious Student Writers 2021(University of Louisville), Penrose Poetry Prize 2021, Lakefly Poetry Contest 2021 (Wisconsin), the International Human Right Arts Festival Award 2021, and Canadia Open Drawer contest 2020. He is the second prize winner of The Bird in Your Hands Contest 2022. He got an honorable mention for the 2022 Stephen A. DiBiase Poetry Contest & the 2021 Betty L. Yu and Jin C.Yu Creative Writing Prize(College Category). He is the author of “Reopening of Wounds” & “Subject Lessons” (forthcoming). He reads for U-Right Magazine. He tweets @Samuelsamba10.
A Manifestation of Earth & Flesh
“sometimes, I have visions of dry season manifestations of the soil & flesh…”
tonight, I am taught by a man who separates a ram from
the rest of its twitching body, that the ground we step
on, is a temple, a bank, a witness, a possession, a code by
which the insides of my body were written— I watch his
five year-old son observe the kill, the vivid burst of
blood; anointing and jewel that belongs to the soil; the
tongues of fire –-the glow & shadow on our faces–- the
provision of meat— significantly, what it was that
hunted this animal, that hunts me, that will hunt my
father, that will hunt this man and his toddler, is a
manifestation of earth & flesh: home— a journey of
possession & of blood-worship— by sand mutation, it
is said we become preys of a burning that is, a
translation, the many parts of, bound in ashes, dust to
dust; dust to ashes: a talent of silver here; a measure of
corn seed there; a drop of blood turning a stony patch
of the earth into, a gate of arrival until, the night begins
another purpose; a new destiny of dew & the jewel
beneath— the holy ghost says all that ever mattered is
the meta, a command to bear fruit.
Osy Mizpah Unuevho, intern writer at Parousia Christian Magazine, spends time between Lagos and Minna where he collects poetry, rocks, and photographs. A mentor-member of the Hill Top Creative Arts Foundation, his poetry have been featured in Last Leaves, Ovi Magazine, Pangolin, AfricanWriter, Lunaris and elsewhere. He holds a B.Tech in Geology, but believes in poetry and is at work on his first collection.
portrait of the body as a map labeled terra incognita
you ask me for my favorite flower / & i tell you that
i prefer the kind with roots / the ones that do not start
or end with death / the daisies or the hyacinths that do
not make a god of simple hands / those are the ones that
i like best / because we are clumsy creatures, in the end;
we reach for stars & we pull down bodies / we reach for
warmth & we dig up gardens, whole, instead / what i’m
trying to say, is / the wildflowers have bloomed, & i
wish to join them / oh, the wildness i’d grow,
just to see you / dressed in green.
This month we offer lemonade bears, a new destiny of dew, and dug up gardens.
In May we look at:
dust
Submission guidelines can be found here.
love,
amanda lezra
Editor-in-Chief
Fortress
The dreaded month rebraids grasses from blood-soft soil.
terrain, lambent with trowelful crumbs of light.
we fall into colors as a vestige of loam.
the rebellious mushroom— a canvas for my melancholy.
each green here verbs a fortress,
each o sagging alphabet of lemonade bears
the origin of a plucked dream.
countlessly, I’m propelled by the urge to gravitate
in all of my leguminous strength.
a branch calls me to space as
a bird calls a murder of crow in a garden partitioned
to where I palm dew stains, unfolding a sleight of hand.
where do I fit in all of this magic,
all of this forest levitation?
my loin— a threaded heirloom,
a soft darkness scaring sunlight from its tactics of exfoliation.
a vegetative mess crowning my body.
I cultivate the habit to rot.
my survival, a pathway:
the way I turn dressed clay to an opening for leaves,
for a rustling that knows boundary.
Nnadi Samuel (he/him/his) holds a B.A. in English & literature from the University of Benin. His works have been previously published/forthcoming in Suburban Review, Seventh Wave Magazine, NativeSkin lit Magazine, North Dakota Quarterly, Quarterly West, FIYAH, Fantasy Magazine, Uncanny Magazine, Jaggery, The Capilano Review, The Spectacle Magazine, Contemporary Verse 2, Gutter Magazine, Carte Blanche, Dgëku, Agbówo, Gordon Square Review, Trampset, Beestung Magazine, The Elephant Magazine & elsewhere. Winner of the Miracle Monocle Award for Ambitious Student Writers 2021(University of Louisville), Penrose Poetry Prize 2021, Lakefly Poetry Contest 2021 (Wisconsin), the International Human Right Arts Festival Award 2021, and Canadian Open Drawer contest 2020. He is the second prize winner of The Bird in Your Hands Contest 2022. He got an honorable mention for the 2022 Stephen A. DiBiase Poetry Contest & the 2021 Betty L. Yu and Jin C.Yu Creative Writing Prize(College Category). He is the author of “Reopening of Wounds” & “Subject Lessons” (forthcoming). He reads for U-Right Magazine. He tweets @Samuelsamba10.
A Manifestation of Earth & Flesh
“sometimes, I have visions of dry season manifestations of the soil & flesh…”
tonight, I am taught by a man who separates a ram from
the rest of its twitching body, that the ground we step
on, is a temple, a bank, a witness, a possession, a code by
which the insides of my body were written— I watch his
five year-old son observe the kill, the vivid burst of
blood; anointing and jewel that belongs to the soil; the
tongues of fire –-the glow & shadow on our faces–- the
provision of meat— significantly, what it was that
hunted this animal, that hunts me, that will hunt my
father, that will hunt this man and his toddler, is a
manifestation of earth & flesh: home— a journey of
possession & of blood-worship— by sand mutation, it
is said we become preys of a burning that is, a
translation, the many parts of, bound in ashes, dust to
dust; dust to ashes: a talent of silver here; a measure of
corn seed there; a drop of blood turning a stony patch
of the earth into, a gate of arrival until, the night begins
another purpose; a new destiny of dew & the jewel
beneath— the holy ghost says all that ever mattered is
the meta, a command to bear fruit.
Osy Mizpah Unuevho, intern writer at Parousia Christian Magazine, spends time between Lagos and Minna where he collects poetry, rocks, and photographs. A mentor-member of the Hill Top Creative Arts Foundation, his poetry have been featured in Last Leaves, Ovi Magazine, Pangolin, AfricanWriter, Lunaris and elsewhere. He holds a B.Tech in Geology, but believes in poetry and is at work on his first collection.
portrait of the body as a map labeled terra incognita
you ask me for my favorite flower / & i tell you that
i prefer the kind with roots / the ones that do not start
or end with death / the daisies or the hyacinths that do
not make a god of simple hands / those are the ones that
i like best / because we are clumsy creatures, in the end;
we reach for stars & we pull down bodies / we reach for
warmth & we dig up gardens, whole, instead / what i’m
trying to say, is / the wildflowers have bloomed, & i
wish to join them / oh, the wildness i’d grow,
just to see you / dressed in green.
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