Poet in the Time of Buhari

Written by Moyosore Orimoloye

Oct 1, 2019

REUTERS

The country is burning, both in dream and in wakefulness-

to which part of the flames must he,

the firefighter,

turn his hose?

I

The poet stares long at the blank screen and the blinking cursor.

His mind wanders.

A century before now, poets stared at blank paper.

Millenia before, blank cave walls.

And before then, the primal poet stared at the darkness

in the face of the deep,

the world without form.

Even though paper and screens are now a bright white,

the space between the poem and nothing remains a vast darkness.

Where will he direct his beam of light?

He is always looking out for his immortality-

the eternal relevance of his verse.

Perhaps, then, he will write about death.

Or maybe the fauna, maybe the landscapes he has seen,

or maybe love-

those things which, for the most part, cannot die.

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About the Author

Moyosore Orimoloye

is a poet from Akure, Nigeria. His poem, 'Love is a Plot Device and your Insecticide is Not' co-won the Babishai Niwe Poetry Award in 2016 and his chapbook of poems, Love is a Plot Device, was published in 2019. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Agbowo, an online literary and visual arts journal.

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Poet in the Time of Buhari

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