2016 contest anthology chapbook · 2017. 3. 8. · praxis magazine online, 2016 contest anthology...

2016 CONTEST

ANTHOLOGY

CHAPBOOK

Praxis Magazine Online, 2016 Contest Anthology Chapbook

Copyright © Individual Authors and Contributors, 2016

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, retained or transmitted in any form

or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any

information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the

author.

Published by Praxis Magazine Online, 2017

Website: www.praxismagonline.com

Address: Plot D49 Nsukka Street, Garki, Abuja 970001 Nigeria

http://www.praxismagonline.com/


Table of Contents

How not to feel anything – Abdullahi Arebi (Nigeria) ................................................................... 1

Sack for Soul - Tobi Emitomo (Nigeria) ......................................................................................... 3

Love in Kilograms - Kelly Taremwa (Uganda) .............................................................................. 4

A medical encampment 1863 - Kevin D. LeMaster (US) ............................................................... 5

How Dare I - Christy Ogbenjuwa (Nigeria) ................................................................................... 6

Tear Down These Walls – M. Zane McClellan (US) ...................................................................... 7

caretaker - Michelle Angwenyi (Kenya) ........................................................................................ 8

At The End - Oka Benard Osahon (Nigeria)................................................................................... 9

The Veiled Elevation – Zulaykha Umm Muhammad (Nigeria) .................................................... 10

Reflection - David Melville Edwards (UK) ...................................................................................11

Drifting - Ejiro Edward (Nigeria) ................................................................................................. 12

Besides myself – Naggayi Lydia Sanyu (Uganda) ....................................................................... 13

And Still I Shrive – M. Zane McClellan (US) .............................................................................. 14

For the Unmarked Tomb - Ndongolera C. Mwangupili (Malawi) ................................................ 15

A Bluebird for Barbie - Kevin D. LeMaster (US) ....................................................................... 16

New Rooms in Old Houses – Kelly Taremwa (Uganda) .............................................................. 17

Tender - Kevin D. LeMaster (US) ................................................................................................ 18

About the Poets ............................................................................................................................. 19

About the Judge ............................................................................................................................ 20


Page | 1

How not to feel anything – Abdullahi Arebi (Nigeria)

Stand still. Very still

Be careful not to breathe. Not without thinking Do not say a word As he hits your mother

As he hits her again Lest he takes notice of you

This is the only way you will escape pain today Be sure to interject everything

With yes sir, and please When you talk to him

When he comes back from the overseas Be sure not to let him see you cry Or hold on to your mother

Lest he call you weak Lest he tell you

This is not how a man should be Lest he, No, do not think about it

Do not crawl into your mother's bed

During the weeks that he is around It is his bed too Do not whimper

Or cry like a girl When you lay in bed at night

And the shadows taunt you And they laugh at you

And you see faces in every shape Do not give him cause To call you your mother's son

A thing he could never have borne

Do not cry Do not shed a single tear The first time he sends you off to boarding school

And only your mother takes you Do not cry even though everybody else does

And they are much older than you And when your mother visits Do not tell her, that you have days when you don't eat


Page | 2

And last week

A few of the boys Tried to touch you in your sleep In a place place you only just learned the name for

A name that you cannot speak Let her believe

That she has done the right thing Not fighting him And now when you lay down at night

And the shadows come out to taunt you again You will close your eyes

And stay still. Very still Be careful not to breathe. Not without thinking Do not say a word

Lest they notice you The only way to survive

Is to become what you fear So you carry his last name well


Page | 3

Sack for Soul - Tobi Emitomo (Nigeria)

I live in fountain of tears. My fists are the cracks in the wall- they suck leaking veins to regurgitate tar.

Its roof are webs spun from the abdomen of cleaving regrets to hover over my head.

My hairs receive my feet as I flee the cave where lovers meet.

Delilah's scissors has fallen- she's having a fit. Memories catch up with me-

I thought I had found the beauty of living in another being. I:

tuck my soul to sleep. teach my ears to listen for heart beats instead of footsteps.

train my brain to decipher the message that silence brings. master survival in this void called days. fill the emptiness with me.


Page | 4

Love in Kilograms - Kelly Taremwa (Uganda)

Capture his face if you are unlucky in love like me. Make sure when the power bank is charging your phone…your eyes are wide

open.

Make sure as the contours on his face move up and down in pleasure…your eyes are wide open,

you will need this memory to hold unto when he breaks your heart like the rest before him did.

Make sure he goes with his body but you stay with the memory of his weakened face tattooed at the front of your mind. It will remind you that

you took him …to strange places at one time.

And like a kettle about to reach its boiling point …screeching as and wheezing and evaporating with pain and pleasure as the same time…make sure you make a recording of it in the ears of your mind. Guard it jealously

and keep the audio safely so no dust touches that part of your mind.

You love him but you know he will leave you like the rest have. As the power bank charges your phone…just cup the screenshot in your hands. Hold it like a blind man trying to match chin to voice.

Look at the kettle as it surrenders to the heat of the vapor.

On a cold day after he has left you…you will hold on to the memories you

kept of him.

You will see his last seen on whatsapp when he just read your message and ignored it…

You will read his facebook updates and know he doesn’t have you on his mind…

But you won’t block him because it makes no point.

Unless you detach your mind from your memory…or memory from your mind

You will know you lost the man of your dreams.


Page | 5

A medical encampment 1863 - Kevin D. LeMaster (US)

musket smoke rose high in midnight's close air like folds of Carolina cotton and we mopped blood with wounded water soaking the wood floor

a brighter pink

men with big cigars and thick forearms with sleeves rolled to weathered elbows sawed through bone like yellow poplar

chewing through tendon leaving only an uncauterized, fleshy stump

the bloodletting tools were laid out in display, a medieval human drain

they are still tainted from last use ready to extract the poison

that has rendered you unconscious after you were bandaged with strips of old cloth

stained pink from dead soldiers and washed in that same old blood, till nothing is left

but the injured memory you were sent to a ward where

recovery was optional and you close your eyes

shutting them tight against a world where you had to kill everything you loved


Page | 6

How Dare I - Christy Ogbenjuwa (Nigeria)

Basement fluid, Leave it at that It's radio silence.

Stagnant rivers Stoic, solid and round

Never ask how. Curiosity leads the fly to its death But yet again

Curiosity makes us fly as birds. What makes babies cry at night?

What makes oxygen scarce to the dead? Why does the quest for life Drive men to fight till death?

I still can't say. Ancient landmarks,

Rules carved in rocks To pave a road through you Is to break new grounds.

I would ask if I could But how dare I.


Page | 7

Tear Down These Walls – M. Zane McClellan (US)

My tongue is restless. Pressing against the roof

of my mouth. Blocking

my epiglottis, cutting off the flow of my breath,

the flow, in or out.

Leaving my uvula to hang like an empty

wind sock, dangle.

The voice of a mockingbird that never sang

before it strangled. My tongue is swollen

like a storm-filled creek, swollen and pressing, against the back of my teeth.

Leaving scalloped impressions like the shields

of riot police. Trying to contain a river

rushing over its banks flooding into the streets.

My tongue is insistent, my spirit resolute. My tongue is not blind

my heart is not mute. My tongue is my trumpet

sounding the call. It echoes throughout Jericho,

tear down these walls.


Page | 8

caretaker - Michelle Angwenyi (Kenya)

and they’ll keep coming your way till you drop dead. till you pass through every problem and tick it done. pick it undone. your best friends are the ones you once thought weren’t,

but not today. almost like the children in brown uniform,

how oblivious to the presence of their cat they were. the women sat beside it, and i couldn’t tell if they were watching it slink along the sacks

or not. and something happened, or time passed, or something,

and the women are walking the women are walking three abreast, laughing as

someone’s dead father died unnoticed, remembered as the man who would drive those uniformed children back home

when everyone and their big cars pretended they didn’t exist so being ignored they couldn’t look away. today he survives as

the most celebrated man on earth. his scientists, and politicians, and gravediggers alike,

all stop to lay a wreath on his grave. where a cat watches silently perched delicately - once complete, now unfinished. and vanishing,

even while unseen before.


Page | 9

At The End - Oka Benard Osahon (Nigeria)

Come, sit with me. Let’s whisper of old tales Stained brown with age and faded with retelling. Come, let’s rub minds

Like gleeful old palms at the sight of fresh palm wine. Tobacco for our toothless gums and maybe a pipe

For Obakpolor, who has taken to the Whiteman’s ways. Since his return from Burma in that khaki shorts, He has forgotten how to squat to pass waste.

Come, my boy, run to my compound for my mat.

The sun is hot and this mango tree offers some shady promises. Maybe I will let you pluck some mangoes later, eh? The palm wine froths richly at the top,

Whispering songs from the top of the palm tree, Sang as the tapper engages his precarious trek on tree bark to the sky.

Ha, there is kolanut. There’s hope for Obakpolor yet.

Something can be saved from this bleached out ex-soldier. No stories of your war, Obakpolor, or the Indian girl.

She’s probably lacking gums and teeth by now. Good boy. Later, eh? He who brings kola brings life.

Omo N’Oba sits on the throne again. Oba ghato kpere, Ise


Page | 10

The Veiled Elevation – Zulaykha Umm Muhammad (Nigeria)

Around my neck is a placard Your eyes put it there; your smiles are a culprit too, they carved

A stick into my hand. You think I can’t see them (your eyes and smiles)

I didn’t, they are not colorful enough To catch mine

You think I’m a pinch of salt A burden, you doubt and think still

That I am made of days Devoid of the sun rays With no vision to bring to fruition

Since your vision is as it should be,

Can you see my defiant shrug, a template Beneath my shaking head

You search for weaknesses, while you Wear yours like jewelry; you forget I have

Hands, a heart, a brain, and a super mind, A fortress from your vain deceitful eyes

I paint pictures of you, with colors yet to be named While riding on fantasies, yet to be conceived;

I have been to places, yet to be built While writing words, yet to be scribbled Oh, shut that mouth; can’t you see flies are coming?

I have a gift; you need to be blind to see it

But I fail to see, how your vision elevates you Above me


Page | 11

Reflection - David Melville Edwards (UK)

Where are they now? The people who once touched Our lives but then disappeared from view To enjoy endless time off in lieu,

Recompense for the numbered days spent clutched To our bosoms, before love's stems were scutched,

Pounded to pieces by rough edges too Diamond hard for years to wear them through To soft toleration of being hutched

Together, sharing chores and life's little Triumphs, as we have done for decades since.

It's not regret exactly but sometimes Chance will start a chain of thought and it'll Awaken dormant feelings and evince

Reflection that the bell tolls not, it chimes.


Page | 12

Drifting - Ejiro Edward (Nigeria)

Perhaps you have Listened to the beat of a different drama

Losing me

Whilst in pursuit Of another's rhythm

I would Think

That I hate you When I think

Of how I lost myself in loving you

But then I hold grudge

Like water

It glides through my nails And my lips no longer ache For the taste of your tongue

Perhaps

I now dance To my own rhythm

I would rather You dance to another's rhythm

No matter how far measured in distance I deeply belong to myself


Page | 13

Besides myself – Naggayi Lydia Sanyu (Uganda)

I've noticed that I'm besides myself nowadays And not in the good way At least not in the idiomatic sense.

I've noticed that I'm not really in my own head I watch my thoughts from aside

I watch the wheels of my brain turn Without ever seeming to have in them any part. I've noticed I'm not really in my own heart

I only feel tiny tingles of feelings from afar Like someone else is tired

Like someone else is hurting Like someone else is hollow And when they touch me they transfer as much of it as they can

In a light kind of electric shock For me to taste as bit of what they feel.

I've noticed I'm not really in my own soul I sense emotions and opinions hovering somewhere deep inside Like ghost shapes of different colours roaming about

Tormenting not me, but someone else. I see who I am deep down like a puppet locked in my ribcage

My core, my whole being, pulled by a set of strings Doing empty actions and empty gestures That don't amuse the crowd

Now what's the use of a puppet that doesn't amuse the crowd?


Page | 14

And Still I Shrive – M. Zane McClellan (US)

As truth languishes behind the

blue wall, and warps

inside the fearful mind, sheep wander

from the flock unsure of what

wolves they’ll find when heeding

the shepherd’s call.

In the distant pasture, the cattle graze

lowing complacently as they avoid

the moral maze, while dreaming of halcyon days.

Where the grass was greener,

but, then, that was on the other side,

where sins would hide

in cloistered confessionals, and still

I shrive.


Page | 15

For the Unmarked Tomb - Ndongolera C. Mwangupili (Malawi)

(He was born kicking and died fighting: he lived for freedom

and whatever he did he did for freedom’s sake.)

If greatness is height or size;

if prowess is weighed by the applause;

if manliness is eminence and ascendancy; you are an empty bottle.

But if heroism is heroism,

-no shape, no colour, no prize- you are the greatest hero

ever lived.

Your soul is, forever and ever, a beating tom-tom.


Page | 16

A Bluebird for Barbie - Kevin D. LeMaster (US)

we caught it by the spine made it walk straight—upright like a tall, thick oak

we tied a rope around its neck

and walked it through town eliciting remarks about the lovliness of its wing

and how stunning its color

we held it close until it could fly sometimes it would peck us

but we stiffened our necks against it

one day she smothered it in her shirt

the limp neck turned backwards its eyes still open

from the time it could remember the living

life was left unfinished still writhing on the floor

when she took love and held it too close suffocating need and

choking want by its thin

velvet throat


Page | 17

New Rooms in Old Houses – Kelly Taremwa (Uganda)

I feel like a house that never knew it existed till you lived in it These are the emotions I thought were extinct You are the kind of heaven I can’t get enough of

The sin no Pope should risk absolving me of. If my love for you is a parasite,

Let no cure be found for that disease. Even if I told you I loved you and all you carelessly said was …

“It’s a draw” It is the half loaf that is equal to what the Saviour fed his people.

The bigger crime is letting it stay in my heart At least let me be sent to hell for that!


Page | 18

Tender - Kevin D. LeMaster (US)

she always cooked it flat side down until the ventricles

popped through the delicate gray meat

like tiny tunnels that led deep Into the flesh and back again

it must be pressure cooked to tenderize it

the one piece of meat that has tasted everything would melt like butter

on our own tongue

somewhere out there are a field of mute cows silently chewing something

but never tasting it the avenue of flavor

gone missing yet we still slice it

like prime rib serve from the right

and never speak of it again after the plate is clean


Page | 19

About the Poets

Abdullahi Arebi is a lover of literature and a graduate of the Economics

department of the University of Lagos. He writes at www.shadesofourlives and under the pseudonym @the_grey_gloom on Twitter

LifeasChristy (Christy Ogbenjuwa) is a Nigerian born writer and Spoken word poet.

I am David Melville Edwards. I live in a little town just to the West of London, UK. I have worked with computers for nearly 40 years, and I am the author of a

couple of software products, Supernat and PATH (see http://e2-systems.co.uk), plus a novel (http://mybook.to/TheSpiritOfTheAge).

Ejiro Edward is a law student, poet and writer. Love, nature, children, and issues of depression are of deep interest to me. I have love for my country and do not like

to miss out of the little details of life for in it are the quite-essentials of every day living.

I am Kelly Taremwa a female from Uganda. I am a Bio-statistician by profession but I also love poetry. I hope to one day influence the world with my poetry

because everything we do rotates around the words we say, learn and listen to.

Kevin D. LeMaster is currently an avid student of poetry. His poetry has been included in Red Fez, Jellyfish Review, The Lake, Counterpunch, and others including local newspapers. He has served as poetry editor for Silhouette magazine

and prose editor for Twizted Tungz. He has participated in Tupelo Press' 30/30 project twice, was nominated for a Pushcart prize for his work in "Rubicon: Words

and art inspired by Oscar Wildes De Profundis" in 2015, and has blurbed other fellow poet's poetry collections. He currently resides in Northern Kentucky with his wife, children and grandchild.

M. Zane McClellan grew up in New York where he attended Adelphi University,

was the first African-American to play lacrosse and serve as the Freshman Class President. He studied Psychology before joining the Marine Corps. In July of 2016 M. Zane initiated an international collaborative poem called “Poets for Peace” He is

working on his debut novel, a fantasy that draws on myth and folklore from across the Motherland. Read more of his poetry at ThePoetryChannel.WordPress.com.

Michelle Angwenyi is a Kenyan poet.

Naggayi Lydia Sanyu is a Ugandan computer science student trying to find her way in the literary world, which always was and still is her first love.

http://www.shadesofourlives/

http://e2-systems.co.uk/

http://mybook.to/TheSpiritOfTheAge


Page | 20

Ndongolera C. Mwangupili is a poet, fiction writer and essayist from Malawi. Many of his poems, short stories and essays have appeared in different local

newspapers and anthologies. His stories are published in Modern Stories from Malawi (2003) and The Bachelor of Chikanda and Other Stories (2009). His poem

“the Genesis” was anthologized in The Time Traveller of Maravi: New Poetry from Malawi (2011).

Oka Benard Osahon, is a native of Oredo LGA, Benin City, Edo State. He is a graduate of the English and Literary Studies Department, DELSU, Abraka, ‘08. A

poet, teacher of the English language, academic and freelance writer, he is also an amateur blogger, whose blog offers his sometimes dark poems for the general public. His poems have been published on Visual Verse and Brittle Paper. He

presently resides in Delta State, Nigeria, where he writes at night after work.

Tobi Emitomo is a writer, poet and an editor. Her stories have featured on Walkactive and Hub201. She blogs at www.nimisire.wordpress.com

Zulaykha Umm Muhammad is a midwife and lover of Mangas and Animes. Her favorite character is Zuko, from The Last Airbender series. She sees herself in a

transitional state, as she gleans the art of poetry through the delivery processes of screams from both mother and child. This transition is emphatic with her new

identity in her niqab, a choice that has shown her more art than she hoped to see.

About the Judge

JK Anowe is a 2015 recipient of the Festus Iyayi Award for Excellence in poetry,

University of Benin. Poems have appeared in Enkare Review, Brittle Paper, Gnarled

Oak, Expound Magazine, Poetry Life & Times, African Writer, and elsewhere. He

lives and writes (when he’s not consumed by wanderlust) from somewhere in

Nigeria. His digital chapbook The Ikemefuna Tributaries: a parable for paranoia is

available from Praxis. Discover more about his thoughts on poetry by reading

Chibuihe-Light Obi’s interview with him.

www.nimisire.wordpress.com

http://www.praxismagonline.com/the-ikemefuna-tributaries-by-jk-anowe/

http://www.praxismagonline.com/art-is-free-to-be-purposeless/

2016 contest anthology chapbook · 2017. 3. 8. · praxis magazine online, 2016 contest anthology...

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