Abdulrazaq Salihu, TPC I, is a Nigerian poet and member of the Hilltop Creative Arts Foundation. He won the Splendours of Dawn poetry contest, BPKW poetry contest, Poetry Archive poetry contest, Masks literary magazine poetry award, Nigerian prize for teen authors (poetry), Hilltop creative writing award, and other awards. His works are published or forthcoming in Bracken, Poetry Quarter(ly), Rogue, B*k, Jupiter review, black moon magazine, Angime, Grub Street Literary Magazine and elsewhere. He’s the author of Constellations (poetry) and hiccups (Prose), and tweets @Arazaqsalihu. You can also find him on Instagram @Abdulrazaq._salihu
BEFORE THE MUTAGENESIS
My father believed in the gene transformations
So we left the chromosomal alterations to the climate
Nobody had seen a boy with three eyes which means
Boys born into the 21st century only read of the dajjal
And this is not a proper way to say I’m bald
After the explosion in Nagasaki, my uncle said all
The children born near the city had special features
That accompanied their bodies A way to say some children didn’t have strong limbs
A way to say some children had no limbs A better way to say other children wanted
To speak but lacked the stimulus responsible for speaking A lot of things are strange in usual ways
My uncle would allow boys without fingers to mark the territory during our camping
Mother was a white chalk on the face of water Father never believed the rum had much to its name
Mother was a good cook and she wore her apron right Father was never a drunk and believed so much in karma
Mother used to weed the farm of snails Father was an artifact collector in the middle of the Nile
Mother was not much of science woman My brother loved to experiment on genetics
Mother was a Muslim She was not the type of woman that mutation would affect
Father was a beautiful calm butterfly His wings carried the death and spread the joy
Yesterday Brother became the Hulk Mother was the first to name him a monster
Father was second I ran from home through the clouds
A more formal way to say the apocalypse ate from my DNA too
14 YEARS AFTER MY FATHER'S DEATH
The insecurities made me move to Scotland Into the quiet
town of Glasgow Famous for bagpipes and plaids and kilts
I moved this certain gbagyi worship song Into the
My favorites files Not for this cold nor for the loneliness It was
The natural course of beauty It reinstalled my accent
But left the memories of home
Loneliness is anywhere that is not home
The snow fell, It turned
My car into an ice sculpture
Many roads broke Many vehicles survived
Even after the big snowfall
All the boys in college had special clothes They wore on Tuesdays,
Cattle-skin and the warmth of fur on sagging bodies
Still, loneliness is anywhere that is not home
We heard of a ceratopsian
That terrorized the maps of North America and Mongolia
All the residents there ran into the airport and flew in bulk
And all the residents in Nigeria were banned From traveling
To certain beauties of the world I look
Nothing like my father yet I’m the only person
Fit enough to grow into his clothes A lot of things were lost to the
Wild wind that started from the wilderness
Still Loneliness is anywhere that is not home
WORMHOLE
Death is a wormhole And lost is only the beginning of every astral travel
& The nakedness of time is as rough As The skin of the cleopatras in 1678
Rolling our bodies into the light speed Is how we build slow worlds
And Through the speed of light Surpass them I cannot live in a world that feels I’m slow
Because I’m [10 x 6.02x 10^2] times faster than the spaceship
& I’m not too good with keeping to time/ keeping time
After the journey, in the year somewhere between 4560 & 4570 I’m met by faith and have had to ask:
● Did we discover the safe time travel or did we start existing after the discovery
● In the year 2022, did people still think water was a colorless & tasteless liquid?
● Are we still bothered of the apocalypse or have we survive already ?
● Is it safe that we were in the past, pass the present and now, somewhere between the galaxies disrupting normal lab-life?
● Is it a coincidence that the strange horizons look so much like the seventh astral dimension?
● Is this screen-arm technology or genetics?
● Where is our next exploration set to go?
● Are those paper planes you’re throwing into the moonfall or spaceships?
Today, I wake into the rosiness of Aya,
We might survive pass this time for all the January children in trance
& restructure our lives, again, for the seven thousandth time
Any time we have to hit the sky
Anytime we need to let things lose
This is not our home & And Aya Tell me Are we somewhere in the future?
TRANSLATIONS OF LOVE BY 21st CENTURY ANDROIDS
1. Love is everything except the insecurities in your home
2. All the insecurities are what makes the chest a heavy sacrament
3. Love is water, here, heal me. Love is water, here, drown me
4. Love is the only time our bodies became a confluence of beautiful colors
5. Love is your soft-petal-lip caressing the tone of language
6. If a bullet equals death and nothing is blue, then a garden is a graveyard for flowers
7. Here, be engulfed by love, be colorful again
8. Though it might cut you, you’re protected
9. Cosec love = one divided by sin of 60 in trance
10. We all love the triangle; we seek the dust
11. A thousand stardust fell, mother, call us light again
12. Love raised by the power of -2 > grief and its variable x-gene
13. Love equals trust and we’re fallen angels and love equals truth equals Ve Ri Tas equals peace, at least, of mind
14. Your body is not love here sing Glory
15. I carry the cross, this time, for our rose to bridge the distance
16. Destiny, with its misfortunes, eludes my grasp
17. The day that God ignites a lover-boy, then fear my glow
18. Love is no equation of motion traversing all the little places without peace
19. Say, this is glory. Say this is warmth
20. Love is water, here, wash me clean Love is water, dear bot, stay away from love.
JUMMAH MUBARAK
To be in total command is to start this
Ode with As-Salam: the source of peace
& safety. With the exceedingly merciful:
Ar-rahim. It’s to start with Salam, that peace
Be upon all the people I love, all the people they
Love and all the people our prayers couldn’t keep
Us with. The day begins with a crack, my brother
Is somewhere in the bathroom performing ghusl
To cleanse all that may alter his ibadah.
There’s a neighbor already in the masjid, call him
An early bird, those who open the early doors
Are like those that have sacrificed, by Allah, a camel.
I’m somewhere in ecstasy, perfuming myself, bless
The aura, bless the sunnah. If the long walk to the masjid,
Like the circular pilgrimage of worship would cause stain
To my garment then bless the stain and bless my leg’s
Strength. I’m counting my rosary and someone in the masjid
Is praying as many salat as possible and I feel left behind,
Like a bird in flight, angry that it can soar higher.
I’m left outside the masjid with the serenity that accompanies
A successful jummah, my nails know the drill, so does my cutter.
Siwaak in my mouth, yah rabb, cleanse my mouth of morsels
Of sins I may chew upon. I’m craving the Cave, 110 steps away
From consciousness. Alhamdu lillahil lazee anzala ala abdihil
Kitaba wa lam yaj’a lahoo iwaja; bless the book and bless the
Absence of deviance therein. I’m reciting khaf, at the end of
The Surah I’m reminded of shirk, that I never associate partners
With my lord. I’m sending blessings upon the messenger of Allah,
Allah is sending blessings upon me, the cycle goes on, the cycle
Goes on, the day is slowly fading into a Saturday, I’m still at the edge
Of the khaf; the cave, that this day has come, and may we live to
Witness its next arrival—salam be upon all the things we love.
Salam be upon us.