1. When a virus was dressed in rapture
•
Circa 2020:
How it burgled our country
In the hem of a certain night befuddled
The omniscient among us.
A prelude to rapture, some would call—
I recall. A prophet could not
Document this ambush on his calendar
Of foresight. So much for the unforeseen
That struck like a meteor, with God's
Thunderous wrath, and we fear God
Here than God himself instructs us to—
How we fashion our parade of charades.
I would ask Him who enraged you
To this threshold like a fearful believer.
Right through the earth's cranium
Surged a deep cut, pillaging the grounds
Of Akure beyond its grave— 
About 12 feet. Who burgles the earth 
In her own layers of skin? The wonders 
That never end. Could this succeed 
The seventh world wonder, or it has not come 
To make history, but to destroy 
The humanity that histories have built?


2. The Dawn of Reflection
•
Like water,
I watch the sky descend on me
The yellowish moon wearing a smile
To see herself glow once again
After the turbulence of night
And its dark mystery.

I am her mirror—
Absorbing celestial beauty on my skin.

The sky imitates me
When there's nothing left of it.
Or is it the emptiness of clouds
Waiting to be pregnant of water?

I am everything the sky aspires
To become, that it keeps descending.

That's how you keep looking 
At yourself through me
As you set for the road everyday.

And I watch over you always.
And I never leave you 
To your bewilderment.


3. Inside the doors of my silence
•
I have left my shadows behind—
Was with this dark shield till I
Find my way back. Do not raise
The dead when he finds eternity
Where you refused to lead him.
If I had to go alone to answer
The questions of my blank pages,
I wouldn't need a company.
The roads in my head have always
Led home— places alien to your
Tribe and lineage. My silence
Should not make you mourn.
I am at peace with you, but 
My body revolts against this
Climate staring us in the eye. 


4. Silhouette
•
Lust takes a shape to be known
Where colours become a blindspot.
He once asked his own echoes:
'who is this magic'? when he saw
Her silhouette. She was a hourglass.
And it was eight post meridian
In his dark room— the universe aligned
Time with the shape of this gazelle.
African Aphrodite. Jug at the door step.

He turned the lights on 
And a figment of his hallucinations
Was the imagination that faded
Into the neons of the atmosphere.
He couldn't see the face of 
What he would never resist,
But he knew she was exactly
What he wanted— the magic.
No thanks to the light in the background.
He turned the lights off and wanked. 

---

Tukur Ridwan (He/Him) writes from a coastal axis in Lagos Island. He juggles his expectations of reality and his acknowledgement of the universe's dream for humanity.

His poems appear in Gyroscope Review, Cordite Poetry Review, The African Writers Magazine, Kalahari Review, Rising Phoenix, ARTmosterrific, Art Of Peace Anthology 2019, Z Publishing - Best Emerging Poets 2019, Best New African Poets Anthology 2019 and elsewhere.

He won the Brigitte Piorson Monthly Poetry Contest (March 2018) and shortlisted in few others.

He explores the vastness and finiteness; sanctity and vanity of existence: memories, identity, creation, lust, ruins and loss.