an other coming and other poems–Gabriel Bámgbóṣé
of survival and distance
i
in today’s social order of survival
if you don’t stand six feet away from me
there’s the propensity you might be going six feet down
what sense does this new social law grafted on life make to you
ii
i fear something has happened to me
when stricken by the agony that i cannot touch you
touching you was the only grasp
i had of what’s left of the humanity we shared
i fear i can no longer feel my pulse
neither can i sense the throbbing of your heart
everything seems like unlike poles
willingly obeying the law of repelling what comes too close
to be close to the body of the other
is to be close to the danger imagined to be already there
what in the world is a world
where the touch of the other is a sign of death
iii
i wake up every day a zombie
in a world where the work of death seems to be complete
iv
but you who daily undo the work of death
tearing down its dark veil with your bare hands to rescue what’s left of life
you reassure us that through the needle-eye of your sacrifice
we can lay enlivening threads mapping other deep ways of touching the world
a room of one’s own is a luxury
in this precarious home
we all glue together
whether we live
or we die
there’s no room
for distancing here
there’s no room
for the migrant
there’s no room
for the homeless
there’s no room
for the displaced
there’s no room
for the unwanted
the devastating creation
of an indifferent world
we survive
on the heat we share
with one another
being together is home
a room of one’s own is a luxury
we shall all glue
together
whether we live
or we die
and what is the meaning of distance
for bodies that must cohabit
to stubbornly imagine survival
in this impossible order of existence
there’s no room
for distancing here
but if anyone must die
god, let it be me
please, spare my child
please, spare my husband, too
spare, please, if you can
the husband regurgitates
the same plea to god
both hiding
this forced death-wish
from each other
with the warm laughter
they live by
hoping all will live through
these precarious times
and the child cannot
draw the clear line
between life and death
she was born to hold both
unflinching, in her bare hands
an other coming
these are the signs
that the coming is near
our god is coming back
coming back again and again
[the voice of the familiar
prophecies rationalizing
the draconian work of death
whenever disaster befalls us blares]
but god has already come and gone
they have left the ruins you have made
of the world to you. the world is now
your problem with its fullness of fragments
the disquieting remains of the demanding work of man
coro-nation
the hands of death
gnaw at us every day
not even our dream is free
from its ferocious mockery
of this thing we called life
and now that you have donned
the face of a venomous voyager
spectacularizing your intrigues
coronating your reign of terror
they, who have eaten us to the bones
fearing your hands might touch them, too
commanded us, without thinking about us
to get locked down to be safe from you
but where exactly is safe in this coro-nation
if we stay at home, we risk dying
of another mortal virus already there
killing us in installment agony
and we too have learned to live with it
uncontained, by our daily antics
with the quotidian strain
to hew a life from shadows of death
if we go out there, we risk courting
another angel of death peregrinating
the world, making a mockery of borders
with all its reassuring fantasy of difference
killing from the first to the last
sons and daughters
hunger has knocked down
the remaining will in us
to think of a survival
that is not tangible
because here, all the signs of survival
points back to the valley of death
through which we must struggle
with what meaning life still holds
for the condemned
tornado
the tornado has come
to roost on your home, too
the harrowing cry of death
hangs heavy in the stifling air
on the bloody face
of the simmering sky
the harrowing tears
of these hollowed people
ordered to die in the silence
of their unhomely house of hunger
to flatten the abstract curve
of the outrage of public death
hangs heavy there untended
by the indifference of the monsters
who spread their wings over you
the unwanted sky that must shield your earth
the tornado has come
to roost on your unbearable home, too
even when the rain has for long been battering
the vultures scavenging to live on the edge of life
crafts
bámúbámú ni mo yó
bámúbámú ni mo yó
èmí ò dẹ̀ mọ̀ pébi ń pọmọ ẹnìkáàkan
bámúbámú ni mo yó[1]
statecraft
is
stagecraft
the state is a stage
where demons display
the deadly potency
of their mysterious crafts
bámúbámú ni mo yó …
statecraft
is
witchcraft
demons suck blood
even in the lockdown
to fatten their steel-soul
to nourish their bogey-body
bámúbámú ni mo yó …
tell me, what is a state
when the stakes of life
are nonexistent in its craft
bámúbámú ni mo yó …
they craft
a state
of abjected people
a state
of absented people
a state
of deluded people
a state
of deranged people
bámúbámú ni mo yó …
a state to stage
the witchery
of power and pomp
the witchery
of pleasure and greed
the witchery
of terror and pain
the witchery
of horror and death
bámúbámú ni mo yó …
statecraft
is
stagecraft
for the performance
of
witchcraft
for only demons
can possess the nerve
to devour the sacrifice
of people’s desire for life
on its tragic crossroads
bámúbámú ni mo yó
bámúbámú ni mo yó
èmí ò dẹ̀ mọ̀ pébi ń pọmọ ẹnìkáàkan
bámúbámú ni mo yó
[1] I am filled to the brim
I am filled to the brim
I don’t care if another’s child is hungry
I am filled to the brim
Bio: Gabriel Bámgbóṣé is a Nigerian writer, critic, and translator. He is currently a PhD candidate in Comparative Literature at Rutgers University, New Jersey. He is the founding editor of Ijagun Poetry Journal. Bámgbóṣé’s work has appeared in Footmarks: Poems on One Hundred Years of Nigeria’s Nationhood, Ake Review, Zokalo Poets, The Criterion, Lantern Magazine, BareBack Magazine, Journal of Social and Cultural Analysis, The New Black Magazine, Tuck Magazine, and Àtẹ́lẹwọ́ Pélébé, among others. He is the author of the poetry collection, Something Happened After the Rain.
