by Edward Lee
The Blacksmith
Anytime I sketch the portrait / of my country / I come out / like a sword / smothering in a scabbard / all my edges / sharp enough / to divide the country / into tiny fragments / my body mirrors / remains of protests & wars / corpses lined on the ground / like logs of wood / waiting for the edge / of an axe / they say 20 dead / 50 unalive / 70 decomposing / even the land has tasted / more death than life / & the ground comes out / cold at night / afraid how many bones / it will whiten tonight / kid what happens here at night? / an old man armed with swords asks / like he is born again / & new in memory / I won’t quite call it / Alzheimer’s / he remembers the name of the country / I tell him / that at night / the moon falls / into our mouths / & drowns in our stomach / big as it is / we become belly-full / with darkness / with grief / we pull the strings / from our larynx / as if playing / the guitar / odes emanating from our / feeble larynx / ones that have cried our dead / into a safe rocket / & screamed them into haven / & now / I feel I’m describing / a moonlight play / the sort of one / beneath the half moon / I think his body has become / too squeezed with grief / to go through this heat / I stop / in a bid to fashion the story / but he pulls from his sheath / fine blunt metal bodies / one with blood clot beneath its spine / bullet holes amidst its chest / the smell of gunpowder / heavy on its body / another vapourizes with smoke / lampblack oiled over it / reeking of bomb fire / another is bruised by batons / & he’s trying hard not say it / but I think / that in every story / about this land / there was always a corpse / he could identify / & forge into a blunt sword /
Chinedu Gospel is an emerging Nigeria poet whose works have appeared or are forthcoming in Fahmidan journal, Words and whispers, Nantygreens, Eboquills, African writer magazine and elsewhere. He tweets @gospel79070806.
Edward Lee is an artist and writer from Ireland. His paintings and photography have been exhibited widely, while his poetry, short stories, non-fiction have been published in magazines in Ireland, England and America, including The Stinging Fly, Skylight 47, Acumen, Feral, The Blue Nib and Poetry Wales. He is currently working on two photography collections: Lying Down With The Dead and There Is A Beauty In Broken Things. He also makes musical noise under the names Ayahuasca Collective, Orson Carroll, Lego Figures Fighting, and Pale Blond Boy. His blog/website can be found at https://edwardmlee.wordpress.com