THREE POEMS BY ALIYU UMAR MUHAMMAD

THREE LESSONS TO OUR BLACK SONS
First lesson - a tyranny of blue moon swallowing nightfall
The sky stars in zillions - dotted over her skin
And here we belittle- like the spring adjusting the sky to the soil
The earth has been a no-name - without humans
Humans too are void - we have deep fingers and it turns into water
Boys are apocalypse lying between reality and fantasy of dreams
To the lucky ones who survived, even after our death - our names hop
To shade of becoming another story of a new moon.

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THREE LESSONS TO OUR BLACK SONS II

Second lesson - a boy carried the face of his father to the shores of death
Father: let me succumb to light and you will be my darkness
And how he wept - a tune of hyena letting the grey hair
Down to father’s throat, he screams at voiceless
Howling and holding back tears with hands full of blood
Father died in the holocaust, reincarnating sins and grief of outcast
And so he left with anger burning inside the water
Like heavy dusk of green pastures, dirty white cloud
Father is now a living home.

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THREE LESSONS TO OUR BLACK SONS III
Third lesson - be the shade to sky
One day, the sun won't shine when you be the bright
As the strings of the guitar play - the music ascends from your tune
When you hear the air shouting your name
The leaves in our compound dance to the victory of war drums
While the begets not, you are now the shelter warming up the earth
Into existence of breathing without lungs or gills unto the water
And forever Africans unite to the land of God's brethren.

Author’s Biography

Aliyu Umar Muhammad is a Nigerian student, poet, essayist, and spoken word artist living in Minna, Niger state. Aliyu believes in the true home of poetry as the constellations of living a world of stanzas, breaks, and imageries. A member of Hill Top Creative Art Foundation Minna and Guided Minds Initiatives. He has his works featured and upcoming in Kalahari Review, channel magazine, pine cone review, and elsewhere.