Umar Sidi’s chapbook, where this poem is extracted from, is free for download on this site. He is a helicopter pilot with the Nigerian Navy. His debut collection of poems Striking the Strings is coming out with Origami (Parresia) soon. He lives in Lagos.
MARTIN Espada welcomed me with a slap
On my left cheek, he pulled my ear
& tossed me into the ‘Academy of Poetry’ where Gogol
An ancient ape, the Peninsula’s poet Laureate
Sat me up and taught me:
Hukku yyakku huhhu huk
The ABC of poetry & the 7 articles of a poet’s faith
ADONIS handed me the key to
The Peninsula’s treasury.
He spoke through many voices:
The voice of Mihyar of Damascus
The voice of sand and salt
The voice of the blood of Adonis
The voice of the interrupting sky:
It lies inside You, within You, about You, outside You
It is a dense fog of darkness, It is the meaningless(ness) of life
DARWISH led me through the absence of presence
SIMIC bestowed me with love
A girly roach, my queen, the coquette
I sing lyrics for every other night
I took her out on a date last evening
She wore lipstick and high heels
On her seven sexy legs
While I consumed hot chocolate and chips
She sniffed the inside of a breast,
She even ran down, ran up to the next table
For a reason I quite do not know,
The table was home, a dark corner,
The shadow of a tree, a thick flowerbed,
A roomy wardrobe for two septuagenarian lovers
Whose thighs & tongues were interlocked & hands
Busy dipping into each other’s underwear
BILLY Collins was the very last I met
He tied me to a chair and tortured
A confession out of me:
What is P?
When is P seen as P?
Who made P P?
Why is P considered to be P?
When I was leaving, he consoled me with a gift
An apple that astonishes: Good Poetry, he said, is a chick
A voluptuous curvy, sexy chick, with protruding breasts
Heavy backside, an enormous clit
And a never ending quest to go more and more
Her dude is a lanky thing
Equally endowed with a small tiny thing
Some call him a mad man drunk with lust
Some call him a little tipsy thing
Some call him a (teop) please, do not read backwards
You may find him at the beach lying naked
In the sand & lost in a conversation with a dog
A bitch actually,
That has just been xxxed by 7 huge, well fed hounds
You may find him, sometimes, in shorts smoking a pipe
& scavenging through rubbish dumps
RUMI: I didn’t see him, I only saw something of him.
A silhouette, a transparent gel, a shiny crystal,
Probably a holy ghost. He gave me a very heavy
Simple thing, a ring of words
Wear this always on your heart, he said:
A poet is nothing but a universal ambassador of love
SIMIC issued a statement to all budding poets:
Creative insomnia should be a poet’s only shirt
I saw GINSBERG perched on a tree high on dope
Chanting: Holy Holy Holy Holy Holy
I asked him who is a poet & he said:
Holy Holy Holy Holy Holy
A poet is a holy fool
Brilliant
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