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<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Let There Be Light </h2>



<pre class="wp-block-verse">when dark skies ramble their pleas<br>for light,<br>the heaviness in their hearts condense<br>into torrents of tears,<br><br>pent up emotions cascading down<br>their fluffy cheeks as<br>their knees sink to the marshed cliffs<br>in the cracks of gusty winds<br>that breeze their pleas for rainbow,<br><br>they bow and pray that rain goes,<br>—that rain goes<br>and sun strides to the sky,<br>blessing them with a smile,<br>keeping them in a scintillating stillness<br>that echoes warmth through their veins. </pre>



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Remnants of a Dying Compatriot</h2>



<pre class="wp-block-verse">in my mother tongue, <br>the only difference between living and transiting<br>to the great beyond lies just in a tonal variation.<br><br>ilu ku – the state dies<br>iku kù – the state remains<br><br>and after the bloodbath that swept the<br>streets clean with blood and deny bodies<br>the access to their heads and breaths,<br>my fatherland mounts the podium and says,<br><br>eni ku ti ku, eni kù ti kù<br>he who died died, he who remains remains<br><br>and this makes me realise that i have been in<br>nothing but a one-sided relationship with my<br>fatherland all these while.<br><br>baba ku – baba dies<br>baba kù – baba remains<br><br>my fatherland lost its cocooned homeliness<br>the day raging, ravaging bullets stray into our<br>empty bellies tearing through the black<br>mourning clothes that blend into our grimed skin.<br><br>omo ku – the child dies<br>omo kù – the child remains<br><br>if i decide to hoist high the flag of my fatherland<br>but end up losing my breath, a half-mast flag would<br>rise from my stagnant pool of blood and grieve in my<br>stead, and my fatherland's parting words would be:<br><br>eni ku ti ku, eni kù ti ku<br>he who dies dies, he who remains remains.</pre>



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Untitled Letter to the Leaders of My Homeland</h2>



<pre class="wp-block-verse">their overwhelming friendship still never prompts the<br>sun to tell its secret to the sunflower.<br><br>instead, the sun smiles radiantly &; the sunflower<br>responds with a blossoming smile.<br><br>the sun never spiels to the sunflower that he,<br>who blooms the sunflower's petals,<br>also burns her seed in the soil.<br><br>he hides it all behind the smile.<br>perhaps, you're a tutee of the sun.<br><br>he taught you to hide beauty in smiles as well as<br>daggers. so when you mount that podium to roll out<br>the plethora of lies that juts out your tummy,<br><br>you smile radiantly. you breath no word of the<br>havocs you've wreathed upon us.<br><br>but you're are our messiah<br>—or so you pride yourself to be<br>—so we respond with a blossoming</pre>



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<p class="has-text-align-right has-black-color has-text-color has-background has-link-color wp-elements-1a9aaf5bf91758793ea92c5be5db2be3" style="background-color:#f1f1f8">Muheez Olawale is a Nigerian writer whose restless pen dives into inky oceans of eloquence. He won the CEF Poetry Competition and, in 2023, secured second place in poetry at the NIMC Identity Day Competition. His works have been published or are forthcoming in <em>The Muse</em>, <em>Arts Lounge</em>, <em>Writers Space Africa</em>, <em>African Writer Magazine</em>, <em>Copihue Poetry</em>, and elsewhere.</p>
 
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LET THERE BE LIGHT / REMNANTS OF A DYING COMPATRIOT / UNTITLED LETTER TO THE LEADERS OF MY HOMELAND | three poems by Muheez Olawale
Photo by Dhivakaran S on Pexels.com