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<h2 class="wp-block-heading">TO THOSE WHO STEAL GRIEF</h2>



<pre class="wp-block-verse">you who stole grief 
 
&; milked bereaved eyes 
to water your wasteland 
 
what shall you tell them 
when they ask of you: 
"is this your grief?" 
 
can you say you lost 
what was never yours? 
should you harvest tears 
where you sowed no smile? 
</pre>



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading">PERDITA</h2>



<pre class="wp-block-verse"> will we ever be truly happy 
 not condensing a handful of tears 
 for one granule of happiness 
 or cracking macadamian sorrow 
 for one mouthful of joy 
 that goes with a swallow 
 
will we ever truly live 
 not breathing through our mouths 
 and swallowing through our eyes 
 not eating to stay alive 
 and staying alive to eat 
 
will we ever truly be seen 
 not like salt: ignored among 
 the condiments it sweetens 
 because it is colourless 
 
will we ever truly win 
 not fighting interminable battles 
 against the enemy of self 
 
will we ever truly die 
 not lying with the moon to rise with sun 
 
tell me: will we </pre>



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading">FORGETTING TO REMEMBER</h2>



<pre class="wp-block-verse">There's Happiness in Forgetting &; Remembering 
but we often never find it in our wanderings:
for we Forget what we should Remember 
&; Remember what we should Forget… 

We travel into cobwebbed memories
to recycle our long-binned pains
into brand new Unhappiness.

</pre>



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<p class="has-text-align-right has-black-color has-text-color has-background" style="background-color:#f1f1f8;font-size:15px">Kukogho Iruesiri Samson is a Nigerian writer, communications professional, and publishing entrepreneur. Kukgoho has authored four poetry books: What Can Words Do (2013); I Said These Words (2015); Words of Eros (2017); We Who Sowed Hurt &; Beaded Pains (2017, 2019); and a novel, Devil’s Pawn (2020). He is the recipient of the 2018 GT Bank Dusty Manuscript Prize, the 2017 ANA Prize for Fiction (first runner-up), the 2016 Nigerian Writers Award (NWA) for Best Poet in Nigeria, and the 2012 Orange Crush Poetry Prize. Aside from managing the assisted-authorship firm, Authorpedia Publishers, he is the editor-in-chief of Cá»ÌN-SCÌÒ Magazine, a quarterly literary publication. He is known for his efforts to promote Nigerian writing and for working with young Nigerian writers.</p>
 
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‘TO THOSE WHO STEAL GRIEF’, ‘PERDITA’ & ‘FORGETTING TO REMEMBER’ (three poems by Kukogho Iruesiri Samson)
Photo by Mikhail Nilov