Poems—Martin Ijir

Martin Ijir is a social entrepreneur, teacher, poet and activist. He is the author of Jeremiad: Sepulchral Energies. Winner of 2020 Arc Prose-Poetry Prize, Iraq and finalist of Sentiere diVersi Poetry Prize twice, Italy. His works can be found at ANA Review, Afrocritik, Rock Pebble, Ahazar, LangLit Peer Review Journal and elsewhere. He lives at Karu, Nigeria. 

Ants on grains 

If you see them dressed on bathrobe 

Their eyes are full of orgy, 

Orgy after orgy, a warm, snug toilet.

They owned their parodies to bikinis of deceit 

On the scaffolds of their campaigning. 

When you see ants on orgies of grains

Bear in mind, their columns are filled with blinkers 

Linseed and imbroglio strings. Oily panties.

Gruesome fielders like the oldies junkies.

And the whittling clouds, calculates their fishes.

When the channels of votes are opened 

And the fielding of various voters come in as pack of jokers

Quickly realize their multitudinous ineptitudedness 

For these consters whore from one party to another 

 If the vodka in their soda water remains the same

So the followership joins and jumps into their shard wagon. 

Then those who dress their bathroom 

Find a means to opine on columns 

For a lousy soul seeks to end its idiosyncratic idleness 

To give up my life to the likes of you, one shouted 

Is to filled the gob of these scandalous revolution 

Then the bed is open to seductress to join freely 

(c) Martin Ijir 2023 

Scarcity of fuel, Money and electricity 

Hijacked Social revolution

Social revolution is trotting 

While comrades are sleeping 

The ideal time to spark the waves 

Of sociable change is now. 

The bellowing bells of social change 

Is ringing so fiercely. But the ears of 

Comrades are defamed by scarcity of 

Fossil fuel, electricity and money. 

When you geared up the spirit of liberty 

Then the chains of scarcity of want 

Washes through the conduit of silence. 

When they are held in the dark 

And can't prod through the lane of the streets

Their ego for social revolution dies 

Because they are carried away by gob 

Of scarcity as they queue in search of fuel,

Money and sparks of darkness swallowed their phones. 

(c) Martin Ijir 2023

O ancient prostitutes

I am slumbering in sahara's hazy sands

An ancient treasure lost to modernity 

Forgotten as crude map for careless being 

They run the polity without thoughts of preservation 

O ancient prostitutes, gathered at the brothel 

In red and green chambers.

O ancient prostitutes lodging in the wilderness 

And eating the treasury of the proletarian taxes

They're emptying the coffers by painting the dazzling street

With scarcity: if the passport of scarcity is measured 

Then fossil fuel is at the geared to hype inflation 

O ancient prostitutes, how long would you stripped souls

from their ferrous flesh by allowing poverty 

To penetrate into their various wards across geopolity 

If the scaffolds that holds this nation falls 

And the dazzling light that shines without and within 

All light would give way to revolutionary darkness 

O ancient prostitutes, how long would you romance self 

With idiosyncrasies mortals for selfish enrichment 

& the puzzle in budgetary allotments tickles like the jigida on your waist 

If the wrens cry aloud and the tsar lock them up 

Then memories in me became heavier than a stone 

O ancient prostitutes take away your dazzling regalia. 

(c) Martin Ijir 2023