Two Poems by Success Akpojotor

two BUTTons sitting on our faces

Nature’s changing course remains unsliced like a big garlic bulb
rendezvousing in cycles of loops and a merry-go-round in an abyss
inhabited by gypsies with no roots as a phone call is now a twentieth
century culture: but we’ve seen this a thousand times from 1918 to 45
& two BUTTons sitting on our faces which might be reduced to feces
and bones.

Those bones that built the DIS-United League of Nations are
pulverized dust and have become salt in our food that deaden
our taste buds like the United (League of) Nations is being cry
stallized to a new dining box where we are constrained to
talking in sonnet of birds for a Lincoln-Douglas discourse
where many birds glide over a train wreck at Grand Central
Station where there are
new rules.

And the rules of the new dining box abhors violence,
abuse and hateful conduct: (But you may make specific
threats if your BUTTon is a colossal hard drive provided
you create enough bird food for other winged-creatures to
converge and then feast in one hundred and forty units).
An ovation for this new United (League of) Nations:
“You can instigate violence—just be a global herdsman.”
chirps the secretary of the new
United (League of) Nations.

WHAT IS JERUSALEM?

What is Jerusalem? It is a ménage à trois & a trigamy.
The prepuce of Jesus osculating the moaning wall &
The beautiful dome.

Now, the offspring of this threesome is in monopoly board,
Buying & selling & defrauding one another.
Time & chance happening to them all.

But there is one: has moved from monopoly to chess
Bringing his monopoly moves to the chess arena
Determined to dissolve the trigamy

& cede Jerusalem
Cos he’s bent on bankrupting these ones
But hush, chessboard isn’t monopoly & any move here

Can burn the world to the ground
For only the queen has the strategy to move as she see fit.
What is Jerusalem?

It ain’t Pentonville Road, nor is it Euston Road. Neither is it Angel Islington.
It isn’t Stations King’s Cross, Marylebone, Fenchurch St & Liverpool Street.
It ain’t any of those & it’s not his to give.

But he thinks moving Amerigo Vespucci’s finding to Jerusalem makes him
a better captain, does it? His only peace is unleashing a war.
What is Jerusalem?

Success Akpojotor writes poetry, prose, and theatre. A graduate of the University of Benin’s Department of History and International Studies, and an Ambassador for the Fundación César Egido Serrano, Madrid, his work has been published widely online and in print in newsprint and magazines including Nigerian Observer, Wax Poetry and Art, Poets Reading the News, and Tuck Magazine, and has been anthologized in Lou Lit Review: The Literary Journal at Louisburg College, Snapdragon: A Journal of Art & Healing, Best New African Poets 2017 Anthology, and Mounting The Moon: Queer Nigerian Poems. @sadavidia

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