ROOM:10.20
OTHERING
by Aremu Adams Adebesi
someone sings crows to doves. upstairs,
someone holds a butterfly with coal & snow
wings to fly & dare the sky. the sky, a raven
ripped off of cloud feathers. in a dim garden,
someone places a black beauty pansy beside
a white lily before the northern mockingbirds
come to separate them. someone holds his
vaping in tinderboxes, says between here &
there, he prefers the othering. the othering of
the centre, of colours, sifting thru the fence.
what would someone say when he finds his
mother a phonograph someone else forgot
on a ghost beach? i am the new chimney boy
sweeping under the moonlight. salt stars &
bats gather to nurture me. i am the thunder
sprawled under a sycamore. i am the ashes
of silver. someone calls me a sloe, i call my-
self the breast of a gull beyond the sea’s
sacrifice. my face moors into a foaming. i
hold such carriage of splits. someone in
a cassock walks by to say ‘hello’, he wields
his blackness like a shroud. someone opens
an album before me, flips thru until the last
image is a dove grinding a crow to dust.
Bibliography and External Links
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Aremu Adams Adebisi is a North-Central Nigerian writer and economist. In 2019, he was nominated for Best of the Net, a Pushcart Prize, and the 2019 Philadelphia Fringe Festival. His work of poetry, “Force Mechanism,” was adapted into Lucent Dreaming’s first theatrical performance in Wales. He has works published in Newfound Magazine, Lucky Jefferson, and elsewhere. He served as a mentor for SprinNG Fellowship and a panelist for the Gloria Anzaldua Prize. He edits poetry for ARTmosterrific, facilitates Transcendence Poetry Masterclass, and curates the newsletter Poetry Weekly on Substack.
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Email: dhadarms@gmail.com
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