Gabriel Bamgbose: Three poems

Gabriel Bamgbose (Ogun State, Nigeria)

Three Poems

Darkness

When you peep
Through the broken window
Of your broken heart
And all you could see is
darkness…
……………..Brim darkness
……………………..Thick darkness
……………..Dark darkness
Darker than… than
……………..Dark-dark darkness
Legions of horrific darkness
Forming its own sovereignty
Colliding with other darknesses
Already there, lurking elsewhere
Awaiting its doomsday
Spooky, fierce darkness
Coming out… coming…
Claiming its vast space
Crashing into emptiness
Of magnitude mass
You suddenly realize
How intensely you could
Become afraid
Of your own self.

The Gaze of Medusa

Come, let me cast on you
The gaze of Medusa
I know you have your received story
I know they have fashioned your mind
To believe what they think I am
But come, let me cast on you
The gaze of Medusa
It is the working of your own mind
It is what you believe me to be
That tells what becomes of you
Oh come, let me cast on you
The gaze of Medusa
You know in touch with each other
We know our flows and flaws
In touch with each other
We know our true stories
So come closer to me with your own mind
And let me cast on you
The gaze of Medusa
Then you will see
How truly beautiful I could be.

Holy Waters

I entered into the torrents
Of holy waters
I abandoned all other waters
Because the spirits in them
Could lock one up
In the trance of sin
Oh! Love froze my senses
My feeling on my own self
And I entered gullibly, feebly
Into the torrents
Of holy waters –
I almost drowned.

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Gabriel Bamgbose is currently a Ph.D candidate in Comparative Literature at Rutgers University, New Jersey, and is the founding editor of Ijagun Poetry Journal. His work has appeared in Footmarks: Poems on One Hundred Years of Nigeria’s Nationhood, The Criterion, Lantern Magazine, Journal of Social and Cultural Analysis, and BareBack Magzine, among others. He is the author of the poetry collection, Something Happened: After the Rain.

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Image: “Medusa” by sculptor Ubbo Enninga

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