Ofuma Agali

W O R D S • I D E A S : O F U M A A G A L I

Mambilla Plateau

After knowing that lush growth overflows through the year, with fruits and veggies doubling their normal sizes, and animals gigantic and royal, the cool abode, far above sea level, wide onto highlands of Bamenda, will be a place to purge old muse and drink new imageries.

I will wait long enough to feel those gentle, yet husky, whistles of defiant harmattan breeze; not minding the dry skin and cracking lips, patiently waiting for the feel of deep sleep that Gembu's comforting arms will offer, during those lazy December nights.

An Ode to Anonymous i

Multiple faces peered out, but yours was the only one present. The little exchange of words, that feasted in between us, calling my attention to paths of my renewal, lighted the blue flame that burnt softly until I knew I had nowhere else to go.

In the fiercer exchanges of words that followed, that virtual festival of encoding and decoding, we did everything people like us could ever do.

When you evaporated unannounced, to protect what you already had, us stopped to exist just the same way it was born.

The memories are still good to live with, crawling years after, after years of crawling, years of mulish memories.

Ofuma Agali is a Nigerian with literary interests in prose and poetry. His works have appeared in Sentinel Literary Quarterly, Praxis, The Kalahari Review, among others. His poems have also been published in anthologies and he has written a collection of poems as well as a collection of short fiction.