INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
Deji Adesoye
Changming Yuan
Violeta Allmuca
Beppe Costa
Engjell I. Berisha
Narendra Kumar Arya
Akwu Sunday Victor
Michelle Bailat-Jones
Laszlo Slomovits
Stefania Battistella
Agron Shele
Lana Bella
Fahredin Shehu
Alan Britt
Silvia Scheibli
Shutta Crum
Running Cub
Alex Ferde
Irsa Ruci
Jennifer Burd
Paul B. Roth
Richard Gartee
Elisavietta Ritchie
Peycho Kanev
Helen Gyigya
Amit Parmessur
Sneha Subramanian Kanta
Robert Nisbet
Jeton Kelmendi
Duane Locke
Richard Lynch
Jean McNerney
Fred Wolven
Ann Arbor Review
is an independent
International Journal & ezine
Copyright (c) 2017
Francis Ferde
All rights revert back to each poet.
--editor / Southeastern Florida
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AAR history note: in print 1967 - 1980. Irregular publications 1980 - 2004. As ezine 2004 - present. Most of 49 years all together....
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staff:
Francis Ferde
Silver Grey Fox
Running Cub
Fred Wolven
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Olúwo-nlá 1
(May 201
Right in my home, I often become a tourist
On evenings of days following a raining dusk
The air is clear and a snug feel
And the painting unleashed on the African sky
Upon the West and North of Ibadan
Soothes the mind, navel and nails
Times like this, I am not forced to
The waiting terrace of my house where I,
Roaming the world of amazement alone,
Delight my spirit in the crisp traffic above my head
First the larks, that roam the sky, flapping quick wings
In irregular beats, and seem to discuss global affairs
I find it a mishap to trade their watch
As they vanish and emerge in sharp struts
Across the grey distance. Now I covet that avenue
[and they climb the clouds while rain falls] without
These iron vessels that crash and blast.
The white and the brown pigeons decamp en-mass
From the arches of Arísekólá; arrive, like care-takers
On my window sash, as on my neighbours’
And before I had attended my ears to their effect
The coos plod into the convent of my mind.
Now I love to fall into the enrapture
Of the cattle egrets who, in their various formations
Traverse the latitude of my house [the roof their track]
This batch-by-batch traffic from Basorun to Bodija
(and a V-formation presently advances upon my house.
This grace, won’t in time depart from my mind, and alone
Shall suffice, from Olúwo-nlá my enduring souvenir.)
AND this paucity of fortune in this landscape
Is weeded when I’m finally struck by the pageant
Of their majesties, queens of the air, floating
In their circles, strolling without haste
In the middle of space. These city hawks are unlike
The hungry ones that molest self-respect with
Constant banking into slums; for little lizards;
These eagles, supervising the various patterns
Beneath the sky, nudge my mind to sanity, and
My perpetual loneliness voluntarily dissolves, as
The clear sky closes, and I withdraw into my closet
Deji Adesoye, Ibadan, Nigeria