these poems i now write – MK Koul | Poetry

these poems i now write

my caucasian editor says

i am losing my spark.

he says i no longer write those poems

that wows his periodical’s faithfuls:

poems that faithfully bend to his people’s

narratives that I am indeed a savage

needing of their lectures on how to be human.

he says I no longer write poems

that can make even the staunchest of stoics tremble:

poems about fathers who, with their flaccid

penises, strangle their sons;

poems about mothers who, in the dampness

of their vaginas, drown their daughters;

poems about winds that wear to shreds birds’ wings;

poems about waters that drown fishes

navigating through their teeth.

he says these poems i now write—

poems about the glories of my old gods;

poems about the comeliness of my ancestral lands;

poems about the exquisiteness of our women;

poems about tip: the ancient dance of our fathers;

these Poems filigreed with the untranslatable metaphors

of our old tongues—are bland

to his literary taste buds.

what my good friend, the caucasian editor,

knows not is i am no longer writing

to woo his periodical’s faithfuls

or make the staunchest of stoics tremble

or tingle his literary taste buds.

i am writing to retrieve all we lost to history

& all we lost to history cannot be retrieved

by writing poems imbued with grief

or by writing poems imbued with guilt

or by writing poems imbued with agitation.

all we lost to history can only be retrieved

by writing poems imbued with our

greatness…

even if to a half-measure.

ABOUT THE POET

MK Kuol, recently shortlisted for the Wanjohi Prize for African Poetry, was the second place winner of the annual Pengician Poetry Chapbook Prize. His works have appeared on Pulp Lit, Spillwords, Port Harcourt Literary Review, Fiction Niche, Kalahari Review and elsewhere. MK Kuol loves dark rooms, coffee, moon-gazing, folk music (Arizona JJ’s to be exact) and conspiracies. He tweets (rarely) @mk_kuol14

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