Poetry Suite by David Ishaya Osu


“the neweden – we
all carry

in our minds”

Poetry by David Ishaya Osu

Poetry by David Ishaya Osu

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Wedding night


on her wedding night
she rejected
her adam's
apple--give me
a blue
blanket
and leave
the window open,
she said: the tempo
of a horny
moon
ready to burn
a pink stone: the cry
of an angel
to be silenced
by a dew drink
the age
of sex
new
as saliva
washing hunger
away from a cobra's
fangs

+ + +

Mammiwata Bay
(For Unoma)


she walks out of silence.
and talks to her tail.
and all the silhouettes

in need
of a yolk
surrounding:

a lake is
the neweden – we
all carry

in our minds

a city
stuck in a
trance

– in the last mirror
left is a rain
bow, a

day not a breeze
can carry on its
wings

on and on and on
via the v-office. she walks
back to

our thinking
on the secrets of
a waterskin

that cannot stay in pictures

 + + +

Six-D


blue blouse a
twin of
my youth
everywhere
in the photography
of gardens
in six-D: the
mind is
a mortuary, the lady
said
as she broke
her bedroom
windows
wide enough
for a butterfly
to pass and for
the eyes
of boys to pass – I am
the cake
everyone outside
the oven
is waiting for

+ + +

Vice versa


a window revises
light & vice
versa—all
the pictures
say shift

+ + +

22


a street the same
as your fear,
where else does
a runaway
live if not in
a bubble

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Header image courtesy of Matty Byloos.


Osu.jpg

David Ishaya Osu (b. 1991) is an Afo native from Nasarawa, Nigeria. His poetry appears in Vinyl Poetry, Chiron Review, RædLeaf Poetry: The African Diaspora Folio, A Thousand Voices Rising: An Anthology of Contemporary African Poetry, among others. David is a board member of the Babishai Niwe Poetry Foundation, and has been selected for the 2016 USA Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop. He is poetry editor for The James Franco Review, issue 7.

Carrie Ivy

Carrie Ivy (formerly Carrie Seitzinger) is Editor-in-Chief and Co-Publisher of NAILED. She is the author of the book, Fall Ill Medicine, which was named a 2013 Finalist for the Oregon Book Award. Ivy is also Co-Publisher of Small Doggies Press.

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