Black River, Black Soot

“The black soot that we experience in Port Harcourt in the last seven to eight years now, it’s been constant 24hours of the day every day for at least six to seven years apparently, and it means that every day residents of Port Harcourt have no option but to be inhaling this black soot on a daily basis, new born children, under five, adults, men, women, elderly and everybody is made a smoker because of the exposure to the black soot” — Dr Bieye Briggs 

My mother stands motionless in the water,
       Infested by oil, drowned in half— her black-coloured 

palms clasped together whispering the 
          language creamed w/ oil. We greet mornings from the height 

of our raft & wake to sooty breakfast; 
            breath of carbon. My uncle became breathless 

upholding convulsion in the terra incognita
            of his body. Say, our dead offered for revenue—

strategy for government— money w/ oil companies, money 
          in the well of their pockets. Oil blooms, but happiness recedes; 

dune to dust. I recall the violent motion 
            of the woman next door after her new born became

an addition to the legion of dead in this place
         & her husband—still nurturing abnormalities in his viscous

baby creator below his trouser. See, the water 
          levels again, the house falls to flood. Even the dead 

are still searching for home in the land 
           ravaged by water & black oil. The woman at the edge 

of the interview holds on to her tears—
           Says: i came to the camp handful with my son, but I'm leaving

with hands empty of him—again: i know the past belongs 
         in the past, my son belongs to the past, but my grievances 

belongs to the future. The footbridge collapsed, 
        see how water beholds teeth. But life goes on, & we sail through it

with our grievances solemn like the paddle hitting 
        the face of the water. Really, we are not making water, we'll make money.

Finding a Noah

i
The scale weighing the transgressions we uphold fills
               the plate of our mass misdeed & the hourglass of time measuring

the tinge of light in our darkness before God wrecks earth 
              with his tears like he did to the people of Noah. Thousand years after 

the global flood, a group of men in my country opened fire 
                on my people who clamoured against injustice, said their rights were 

stones clogging in the wide throat of their own 
                enclosed autocracy. The open skull is not an alibi for broken tendons, 

like the bodies of my friends who brimmed to dust from an open fire 
             in Lekki. The night undoes a man from his body & he becomes smoke; 

cluster of sins spread in this place like constellations in the night sky. 
           The news poised on the TV, reports says: In Ogbaru, a vessel boat ferrying 

displaced people capsized them inside— abraded & offered 
             their breath to the water.  & to bury the bodies, they were submerged 

into the wetness of God's grief for earth. I'm trying to remember 
             what initiated the first banishment; the sin & foolishness of the first man 

& woman & we carry on this trend, from Abraham, Cain, 
                to the drowned people of Noah & beyond & after & in 2022, my people drown

 into the disappearance of their breath. In my country, the politician 
           locked & bestowed voters with an inferno, said they offered the prints of their 

thumb on another candidate & the conscience in his belly 
         does not shatter— tomorrow, he'll walk into the threshold of freedom. 

ii
I come from a country where God is the lead character,
             in all the evils they perpetrate—weaving his name & words all over their 

misdeeds. With all these turbulence we withhold, 
               the government; hyenas feasting on preys. The people; 

fishes feasting on fishes. The chaotic water like the war drowning 
            two countries could be God's earthly judgment on our brimming misdeeds.

 Say the fire burning us could be from the flame we placed 
               near the gasoline & He seeks a restoration of the sacred flesh of the world 

by submerging, like in the genesis. I ruminate on who could 
                wield the possibility of innocence, but in the world of sins, there is a land 

beneath the feet of every man. Though, He made a covenant,
                 that earth is untethered with the curse of drowning by the gullet of water in the end,

 but with his judgment for the people of the flood, 
         when the earth fills with water, who will be worthy enough to build us a new Ark?

I am Tethered To Possibilities

I am tethered to possibilities, 
even in the face of loss. 
A field of yellow dandelions 
erupted by wind;  a confetti 
of yellow flowers. All the things 
I love keep withering; 
stone to dust, dust to wind. 
In spite, the dandelions wilts,
but the land remains—
which means, the emptiness 
left behind by loss is a space;
which means I can fill it 
with a song. Which means 
I can fill it with my body.  
On a Saturday, my mother 
wraps blended beans 
in a green leaf, her swift hands—
like her mother's; my grandmother. 
& my brother laughs at the size 
of my pap—& say; àfi bí àlájà—
how food can be an eruption 
of the dust in my memories. 
Seven years before my brother 
unfurled the phrase— it was 
a night, & I mean the one with stars 
in [  ] absentee
where we sat behind a pot,
the colour of the night—
filled with moimoi—watching flies
dazzle round the led bulb. 
My grandmother hobbled—
her steps carried the weight
of decades, of child births, 
of child deaths, of laugher,
of sea water dribbled from the 
universe of the retina. & she said:
ẹwọ ilé wá sùn— which means, 
she beckoned us into in the warmth 
of our bed, which could mean,
we were the stars in her night sky. 
Once, my mother smacked silence
onto my lips with her hefty palms
which uprooted my grandmother's
anger, she said: ọmọ dé là wọn ọmọ yi
which means we are little flowers
of bloom planted on their hands 
by the Lord. I unearth a remembrance 
of her from a photograph, & there's 
laughter. I bite a smirk into my lips.
I still remember my dead beyond
grievances; the humorous memories,
another laugher spilled from my lips 
once again accompanied by a lonely tear.

About the Author:

Abdulkareem Abdulkareem (he/him) Frontier III, is a Nigerian writer and linguist. He is a recipient of the Hill Top Creative Writing Award for Excellence, 2023. He won the University of Ilorin S.U. Writers Competition (Poetry Category) and was shortlisted for the Vallum Poetry Award 2022, longlisted for the Palette Poetry Previously Published Poetry Prize, 2023.His works appear and are forthcoming on National Museum of Language, POETRY Magazine, Transition Magazine, Waxwing, Poetry Wales, SAND Journal, MIZNA, Nat Brut, West Trade Review, LOLWE, Southern Humanities Review, Qwerty Magazine, Shallow Tales Review, Nigeria News Direct, & elsewhere. He reads poetry for Agbowó Magazine and Frontier Poetry.

*Featured image by Igor Tadić on Unsplash