YELF ARTIST OF THE MONTH. NOVEMBER EDITION
HANEEFAH ABDULRAHMAN is an interviewer, a writer, a spoken-word artiste and a podcaster. Born in Kaduna, Haneefah is an indigene of Kogi state. She is a student of English and Literary studies at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. She joined the Creative Writers’ Club in 2018 and later became the Treasurer of the club. She is presently the 2020 Editor 1 and Financial Secretary of the Club.
Haneefah is a very active member of ENACTUS (Entreprenuerial Action Us), the Hill-Top Creative Arts Foundation and some other literary platforms. She is also a Presenter at NASELS Entertainment House.
Her love for writing and arts is insatiable. She is the author of ‘The Queens of Age Chains’, published on Okada Books. She has published in Daily Trust Newspaper as well as many journals.
POEMS
GOD OF MISERY
I am the son of the drenched sun
In discomfort
A servant to earth
The creation of wretched aura
I am the dancing ambience
With the shattered bones
My steps are entertainment to the big ugly face of poverty
I massage the abandoned land of trash
I allow the rejected water of gutters to have a home in me
I gladly share delicious and disgusting food with rats
It is actually human to share the surviving spinach in my land with the pregnant goat
On the same plate
The ground
I am the forced Doctor to my sick lineage
To myself
I am the god of the miserable world
I don’t have a choice but to hold the mantle
THE INVASION
I was a chamber
There lived that which gives me existence
I was not meant for even its kind
But those that are not aliens
It started quietly
It crept into me
Possessed me first
The beautiful ugly intrusion
Then that which lived in me
It swallowed
Splashes of smiles
Splashes of frowns
Like a lost soul
Trapped in death and chained in life
I stand as a tree that takes
rain cuddles and harmattan slaps
This being that lives inside me
No longer listens to what I want
But carries out what this wicked kind stranger wants
It now screams shamelessly
It dances around the village naked
How it unveiled its face
An alien
That has taken away that which makes me up
It has made me take the sacred fish out of its shore
This thing that dethroned me of being a chamber
Turns me majestic with royal furniture
And then turns me unkept like a beggar’s camp
I will have to hear the drum of darkness that my heart accepted
But see the dance steps of light
It brought along
This invasion
The alien
I want it to go away
I refuse to show it the way
It has to stay
I am ready to live with the fear of what it will grow into
I THOUGHT I SAW IT COMING
Here I am,
Here we come again,
In a dark world,
Known to people but understood by me.
I find myself standing face to face with,
A mythical creature, a creature of horror,
With its green scaly skin reflecting on me.
A spell has been cast.
It blew its breath of fire at my face,
Right into my soul.
Behold!
An exasperation has taken over me,
My emotions have taken the best of me.
Righteousness has been taken from its abode
And locked up in a dungeon.
All the flaws have escaped from the dungeon of
My soul and they have set an arena for display.
I thought I imprisoned those flaws,
I thought I could control them,
I thought I will see them when they try to escape
So I could be careful.
I saw them walk not knowing that it was a race.
I have seen it come before I saw it coming.
I thought I saw the mistakes coming.
OGA BROTHER
Ahn Ahn
Oga brother
Wetin you dey do na
No be wetin you tell my mama
You no tell her say na there
you wan knack na
Na my brain you tell her say
you wan knack with book na
Ah Oga brother
Omo I no do o
If you come near ehn
I go shout o
Omo those men for okada
Go come chaw you o
See ehn
My gee Kola no far
I go call am fa
Na law of karma go knack you las las
Oga brother
Wetin I dey talk sef
You, if you no open this room ehn
Forget this woman body o
I go jam you bite wey dey bend person o
If I jam you blow you go die o
Omo I go turn you mumu o
Ehen
As you don open this room so
Wey I dey waka dey go so
Make I no see your leg for front of my mama house o
If not
I go house you
I swear
