When War Becomes A Devil In This Country & On Dreaming

 When war becomes a devil in this country 

why write about Nigeria when my country knows 

how to replace every N with L

& G with B

& give it a new name

in a country where war is the devil,

we blame it for the broken things we’ve become -

 

first day of your pharmacognosy class, you learned

of drugs abuse

you were also taught how it’s the improper use of drugs

 

that causes the bacteria to build defense against it

 

but plant materials have shown efficacy against these

microorganisms

 

& as a senior student, you decided to test a plant leaf against

E. coli bacteria

 

calling it research. you rose up early on a certain morning,

while it was still

 

dark, to collect the leaf (T. Catappa) & from study in other

countries, it’s

 

effective against microbes. you took it to the lab, no ethanol,

only

 

methanol that expired five years ago, the current is not stable,

the

 bacteria absent, culture media like a decomposing body,

campus holds

 

loss. you mailed the national lab, no respond, you walked there

until your

 

legs became something you cannot mention. your lecturer tells you

 

all these were here, because of the war, we inherit things as ugly

as you see.

On Dreaming 

 

a boy. teenager. visualized his 

full body just from a glance in 

the mirror. where he stands become

a spot for foreshadowing. a place

right in his dormitory room where 

he’s capture in a white coat with a 

stethoscope round his neck - a dream

waiting, wanting to walk off his head.

in our country where such dreams are like 

seeds sworn upon a rocky ground or let’s 

say in our village, as a kid you never step 

a foot outside or spy the devil during his

sacred dance around the town simply 

because it’s an ancestral practice. from

your father fathers, there have never been

someone to give health back to the sick.

despite growing with this skin, you learned 

how to rub shoulders with tradition & you also 

learned the mind is the only thing that holds 

the mature body of things yet to come. you 

summoned your dreams & tagged it -

Dr. Yamba because everything expecting 

to taste life must have a name, even when 

life has transform your identity into moneychanger.

About The Author

Emmanuel G G Yamba writes from Monrovia, Liberia. A graduate of the University of Liberia and the SprinNG Advancement Fellowship. His work appeared and forthcoming in the Kalahari Review, Ibadan Arts, TVO Tribe, Afrihill Press, African Writer, Odd Magazine, Salamander, WSA, World Guinness World Records Hyper Poem 2023, Anthology for Abunic And Elsewhere