Written piece
MOVEMENT
ABDULHAFIZ IDUOZE
Nigeria
About this piece
Movement is a poem vividly describing the immediate rippling aftermath of a bombing and the iterations of the scenery unfolded. The work meshes both present, past and future both in its staccato and assonance which stamp the reality described upon the reader.
MOVEMENT
Feelingly, the crescent set dawn,
Witness to those bombings —
Heard both shriek and explosion;
Explosive slams and shrieks.
Silence or murmurs for questionings:
Shell shock.
Snail found in the flames
Retreats to its shell, scorched.
Heat seats in firing veins as glass
Spread like bodies across the floor
Decimated by shattering forces.
Eyes are found outside the face;
Babe off mother exhibits lifelessness
In the blood-muddied art
Which instils petrifaction, shit —
Seared onto a steamed, fatty brain
Stunned by facts of the end
Of day.
Political statements lost
In memories of books and photos
Living every day leaves, rustling debris
Widespread scraping and lifting:
Roll, carry never more.
They melt out of perimeter.
Heavier the dirt of furniture, cars,
And severed corpses and refugees —
Those fugitives torn for territory.
Hours later, crickets assemble
In the open space, barking,
Alarmed for dearth of fresh wood.
Dawn is washed from previous
Setting as red pin cements.
Handshake of the line
Aligns and ensures the movement
Marches more steps by order
And, whether the flesh is here
Or not, its hand moves eyes.