CAMO CULTURE
&
HANDBOOK FOR LIVING
NNADI SAMUEL
Camo Culture
your hunt for response sheathes logorrhae into untreated lips,
battering gums to chirps on Rae Bloodfield:
a backwash of gunned spouse.
we're less of our own breath, for the loaded now.
even a match triggers hell to our brainbox—
decelerating, to undo the steel arson on loved ones.
our adroit teens; running into unscrupulous magazines on nameplates.
I'm survived by loss, & young deads.
sometimes, the idea of what badge hotchases grief
lifts a bullet to my stomach like poised ambergris,
dished from a good view of stoked camos I barely outlive.
gravity had no hand, till it whisks a sinless child,
puzzled at his thorough innocence— like he is unbefitting not to have done crime.
there is more to Black Marias than the wailing of each mother.
the corporals are sworn sergeants, after a gunfight with armless civilians.
how handicapped we've tamed blood & lethal bullets, incited by the degree of dreads,
or Rastaman at false light.
our kind tweets lettered pheromones for global reinforcement.
I backspace my hangman here, thumbing my won't to an open air.
I won't lock my wrist,
won't vent my grief on bereft brother in some corked way.
my rage is a stubborn child— clenched fist like this cop, stabbing at rough pace.
grief kills better than gunmen,
grants our rights to heartburns & renewed ulcer,
& indefinite silence mistaken for near-death.
whatever does not end this way, soils the next cop.
ropes him into some cerecloth,
stiff with wound stripes on hunch arm:
the animal he feeds with bullet.
Camo Culture
your hunt for response sheathes logorrhae into untreated lips,
battering gums to chirps on Rae Bloodfield:
a backwash of gunned spouse.
we're less of our own breath, for the loaded now.
even a match triggers hell to our brainbox—
decelerating, to undo the steel arson on loved ones.
our adroit teens; running into unscrupulous magazines on nameplates.
I'm survived by loss, & young deads.
sometimes, the idea of what badge hotchases grief
lifts a bullet to my stomach like poised ambergris,
dished from a good view of stoked camos I barely outlive.
gravity had no hand, till it whisks a sinless child,
puzzled at his thorough innocence— like he is unbefitting not to have done crime.
there is more to Black Marias than the wailing of each mother.
the corporals are sworn sergeants, after a gunfight with armless civilians.
how handicapped we've tamed blood & lethal bullets, incited by the degree of dreads,
or Rastaman at false light.
our kind tweets lettered pheromones for global reinforcement.
I backspace my hangman here, thumbing my won't to an open air.
I won't lock my wrist,
won't vent my grief on bereft brother in some corked way.
my rage is a stubborn child— clenched fist like this cop, stabbing at rough pace.
grief kills better than gunmen,
grants our rights to heartburns & renewed ulcer,
& indefinite silence mistaken for near-death.
whatever does not end this way, soils the next cop.
ropes him into some cerecloth,
stiff with wound stripes on hunch arm:
the animal he feeds with bullet.
Handbook for Living
furnished art this thumb leaves,
screwing the screen in a lone press held by an effrontery:
my carpentry of glyphs,
tooled to note shapes modeled after a bent back.
a self-centered occupation.
an archetype for grief, improving a known trope
ragged by endless tryhards,
taking loss for luxury.
the constant jailing of their lids with cured glass,
bailing my birth bug.
whatever first faults I've learnt,
knowing them through the whole year.
I forge a handout for all my fears,
inspired by the risk.
time & again, I pitch my pronouns.
so many poets knew the worth before me.
something to use— instead of a noun baring their lineage out for a web search.
In my doubt,
the lizards make love like stuck ligatures, nodding their sweet spots.
I raise their kind as tucked ears, studded with wart:
an offshoot for moods.
there is humour in how I make out,
like storm in my fourth gland.
a ruffled semibreve.
my tongue, regifting the notes with snake welts.
I surround a phrase,
kill the syntax,
train my poem to forced rules— full of middots.
fate hints the next tyrant from my curved legs.
furnished art this thumb leaves,
screwing the screen in a lone press held by an effrontery:
my carpentry of glyphs,
tooled to note shapes modeled after a bent back.
a self-centered occupation.
an archetype for grief, improving a known trope
ragged by endless tryhards,
taking loss for luxury.
the constant jailing of their lids with cured glass,
bailing my birth bug.
whatever first faults I've learnt,
knowing them through the whole year.
I forge a handout for all my fears,
inspired by the risk.
time & again, I pitch my pronouns.
so many poets knew the worth before me.
something to use— instead of a noun baring their lineage out for a web search.
In my doubt,
the lizards make love like stuck ligatures, nodding their sweet spots.
I raise their kind as tucked ears, studded with wart:
an offshoot for moods.
there is humour in how I make out,
like storm in my fourth gland.
a ruffled semibreve.
my tongue, regifting the notes with snake welts.
I surround a phrase,
kill the syntax,
train my poem to forced rules— full of middots.
fate hints the next tyrant from my curved legs.
Kaleidoscope is a constant unfolding of various repeated events from the past.
/// Nnadi Samuel (he/him/his) holds a B.A in English & literature from the University of Benin. His works have been previously published in Suburban Review, Seventh Wave Magazine, North Dakota Quarterly, Quarterly West, Blood Orange Review, Uncanny Magazine, PORT Magazine, The Cordite Poetry Review, Gordon Square Review, Rough Cut press, Trampset, Beestung Magazine, Rigorous Magazine, Blue Nib journal, Stonecrop Review, The Elephant Magazine, Birmingham Arts Journal, Lunaris Review, Inverse Journal, Canyon Voices, Journal Nine, Liquid Imagination, Silver Blade Journal, Star*Line Science Fiction & Poetry, Zoetic Press, Subterranean blue poetry, The Quills, Eunoia Review & elsewhere. Winner of the Canadian Open Drawer contest 2020. He won the Splendor of Dawn Poetry Contest April 2020, won the Bkpw Poetry Workshop Contest 2021, got shortlisted in the annual Poet's Choice award & was the second-prize winner of the EOPP 2019 contest. A finalist of the Inaugural Lumiere Contest 2021, NSPP 2020 prize & Pushcart Nominee. He is the author of "Reopening of Wounds" & "Subject Lessons" (forthcoming). He reads for U-Right Magazine. He tweets @Samuelsamba10. |