(after Timi Sanni)

– What’s your name?

My name is a synonym of pebbles
A progeny of clay finding a home
In the waters of my home country.
My mother was a pot simmered
In the heat of tears, she splintered
Like a glass against the wall.

– How old are you?

I am just a second away
From rubbing the navel of death
My age is a license for misery
& grief — say I’m my parents years
Old when they knew left to right.

– What’s your drive?

I sing hymns at night
And say the Lord’s prayer
”lead me not into temptation”
My leaking roof is a testament
To my supplications — you only
Sleep when your bed is not a
Pile of stones.

– What do you think about love?

As I think failure
Like a horse that you ride
In felicity & throw you down
In KO beside a forlorn bridge.

– What do you think about death?

It is the cooing sound
Of a Pigeon that beckons home — nostalgia.
A quietus trap at the feet
Of a Pacific.


Ajani Samuel Victor is a writer, (performance) poet, author and political enthusiast who hail from the pace setter state, Nigeria. At the moment, he is studying Physiology at the University of Lagos. He is a Semi-finalist at the 2020 Jack Grapes Poetry Prize, writer at the Invincible Quill Magazine, Head at Earnest Writes’ Community, his works are/forthcoming on IQM, FeralLit Journal, Ethelzine, AlphaWrites, MadnessMuse Press, Solvicblog and everywhere else. He is a weird guy who loves everything soccer, lenient as whatever definition you give to that. Cool in all sense. Serendipity is his definition of sanity.