Hot Flashes: Maiduguri Senryu

By Richard Stevenson

Ramadan ...
less compendious oceans
in my students' spit.

*

Dash me ten kobo
the market urchin demands ...
bite in the apple

*

almost transparent,
little gecko lives behind
our white toilet tank

( Maiduguri, Nigeria )

*

wide wale tribal scars
in distinctive keloid stripes --
their cat-clawed faces smile

( Maiduguri, Nigeria )

*

Peace is from the south,
cross carved into her forehead --
and Igbo Christian

( Maiduguri, Nigeria )

*

Sign in a disco:
"No dancing alone
No bathroom slippers '

( Maiduguri, Nigeria )

*

Lagos go-slow:
thieves take up a collection
window by window

( Lagos, Nigeria )

By an'ya

home & garden show
we board the rapid transit
in a new snowstorm

By Gloria H.Procsal

obsessive neighbor
ten times into dusk--
same etude

By Gloria H.Procsal

mountain path--
in zig-zag windfalls
the wild-eyed horse