Osieka Osinimu Alao
Anatomy of Dust
The pilgrimage begins with a cathedral of ashes.
A bassoon sets itself aflame in protestation.
The angels with wings of water are beyond call,
while God, the sire of all smoke, relishes the hymnal
procession. The music of the flesh of the pilgrim,
prognosis of a maze of melodies unstitched:
to tread is to relinquish all guts to the grip;
to tread is to render all sensibilities to the slip.
In this passage, a salad of saws sways the
triangulation wherein all things heavenly are
shawled in a white toile of truth. Truth, like poetry,
is prone to atrophy. Are these soles not eroded
by earth’s bitter juices? Are these brims
of satiation not unreachable, like the utopian
hems of unblemished verses? Glory to the
regenerative moil, the gold collar of this voyage.
Come, come, the road whispers, and whispers,
glazed with the salty innuendoes of stale dreams.
Isn’t this glide spirited by sleek voids?
Isn’t this grappling spirited by divine steroids?
The music, in spite of the advent of ashes,
marches on and on, in this interstice, where
every stroke of melody is the nascence of a cross,
dragged and dragged, through earth’s constricting
corridors, till every breath dissolves to that
which only death can name.
Bio:
OSIEKA OSINIMU ALAO is a Nigerian writer, poet, literary critic and scholar, essayist, editor, media and communication practitioner, youth and culture ambassador, and humanitarian. He has a PhD in Literature from Benue State University and an MA in Creative Writing from Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge. He is the Creative Director of Omniinkus, a media, publishing and bookstore company, and the founding editor of JOBB! (Journal of the Beautiful and Brutal!), a literary, arts, and cultural journal dedicated to showcasing Africa’s creative talents. He is also the Director of Idumaese Alao Foundation which embarks on humanitarian projects and organises the annual Idumaese Alao Prize for Literature. His creative and critical-scholarly works have appeared in reputable national and international journals, magazines, awards, and anthologies. He currently lectures in the Department of English, Federal University Gashua, and serves as the Editorial Secretary of Bade Journal of Arts (BAJA). He has authored four poetry collections, Epidocyle (2011), Apocyle (2012), Blood and Ink (2013), and Spirit of the Times (2026), and co-edited two anthologies of the Idumaese Alao Prize for Literature, Beyond the Sands (2024), and Òbòrò (2025).
