The alchemist by Agbaakin O. Jeremiah

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Narrated by Oluwatoyosi J. Agbaakin

The alchemist by Agbaakin O. Jeremiah
Illustration by Sue Babcock
we are gods molding gods
of alloys: transfused cyborgs
with our blood, shawled
with a million silicon nerves.

we prefix their names ‘smart’:
these engines sit obediently
heeding only to button-clicks.
till they became jinns enslaving

an impetuous century.
we call them messengers,
suffer Twitter to feed the Internet
blood with ‘hash-tags’—

after we committed the scene
of a lynched boy
in sweaty Lagos
to her binary memories.

many became adherents
aligning with addicted worship
when there was Apple fall
in the Valley of Silicon

to purchase captives
that will captain our lives. 

***

BIO: Agbaakin O. Jeremiah, a Nigerian poet and campus Editor reads law in University of Ibadan. His works grace (or are forthcoming on) several e-publications and prints on Poetry Pacific, Antarctica Journal, Wagon Magazine, Sentinel Quarterly, Prachya Review, Wildsound Review, Kalahari Review, Praxis Magazine, African Writer and elsewhere. In 2016, he was a shortlistee for 2016 Dwarts Poetry Prize.