Faith Panopticon | #Abubakar Othman

Photo: Guilherme Stecanella, Unsplash

Faith Panopticon

Dedicated worshippers
Of an empty shrine,
Inmates of faith panopticon.

Acousmatic devotees
Writhing before a dumb deity
Standing deaf and blind
Like the skulless stature
Standing stilted
At the temple of justice.

We are all prisoners of faith
Passive chargers groaning
Under the Eagle’s talons of tutelage,
The grass is greener beneath us
But we are content to
Glean with glee
The chaff remains of grains left behind by
The reapers of our faith.

Abubakar Othman teaches African Poetry and Creative Writing at the University of Maiduguri. He has also served as commissioner for Information in his home state of Adamawa(2001-2007), Chief of Staff to the Chairman, EFCC (2011-2013), among other many away matches he played outside the academia. He has three collections of poems in the market and two new works are currently in press with Malthouse.

SAI Sabouke
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Sai Sabouke is a writer living in New Bussa, Nigeria. He’s a dervish who sees Sufism, history and language as formidable tools for society regeneration. His writing has appeared in Praxis Magazine Online and Agbowo. Sabouke loves beans, coffee and dreams of roasting the entrails of vultures.