Read Time:3 Minute, 35 Second
BECAUSE BOYS ARE NOT FLOWERS
Because boys are not born of seeds or suckers I hide the garden in my mouth for I shouldn't culture emotions. Because a boy's eyes must wear fire & not water I string my lashes with beads of coal & clothe my pupil with Sulphur. Because a boy's dreams are fleeing horses I saddle my feet to the soils of my hometown to resist the hungry urge for futility. Because boys are not flowers I expect no nurturing shears & craft a knife to trim every thorn but every thorn is my body. I have no petals but my body is painted with the blood of punctured dreams.
BLEEDING EARTH
This poem is a razor peeling off a body's skin. Say, this body is earth. Say, the blades of this metaphor are dripping with blood. Say, this razor steals the earth's color & blights with red lessions. Say, this razor plants infections into genial sands & reaps a harvest of silence. Say, silence bears seeds & disperses them through the garden of this body. Say, her flowers have thorns. Say, this body is bleeding. Say, this body's throat is slit & parched. Say, silence is growing adventitious roots into these orchestrated pieholes. Say, trees are cooking their weathered leaves. Say, this body is a sheaf of gadling leaves under hot stone. Say, this body's blood is burning into hot gas. Say, this body is evaporating to heaven. This body is a bleeding earth And this poem is soiled with blood. This earth is the memorabilia of a boy who once lived here.
IN MY COUNTRY, NO ONE PAYS TICKET FOR THE CONCERT
In my country, no one pays the ticket. for the concert but we all attend through our big LCD/stout radio/Southey nosepicker/prints/dailies. We do not like the song/instrumentation/artiste yet our bodies dance. a floor wriggle/a running stance/a walking stance/a screaming stance/a wailing stance. We do not like the song/instrumentation/artiste yet we accolade them with chaotic uproar/hubbub/hullabaloo, even though our mind is not waltzing along. In my country when the musician mouths his lyrics & we reply with screams & our bodies dance & someone reacts emotionally to his verses, it is not called a manifestation/deliverance/soul-winning but a massacre/insurgency/life-raping/soul-killing. Think of the musician as a gun cartridge the song, a gun &. the lyrics, the recoil. In my country, no one pays the ticket yet we all attend the concert.
CITY OF LIGHTS
tonight, the city wears the shawl of moonlight & stars over the shoulders of its houses. here, every house is prettified with the regalia of the skies. in one home, drums are being beaten and songs are being sung while in another there is a solemn silence. a silent mourning. in this house, there are two occupants staring at each other with lonesome faces. there is no movement, no dialogue nothing but the chirping of crickets in the rear. both faces are arresting each other’s look staring as though they were reflections of one another. they are silent squinting hard trying to undress this lonesome face.
AUBADE TO DAWN
The morning sun wakes unsheathing darkness from my cornea & sleep plunges into an abyss: my nerves excited rushes through cytoplasmic streams. This morning I awake with a flair like no other morning, suddenly noticing everything beautiful about the beginning of a day. The symphony of mockingbirds in the rear humming a sonorous tune of ecstasy. The ethereal melody from the beating of their powerful wings. The sweet fragrance of daffodils from the neighbor's garden. The synthesizing tick-tock tick-tock of the wall clock. The whispering dialogue between two ants opposite my bed. The music of the gentle breeze blowing through venetian blinds. The steaming aroma of ginger tea coming from the kitchen...
Adesiyan Oluwapelumi, (TPC XI) is a writer from Nigeria. He is a keen lover of the literary arts and loves to spend his free time scribbling poems or doodling abstract drawings. Oluwapelumi’s works have appeared or are forthcoming in Words Rhymes & Rhythm, Brittle Paper Spillwords, Poemify magazine, Beatnik Cowboy, Synchronized Chaos and elsewhere. He is @ademind17 on Instagram and @ademindpoems on Twitter.
