GLASS BOOK | a poem by Adereti Ayomide Oluwaseun

Read Time:1 Minute, 21 Second

Enters the legend—of focus, of belligerence and victory heretofore contested
Enters a writer—my head is my home, and in this home, rest may not prevail
A pointed ladle filled with ink yet drains life from me by prose, by stanzas...
till I can no more, till the last stop on the page before I begin another
With every lying wake I arise anew with thoughts overflowing
Albeit some mornings, with shores of inspiration hard from desiccation as baked bricks in ancient Egypt
If the ideas come, if they come not, still I muse

I tell stories of death, no! I write stories of resurrection
Stories of a boy straining from ocean depths and a girl fanning ice to flame
In my path, I am many things—a chef serving a menu of bitter-sweet
a fool, oblivious of all reality, all truth, save the doctrine of them with fuller ink ladles or the writer himself
As the world eats itself or leaves me in the past, I yet write

I spin stories of war, no! I write stories of vanquishing
Stories of armies, staggering forces locked in battle
To die is not defeat and to live is not victory
Our war cry is the urging, and our banner the encouragement
When the field is ridden with the screams of our hush, and our banner, our enemy's
then we are defeated and shame is our lot

I am the writer, another of my kind
In this war the ink is my blood
and victory will be mine...