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<h5 class="has-medium-font-size wp-block-heading">i’m on a hiatus for psalms</h5>



<pre class="wp-block-verse">between my guardian &; i is a chasm. 
the type that reckons you as rebellious, 
dwindling in revolt. early morning, 
our lips resurrect to a tempest, babbling 
arrows buffeting thunders. i don't know 
if that's how a florist tends a flower; how 
a gardener whittles the hedge of a plant 
to create a rhythm—a well-trimmed frontline, 
magneting eyes. neither do i know how 
a lad is stretched to stripling, &; then, to 
adulthood. here, i only know the psalm 
of abuse. here, the only ode is a receding 
of insult. instead of pillows, my guardian 
uses a slab, nets it on my nape &; calls it 
discipline. yet, that same night, cracks open— 
like an egg—a psalm with my name. but 
those nights, sleep always outwits these psalms 
&; fills my eyes with the night's sonorous music. 
at least, it's the way it ought to be. at least, this 
poem is meant to tell how the two of us are 
crossroads, same with our own singing. </pre>



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<h5 class="has-medium-font-size wp-block-heading">FURLONG</h5>



<pre class="wp-block-verse">The day fulminates against sailing 
&; we play the adamant sailors 
Our ferry, alert to playing the daredevil 
 
The fact remains: the ebbing waters 
at the strand 
decode a tranquil river, basking. 
 
We put to sea as a woman puts to bed 
&; every anxiety dies on the sea. 
We watch afar, blue vastness. 
 
I once desired this desire, that I will 
write a travelogue on water 
&; name it Liquid memoir. At least, it is one 
 
of the things that keep me awake 
nocturnal eyes, staring at the 
invisible sea. A teacher once said dreams are 
 
rockets &; you, an astronaut. If you believe, 
you will break the zenith 
&; leave a noticeable absence—I mean, 
 
you will leave a legacy that only you 
created. Here, on the sea, 
our tongues swing fulsomely into music. 
 
other boats gaze at our frolicking. Urchins 
maneuvering a speed boat 
to the wrong destination. There, the sea surges 
 
&; drapes the boat. Shipwreck. 
We drown, leaving a noticeable 
absence to other boats sailing with us.</pre>



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<h5 class="has-medium-font-size wp-block-heading">ON DAYS WHEN THE AIR IS GRIEF</h5>



<pre class="wp-block-verse">On such days, joy is a smoke 
from a cigarette—exhale—too 
 
soft for my hands &; the air to hold. 
It's not my fault if a leaf dries before 
 
It's season. There's a sultry sun in a 
cave burning them. Burning joy. 
 
Yesterday, my friend lost his mother 
to the shadows of night. This morning, 
 
his face still bears the same pain—even 
when we try to light a bonfire of exhilaration. 
 
I mean, grievous memories have a way 
of melting the heart in the middle of laughter. 
 
There's a sultry sun in a cave, burning 
leaves for summer. The tree never jubilates 
 
When its clothes are stripped from its body. 
But it lest fate detail its next foliage. 
 
Now my friend bows to fate like a cow 
submitting its neck for the knife. 
 
But he has hope, set it as a cornerstone, lit 
on candles at night, that he might be 
 
clothed soon. Cloth with joy. Clothed with something 
that will glue to his body. But as he prays the prayer 
 
he watches the wax of the candle melt, as the fire 
touches it &; he concludes: everything is falling; 
 
even grief is dying with the air, &; death 
seems to be the only planet to be. The option. </pre>



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<h5 class="has-medium-font-size wp-block-heading">to kiss atavism</h5>



<pre class="wp-block-verse">sometimes, I lose the relic poems 
cyclic towards names that begat childhood. 
 
sometimes, I kiss oldness—the rustic books, parallel 
on the self—&; I plummet into those cusp eyes, 
that view these with awe. asymmetry, suffocated. 
 
to have a home is to have an un-bandaged sore, flies 
buzzing around it. here, urchins peopled my grandfather's 
house. here, Pankshin became a pebble metropolis. 
 
draping even the flower that carries the image of my father 
&; housed a bee—I, a metaphor for an unguarded vagrant. 
towards the end, I flailed my hands &; hugged anachronism.</pre>



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<h5 class="has-medium-font-size wp-block-heading">EXILE</h5>



<pre class="wp-block-verse">i watch my grieves flux out 
like leaves, leaving a tree 
like words, wind-falling from my mouth 
like hairs—cut &; burned, ashes twirled, history forgotten. 
 
today, we stand &; gaze at the graffiti 
of oldness: how the blacks are gripped with chains 
like dogs &; hurled out of their land, to a 
new land—a massive exodus. some, fed to the sea. 
 
today, we remember your grandma. 
how she was banished from her hamlet, 
&; she becomes a vagrant bee, hopping from 
one flower to another, till her soul 
broke out of her body, like a butterfly breaks out 
of a caterpillar &; flutters to the dark world. 
 
today, we remember ourselves: exiles in 
the world of love. you &; i, alone on the bed 
about to contain our coalescing bodies. 
 </pre>



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<p class="has-text-align-right has-background" style="background-color:#f1f1f8">Olayioye Paul Bamidele is a writer and a student of mass communication. His works have appeared or are forthcoming in Ninshar Art, Ice Floe, Kissing Dynamite, Kreative Diadem, One Black Like That, and elsewhere. You can find him on Facebook page Paul Olayioye and WhatsApp at 08162573107.</p>
 
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‘I’M ON A HIATUS FOR PSALMS‘ / ‘FURLONG‘ / ‘ON DAYS WHEN THE AIR IS GRIEF‘ / ‘TO KISS ATAVISM‘ / ‘EXILE’ | five poems by Olayioye Paul Bamidele
Photo by Ebuka Onyewuchi: https://www.pexels.com/photo/black-man-covering-face-with-hand-5889715/