FROM OLUMO ROCK

a brown thread stretches far far beyond
the frontiers of vision, separating
the living         lush-green- silent-living
from
the lively         rust-brown-restless-lively

i ride toy cars
through time’s thickets
to childhood

gaze
at those figurines, diminished
by untamed desire, darting
with zest to the riotous
rhythm of flowing, streaming, life

i am a spectator
just for a moment, watching a game
with no rules, no referees; only goals
count.         my heart!

touches theirs, for soon I’ll descend
from Sinai’s sinless snow, to the valley
where vile veils vile

=====

A BRIDGE PASSING UNDER MANY WATERS

Glaring back
At the sun
With eyes shut
Feeling
Its fingers
Dye-stained
Peeling the silence
Of darkness
Layer by layer
With choruses
Of coloured chaos

The night
Wind whips
The moon

I mourn
The moon

I think
Of a bridge
Passing under
Many waters

The sun
Is God’s
Precious gourd
Spilling warmth
On a frigid world
And its waters

Gourd’s in its haven
All’s right with the world

=====

WE MEN

We men sitting in a circle
Laughing
Listening to the loneliness
In our hearts in the night in the bottom of our bottles

Fresh bottles fresh barbecues fresh bills
Stale jokes stale laughter stale faces
The circle widens, gains girth
We shrink, descend outside the gates

Dragging our jokes and words
Behind us
Before us
Our potbellies stretch and join hands

To form a landing pad
For the deepening night

Night makes a soft thud as it lands
Then runs off, then runs inside
To take its place n
To make way for more night

Men don’t cry over spilt beer
They let it dry
But the fun dies first – a wry corpse –
We laugh one last time before our phones awaken

=====

SPIRIT SONG

The logrhythm of an Iroko

SpiritSong always gives a Solution

Of  x

=====

PHASES
(watching a full moon on a full night)

the night sky is a white mirror; ambitious
vaulting the sea’s blue-complexioned beauty,

storing a silvery blank flat-screen face
like the time-honoured logo of The glass-smith

my face your face his face her face
their face its face our face the face

the face is flat like a freshly sandpapered turf
passion&desire polished away – like a groom’s lofas

beauty wiped clean away, n beasty too,
on the backside of the wind’s palms

face by face within face upon
face like face unlike face deface

then the mirror moves, like a slow sigh or slap
clasping its hands slowly, slowly enough

hiding the face, like a shameless skirt bored
of sowing whirlwinds in distant groins

time spreads like the ambitious night sky
like dust-to-dust, first in reluctant fistfuls

then in impatient shovelfuls, burying Face
forever in a casket of plundered memory

=====

(c) Ololade Adewuyi