on the radio, the pastor preaches how
to be like a tree planted by rivers of water
how do you paddle a paper boat?
god, i’m no longer the captain of this ship,
my soul sinking fast as sand. i feel
like the metaphor: the chaff which the wind driveth away.
this is the thing. my heart is leached
out. grief, the percolating fluid. loss
the pickpocket drains me in installments
like in august when gravity pulls clouds
& soft rain pours & pours & earth gulps & gulps
like the proverbial fly that’ll rather die in paradise of froth.
wait, i hear the ground screeching:
another bridge giving way. whistled elegy.
1960 1963 1978 1980 2011
in ibadan, yemoja is not our friend.
but that is untrue. all river path is still blocked.
a creature still lives in denial of other creatures.
on the radio, the pastor preaches how
to be like a tree planted by rivers of water.
in my mind, i picture buffer strips.
when he mentions expiation – crucifying flesh,
my heart churns & churns
like cluttered bowel of an unholy city & i
begin by roasting it in embers of prayers.
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Portrait of Boy’s Skull as Bull’s Eye
Black Summer: the last time fire razes forests in Australia,
I see the stranded deer.
They remind me, glass clear, of home.
Of another kind of fire ranging here
untamed. I remember the Asa’s sonority
that supposes to, but arouses nobody.
I think the metaphor is the issue.
Actually, it isn’t any mountain,
no mountain but the roof’s ablaze.
Tomorrow, another bullet will hit another boy’s skull.
Fatherless. He will be on his way back from school
or mosque or synagogue
or the factory where he daily courts
delicate solutions & machines without PPE.
His mum sells sachet water in traffic.
Tomorrow, another cathedral will explode.
Another farmer will lose his head like a butcher’s beast.
Another 200 girls will be plucked unripe
from school & will by the way of blood
or reddened sheet wed strange men in a strange forest.
You’ll say it’s hoodlums.
You’ll say it’s bandits.
You’ll say it’s unknown gunmen.
You’ll say…
A dart hits the bull’s eye,
a bullet hits a boy’s skull
but you will call it stray.
& opium causes the slumber.
This deep slumber of heavy snorers
soiling God’s sacred garment with spittle escaping
through the fallen gates of improvident mouths.
& opium – piety unbridled –
causes this slumber.
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Poems © Bayo Aderoju
Image by Vicky Vitullo from Pixabay