I KNOW WHY LAKES DON’T FLOW

(To human beings who died here and there in the silent market of beauty)
 

Lake Chad is running away from a country where snakes eat money because of hunger and corruption to rain fear in the stomach of dying citizens falling down like waterfalls.

Don’t betray a man with a tray on his head, he

Wants to hawk in the street and tweet about

Markets without people, he wants to hawk with

the books dying in his pocket to write bestselling stories on Facebook about markets without souls connecting together on the world trade Centre.

I know why lakes don’t flow,

Nowhere is safe.

I know why lakes don’t flow,

Nowhere can be called home.

Don’t judge a man without his glasses on in the night while he’s reading, he wants to become a google scholar who will publish the shock and pain of seeing markets without buyers and sellers, of seeing markets that’re desserts, of seeing markets marked everywhere with the red pen of death covered with dearth.

There are many reasons why a man will withdraw from life, withdraw from love, withdraw from church, withdraw from friendship, and withdraw from everything that leads to happiness and bliss to call nothing his own.

Men will withdraw when everything is burning, when everything is falling apart, when everything is wrong, when everything is pointing accusing fingers at them, when families are stabbing them from behind for the sins they never committed in the first place.

I’m sorry, my poems are lakes trying to flow, trying to breathe, trying to survive and be proud to call everywhere home.

I thought everywhere was home until that innocent baby opened his eyes with wild tears when he saw the faces of nurses and doctors burning like a furnace.

Everywhere should be home, but in this world only fire lives forever.

There are many reasons why a man will uproot himself from sex, from people, from families, from colleagues to settle down with animals and plants.

I’m sorry, my poems are sad lakes that’ve withdrawn from trusting, loving a world where fire is the only air, where fire is the only home, where fire is the only dream, where fire is the only heir, where fire is the only love you can get from loving your fellow man.

Beauty is a trap that death uses to invite,

Rainbows are colours that darkness uses to divide,

Beauty leads to a door without an exit,

Beauty has no home, its home is everywhere with fire, its home is everywhere leading to prison,

Beauty is a trap for packing flowers into caskets in a market of silence.

Markets should be fun, it should be memorable.

Who wants to sleep in a room and not wake up?

Who wants to rest in a room and be eaten up by fire smiling with death in his mouth?

I’m sorry, my poems are bereaving lakes that’ve withdrawn from flowing to meet rivers, seas, oceans and waterfalls that teamed together with the beauty of the rainbow to betray into a pit of sorrow.

The world is only lodging you temporarily in a room of fire looking beautiful; the world is only lodging you in a house of fire without air,

Home should be everywhere if it has human beings, it should be everywhere if it has a soul, home shouldn’t trick people into fire.

Who wants to sleep in a room without love?

Who wants to dream in a room without air?

Who wants to rest in a room where fire is roaring to burn bodies like Indians?

You were told to come in crowds and masses to choose a seat to die,

You were told to rest in a room filled with explosives and die fueling the wind,

You were told to breathe in a room saturated with poisons,

You were told to dream trusting beauty, adoring it, loving it, believing it, until flowers started to bark, until beauty started to roar with a deadly face and thirst for death and blood.

Beauty is a trap that death uses to invite,

Rainbows are colours that darkness uses to divide,

Beauty leads to a door without an exit,

Beauty has no home, its home is everywhere with fire, its home is everywhere leading to prison,

Beauty is a trap for packing flowers into caskets in a market of silence.

There are many reasons why a man will withdraw from beauty, withdraw from flowers, withdraw from rivers, withdraw from seas, withdraw from oceans, withdraw from flying, withdraw from rails, withdraw from roads and call nothing his own and roll together like millipedes to defend himself from the lies of the world.

Who wants to die under beauty?

Who wants to drown under love?

You were told to come and rest under the shadows of beauty,

You were told to come and rest under the shades of colours,

You were told to come and enjoy everything.

How can a man enjoy everything he never created?

How can a man enjoy everything he never started?

The shades of beauty have no shape,

The umbrella of beauty has no shade.

There are many reasons why a man will withdraw with red eyes to become a monk, an atheist, a lesbian, a gay, a pain in the ass that men who’ve not been broken cannot pick together to make whole.

I cannot spell hell without dying before my time,

I cannot tell hell without fire frying my mouth,

I cannot spell hell without withdrawing from religion to be a lake.

I’m sorry; my poems are bitter lakes that you cannot drink in haste without hurting yourself.

Your voter’s card has your death date written with colours,

Your student identity card has your death date written with books,

Your phones have your death date written with calls,

Your picture has your death date written with beauty,

You’re not running anywhere from this fire that beauty has prepared for the poor.

Beauty is a trap that death uses to invite,

Rainbows are colours that darkness uses to divide,

Beauty leads to a door without an exit,

Beauty has no home, its home is everywhere with fire, its home is everywhere leading to prison,

Beauty is a trap for packing flowers into caskets in a market of silence.

Who wants to sleep in a room with the moon?

Who wants to sleep in a room with hell?

Rooms with fire are no home,

Love with fire burns the heart,

Beauty with a trap can strip off everything into fire.

Your bank accounts have your death date written with money,

Your social accounts have your death date written with posts,

Your driver’s license has your death date written with ignition,

Your social Media have your death date written with beauty.

Think, if it’s too beautiful.

Run, if it’s too wonderful.

Vaccination has your death date checked with immunity,

Hospitals have your death date checked with drugs,

Power has your death date checked with politics,

Think, if it’s too beautiful.

Run, if it’s too wonderful.

Entertainment has your death date written with sin, the world is only tricking you into a room of fire,

It’s only leading you into a room of darkness where beauty will pack flowers into caskets, into regrets, into hell and doom because they bought into the idea of beauty with homes.

There are many reasons why a man will withdraw from the crowd, the rich, the wealthy, the politicians, the famous, and the scientists, the world leaders to call nothing his own and roll together like hedgehog to defend himself from the trap of the world.

Think, if it’s beautiful.

Run, if it’s too wonderful.

Beauty is a trap that death uses to invite,

Rainbows are colours that darkness uses to divide,

Beauty leads to a door without an exit,

Beauty has no home, its home is everywhere with fire, its home is everywhere leading to prison,

Beauty is a trap for packing flowers into caskets in a market of silence.

Beauty has no foundation it’s meant to fall,

Don’t sleep like a fool under your Garden of Eden,

Don’t dance like a fool under route 91 music festival,

Don’t rest like a fool under the floor of beauty without withdrawing.

Who wants to sleep in a room with demons?

Who wants to rest in a room with terrorists?

Beauty is a door without an exit,

Beauty looks like heaven before it locks people up in hell,

Beauty has no home.

A man shouldn’t sleep to weep,

A man shouldn’t run away seeing families,

A man shouldn’t run away seeing love,

A man shouldn’t run away seeing home begging for a knock.

I’m sorry; my poems are lakes crying for help from men and women who’re afraid of dying slowly and painfully under the arms of beauty.

I know why lakes don’t flow,

Nowhere is safe.

I know why lakes don’t flow

Nowhere can be called home.

I cannot spell hell without dying trying to pronounce the h as hearts, heaven or as human.

Hell is the shell of heaven,

I cannot tell hell without covering my voice box with fire wood burning and dying.

Don’t judge a man who is too careful with the world, with words.

You came invited to be divided,

You came painted to be pointed,

You came polished to be punished,

You came invited to be distracted.

World massacres, genocides, attacks, tears and death crawls with a distraction by beauty.

Die, but don’t die under the ocean of lies,

Burn, but don’t breathe with the faggots who’re carried away by the train of lies moving with the speed of beauty whose station is the cemetery and graveyards.

Beauty is the atmosphere that led to the greatest world disasters,

I cannot shake hell using my hands,

I cannot tell hell through my mouth,

I cannot spell hell using human alphabets.

I’m sorry; poems are lakes digging for help.

I know why lakes don’t flow,

Nowhere is home.

I know why lakes don’t flow,

Nowhere can be called home.

Beauty is a trap that death uses to invite,

Rainbows are colours that darkness uses to divide,

Beauty leads to a door without an exit,

Beauty has no home, its home is everywhere with fire, its home is everywhere leading to prison,

Beauty is a trap for packing flowers into caskets in a market of silence.

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Poem © Paul Oluwafemi David

Image: Pixabay.com remixed