SHORES OF MEMORY

“Time is an ocean, but it ends
at
the shore”
Bob Dylan

• I surf through the shores
  of my soul
  browsing memory
  with hands
  ready to embrace
  the blurring landscapes of our dreams
  but the ghost of
  the darkness comes
  on line
  And shango’s promise of light
  becomes a
  joking thunder tumbling under
  the vanity of babel
  ..Still I wait up till
  the grey hours
  hoping for mother’s nipple to sprout milk
  but I see forty
  decades of engorgement
  I see the horizon lined with leaking plates
  naked
  for a coin or two
  overnight, plastic flowers grow in potholes
  a trick
  for the future podium…
  I choke and choke under the heavy darkness
  but
  if being still means the resurgence
  of bitter pain, let mc be a whirlwind

  of freedom.

  II
  Across the road
  I pick pieces of my history

  scattered under trampling feet
  My siblings swim through great torrents

  to escape a country tall with oil wells
  my brother the poet is
  now a
  saint of poverty eating snow
  Sister in Italy; my tongue is incapable of
  disowning you
  I only hope you dance, soon, the lament of illusion.
  This
  giant is a colossus of mirages
  A budha without the promise of nirvana
  A
  melting sun
  but this giant shaped me into a vision
  this budha is the sum
  total of my reality
  this sun is my warmth
  how then can we keep failing
  our ancestors
  by throwing away our skin
  on the slab of a centered
  madness…
  In my scattered history I am yet to laugh with
  careless
  abandon, but if all was Cotton – white
  what will be the meaning of our
  redeeming
  Creation?

  III
  …But how can I fly miles in the clouds

  only to end up washing dead bodies
  and paying bills?
  At the crossroad,
  I see my pain and my beloved
  At the crossroad, I see dollars and cold
  machines
  My beloved giant has turned me into
  a viral citizen
  Yet I
  dream of a telescope that will
  exalt my invisibility in the future of
  light
  Aha, a slow dance is rising from my bowel
  I maybe a circle of
  zeros
  a dot of silence
  but I feel the power of ascenslon
  I am also a
  miracle of calvary
  I see the eyes of my beloved light up
  the
  darkness.
  I dare the wind
  I leap into your presence!

  IV
  We must
  walk together
  to behold the path of great dawns…
  We gather at the
  healing tables
  ready to loose our tongues in the
  wine of sisterhood
  At
  the witness box, atrocities
  compete for visibility
  Lawyers debate the
  dialectics
  of a soaked handkerchief
  At the highplaces monsters become mere

  mortals of incoherence
  And our martyrs
  converge in sad
  heroism
  lighting tomorrow with their sainthood.
  We must learn to seek
  together
  now that our mornings rise to the sky
  now that our ancestors blow
  the charm of unity
  we must learn to put our tongues
  into one lip…
  I
  surf through the shores of memory
  And I behold an unfolding joy
  for which
  I become a child of void
  striving for the indifference
  that will unite
  all differences.

————————

C O N F L I C T

• …But Eden broke apart
  filling my head with cyclones
  and
  questions
  The tower of heaven
  became a babel of tongues
  burying my
  answers in the
  footprints of unborn memories
  the garden left Eden
  and
  nature became several channels of deconstruction…

  I salute the
  Rain
  that nurtures the womb of life
  Yet I find scattered screams
  in the
  flood of California
  Yet the embers of our grief
  Still glow under the
  rivers of Ejirin

  I embrace the sun-center of Energy
  But must my
  sisters in India whither from your heat waves?
  Must my brothers in Kano lose
  their necks in the gripping fever
  of meningitis?
  And is the oasis enough
  for the deserts?

  How can I comprehend the hatred
  of disease-filled
  viruses?
  Are they songs of an inner Atlantis
  or notes from the ark of
  Noah?

  Eden broke apart
  and I hear whispers in the forest of my
  dreams;
  I am one of one
  one of many
  one of all.