Illustration by Arpan Roy
Drums
(what gives us peace gives us wars)
A child hears the drums
he closes into Africa
peace
dance
and the gracefulness in fine movements his mother taught him…
he opens his eyes
and finds his legs going to war
his tongue holds the blood
of the twenty-two men who milked their way into his mother…
he is twenty-two now
and knows how to tear every drum to bring out guns
he will not remember again the days of dance
or the peace in drums…
Nectars
Love…
If we journey too early into this bloom
we will not find nectars
we will lose our necks and fall into tears…
I am clothing your nakedness in my thoughts
(I do not want to know you without honour)
I am murdering this war of the flesh
I am thinking of your smiles now
your uniqueness…
(I do not want to know you without honour)
you are not like some woman who drinks fire
from misled waters-
not like some woman who knows how to blow fire
growing between many men of no shame
I know some woman
you are not one…
(let us walk this poetry together)
the night is cold and there is poetry in this rain
I am closing into the lessons of kisses
I will never wish to kiss you in the rain
never!
lightening is a bad photographer with a selfie stick of thunder
I have seen her albums
they are negatives of burnt souls…
I am closing into the tastes of sleep
they say a soldier does not know the true taste of sleep
until a bullet walks through his heart
I am a poet-
walk through my heart like a bullet and let me sleep…
(let us go back to where this poem actually begins)
love…
If we journey too early into this bloom
we will not find nectars
we will lose our necks and fall into tears…
I am clothing your nakedness in my thoughts
(I do not want to know you without honour)
we must wait the sun rising over this bloom
to find nectars…
About the Poet
Ayoola Goodness is a Nigeria poet. Some of his poems have appeared in anthologies and poetry journals. He is the author of ‘Meditations’, a collection of poems.
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