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.

The post Poems by Ayoola Goodness first appeared on Prachya Review.