The Poetry Marathon

Conquering Distance

My heart grieves with you, uninvited.
So, take this poem enveloped in warmth
to be an assurance of affection.

Your motherly concern for humanity
is what the world has not agreed
she lacks, like a beautiful maiden of no values.

I decided to call you the other night
to remind you certain songs won’t just play
if you do not open your body.

Mother, I prize you above gold and silver.
And if I do not write you my tenderness,
I’d burn; this flame knows no stint.

Oh, you say what about distance?
Mother, you taught me not to regard
what stops me from reaching a height.

Damn it. Is there a place songs can’t reach?

The Night you wished you were Dead

Scary night – the night I called
to know if you’ve won another fight
against solitude: wrestling hard
has been the only ladder
you’ve perfected in life because
life never gave you an option.

That night, I’d have had the feelings
of birds flying in the sky above seas,
for fear I might miss you, the way
I missed the path I followed here.
(You filled her vacuum in my heart)

If not for covid-19 ban on planes,
perhaps, I’d have known that night
how planes are higher birds, but unlike
birds have no feathers and songs.

I love songs: they’ve kept me alive.
Mother, fall in love with songs.
Forget about age: how true love
could be found in a lifeless world.
You can make songs to love.
Sing them aloud. Louder. No sin.

If I have Daughters

They must be a fine seed
viable even in arid lands.

Mother, Earth knows your essence:

I planted songs of praise
for those who take care
of us – me and my kinds
termed as open wounds
to be sauced with salt,
along the way to the markets
without calling names.
A woman wrote your name
on a paper and placed
it on my palm. It reads:
your mother tops the list.
If I have daughters,
they must be you –
a gardener of love.

After Discovery

Since I discovered songs
are masquerades chasing
sorrows and solitude
into exile, I do not wake
without it in my mouth
or on my palms, asking
God to make me a repellent
for anything cloudy,
for that is where grief
hides under the mask
of nature, until it kills.

After that call in which I chorused ‘Mother, live’

The neighbour I despised loves to go with the wind:
what comes from your mouth must drop in her ears
before anyone knows what it was. I say I despise her.

But on that night, she asked who I wanted to stay
a while with, and hold sword to wrestle grief.
I said I was talking to my mother. And she gifted

my wishes a mouthful of amen. A pinch of the hatred
I had for her melted into dew on my tongue.
There was this curiosity dozing in her iris. So, I opened

myself into a pool, a place to bury the fire in her.
A step closer to me broke her voice into questions.
Say her name. Kudiratu? Helen? Idowu?

I shrieked: Brigitte is her name. She began a language
I do not understand. But it was her god she seeks.
Perhaps, she was expecting a slice of the miracle

she thought had awoken my mother on her tongue.
She’d thought paradise is here.
Perhaps I lied; my mother never died.

The young woman began humming a song
the kind sang during last rites to reflect hope
in the heart of mourners – friends and foes.

I planted half of my hatred for her
and asked if she could amplify her voice,
so I could join in the solemnity of survival.

Depth away from home

My mother fell from a height into despair
and I cried. She is still there as I write.
She gives a description of the walls
as thick dark bricks, eighteen feet deep
into grief, thrice the depth for mortals.
Could that be the prize of being a fighter?
I’ve never been into a home of grief
this deep and long distance away from here.
There’s a scar behind me for my offshoots
to learn how to survive a fall into grief.
I had my first scar at eight.
The other came no distance afterward.
Mother has so many already;
I have an album made from them.
But she’s in another abyss for being alive.
Mother, what chases us should desist
after a long unfruitful chase. There are
balls of waters in my eyes as I write this.
I can only imagine how grief scourges
a body away from home.

Offerings

I was a boy of too many blurred visions.
You came just in time, picked and
dusted me into a paradise where words
are ripe roses too beautiful to walk past
without halting to give hallelujah to the artist.

The world would have made a bowl
of mesh meal from my bones
if not you, defying distances to teach me
how to be human. How would I have grown?

That other day, for instance, when my demons
confined me into exile, you welcomed me
to the world proper. You think you did so little,
but it’s engraved in my head that even after now,
I do not want your place to be vacant in my world.

And now that darkness surrounds you,
you do not have to worry anymore.
Just hold unto me. Both of us are enough
to torch our paths to survival.

Even if I have to carry you, the way you did,
do not worry. You’d have your back broken,
eyes far-flung from their sockets
to walk me into safety with songs of light.

Just this

Mother, snap out of your lethargy
and hold hands with this poem.
I anticipate your home-coming;
do not return without songs
in your mouth.
There are many empty cottages
in a sullen sky
for grief to rest on a treeline.
Do not marvel at this:
strange plants grow
in a barren garden.
Mother, do not bottle up your woes.
Mask your body with smiles
meant to heal –
a wild smile for forlornness.
It’s easy to walk a deficient distance
in the heat of the moment;
obey this poem, nothing more.

After these acts, Smile

I want to know if Earth asks for a taste
of waters within you. Tell me if there’s
another thing other than what I know.
What does it ask of you this time?

What tells you you cannot be a bird,
roaming and nesting without grieving?
Kneel before your creator. If words in you
are heavy trucks on my nation’s road,
too difficult to move, do not worry.

Just kneel. Palms together
and gaze at the heavens for seconds.
Then walk away, whilst winking at sorrow.
You can write about the torments of solitude,
the nightmares; it’d make a good read
for another of its victims.

Raise your palms to the heavens,
a way of surrendering to healing songs.
Do not drop your hands in a hurry.
Say goodbye to the depression of spirit.

Season of Songs

Darkness has gotten enough from us –
freedom to love, to breathe, and to roam.
The sun rises only to obeisance:

the world has not seen light in a long while.

And you are here, alone, saying to darkness:
I’m open to welcoming any thing, even death.
Mother, I won’t give you away.

Sometimes, violence is the language
grief, no matter the brittleness, understands.
Mother, permit me to be a rebel.

Well, I’ve found a peel for sorrow,
songs about a world free from stenches,
about hope, about us dancing in the rain.

I look at you and see the ugliness of grief.
Whatever has jinxed you shall taste death,
for this time is a season of songs.