I'll leave words

before i leave
this encyclopedia of your heart
to dusts and webs and
all sorts of insects
there are words like
birthmarks i wish to script

words the world has
never heard of or seen
since she got the name
earth
by celestial taxonomy

words
whose lungs i pray
my verbs breathe into
to give their skeletons flesh and life

words that would walk
stand upright on twos
sit with you on the dining table
and maybe play my night role
when i shut my eyes in sleep

i surely will leave
words
with angelic wings
that can fly to you
as sedating songs
whenever you with your tongue
taste the marrah of my absence
filling your mouth

i shall leave tasty words
red wines and candies

and intoxicating words too
to lift your spirit high
above its low sea level

words to still the sandstorms
breaking the rose flowers
you have planted in your heart
in memory of me

i'd leave ever fresh words like mentol
words you'd feel in your throat
when the children read me
via poetry apps in portable devices

i'll not leave
without leaving words with magical hands
like mine
to keep on playing my keys
on your piano,
your sumptuous body
minors on majors on sharps

everywhere your eyes roll
like an owl prying the dark
searching for a missing link
i'll leave words

and in your water colour dreams
i'll leave my footnotes

sunset in Kano

evening
sun
in Kano
is like
an overripe orange
stuffed
in the cloud's mouth

Recapitulations

there is this big guy up there
watching subjects turn objects
objects turn tiny insects
and midgets too micro
for his omnipresent eyes

there is this big guy somewhere
swimming in a pool of regret
why he spoke you you and you
why he breath fire into fuel on clay
instead of more ants, more birds, more trees
more rivers, more earth. more stones
without emotions to quake his heart

more and more
as subjects turn objects
objects turn midgets
humans become the numb in numbers
as death tolls daily rise as oceans do
filling his heart with pollens of damp grief
why he made you you and you

Spectabilis

my heart was a forest of flowers
full of greens & happiness
before that uncalled-for call from the clouds
if I had seen death's angel
I would have seized her throat
broken her lips
blocked her ovule
and culture the uncured rivers
meandering down from eyes
to cheeks on face
then down into earth's mouth
(earth is never satisfied
she is a kwashiorkor child--
swollen stomach hungry eyes
longing tongue
insatiable watery desires)

for a season the rain has ceased
and the forest is losing its green
my happiness is developing false toes
and shades of lemon
the lemon goes lighter
to a fainter hue unknown to me
oh, it turns yellowish Brown
oh, it's now brown
the colour of sunburnt leaves

the wind came and blew away everything
and I am left with a flower
I still don't know how it managed to survive
so I say thank you dear friend
who watered when we lost sight of & hope
in anything green that with time greys
(for they turn brown too quickly)

it has happened again!
the flower is no more
the flower is no more
a hungry goat ate it
and disappeared just like that

my heart is a graveyard
my heart is a desert
a flower so precious
a flower so charming
with open secrets in her petals
with magic & gold particles as pollens
is gone

Ehizogie

this poem is not dead

(for Eunice Dibie)

this poem should not be read in quietude
this poem should not be read alone
this poem should not be read at all
if there are no handkerchiefs in town
to mop up rivers & streams of sorrow
that draws pathways & maps on the face
this poem must be sung slowly like a hymn
without drums without cymbals without flutes
with only silence as background sound
this poem must be hummed
it must transport vibrations
to the holies of holies
this poem must remain lost in ears
as echoes from distant howls
this poem must have legs
this poem must have wings
it must travel home to warm mother's heart
to tell her her cactus is no more
that her garden is now like a desert
(tell mama if you have muscles
in your tongue and in your hands
to hold a thousand genies in one body)
this poem must fly into space
and like a rocket never come back
this poem wears a long face
this poem lies straight on the ground
facing the heavens
this poem is blind it sees no more
this poem is dead
this poem is dead
soon it would be forgotten
soon it would fade into a continuum
of numbers sinking into sand by the day
soon it would vanish from the eyes
but specks of memories would linger
this poem is dead yet invaluable
this poem is a precious gift
stolen by the quick hands of fate
this poem is unfinished business
with favourable outcomes
this poem must come back to us again
this poem is not dead

Ehizogie Iyeomoan

The world may never hear us

Even if our knifed hearts melt volcanoes

and our skins shrink like snails close to the fireplace;

even though the edited stories between our thighs sink ships

and like foliage paper we sway this way and that way,

the whirl wind tossing us about in episodes,

we will only probably be remembered

chapter after chapter, leaf by leaf,

by only half a handful of those who sniff our agonies

and get high in the pleasures

buried in their shallow graves;

even though we sound our trumpets of war

and with borrowed hands beat our battle drums torn,

like a salamander, dumb to the torrents of rushing waters

the noisy world would be icy silent as always;

silent to our cries for justice...

Visit any nearby police station,

you’ll marvel at the histories written on our breasts.

The rehab centers can hold only a few letters of us.

Soon they’ll cough out a handful back into the streets

where we came from- as books with blank pages

full of super stories only imagined.

Our orgies like oceans will flow on and on and on,

unending, our stories will only make newspaper headlines

but a climax would never be reached.

We will only hear ourselves ourselves.

Ehizogie Iyeomoan (c) 2015

should i dry the tears?

when the night falls

on her kneels again

praying Anna,

sobbing

drops

upon drops

of solid tears,

should i stay consoling her

picking the grains on her head

hoping stars fall from her eyes?

should i pour my sands on her flood

till the world dries up again?