MY DREAMS.
my body became a bank of words
each word, a spin of ache to my tooth.
frost to my tongue, i stopped talking -
maybe it might cool for me today.
its been a century since my fate has been
altered of the initial ecstasy i motif at primitive.
each thread, a string of bullet drooling
dams in my brows.
late in the waltzing candle, i became an architect
of a house in sandstorm. when my father doctrine
that i began to draw his own dreams.
dad, why should i be the protagonist of your dead
dreams, crushed seven times to inferno?
silence. if i must still hold the pen, in my bowl hand,
the i must submit like the cock submit to the dawn call
of crowing.
why should i see my life through your eye?
you have used yours. allowed me to use mine.
i have dug a foundation, in my tongue, to orchestra
the chord of music, when the evenings befriend
my muse. why must i hold the microscope to my ears,
when i can't decipher the voice i'm hearing.
i have a dream, allow me to build it with my own hands.
Plateau, 2021
BORE ME, IN YOUR ARMS.
bore me on your wings, when my feathers
are too fragile to control the wind. when
the heavy rains of October tethered my tongue
to a dry perched land. this body, that i bore,
carried an opium of scavenged holes. each
holes bears the name of bullet: from the economy,
from the army's gun, from the clergy's excessive
cry of money, from the daily headlines soaked
in gory, from the daily writing of grief. each stitched
an embroidery of grief. i poured my heart, on
altar like incense, & became a chimney of smoke,
of grief, choking others around me. at the rivers, i
tried to extinguished the smoke, but the rivers
puffed nebula, became a flame. my spine crushed &
i crawled like an earthworm, praying that no salt
flicked on me. that no bird found my body. please,
bore me on your wings, for i have became brittle.
Plateau, 2021
WHAT WENT WRONG?
in those days, when to waffled is
the food of night, when to lit a bonfire
is to feast, when the black bird is also
portray with the doves in the cage, on
the streets of New York City,
beside the pastry & flower shop;
bigotry was an innate with racism,
heating in the cell. then, true patriotism
flowered kiss on the government. then,
my father yawned for stupor, & not
for hunger. we frolic, naked, in the rains.
then, we know the words of government
is a river from the heart, & we cheered
like the first dropped of rain in a year.
but what has happened? have you allowed
corruption unbarred bigotry, that you have
renounced unity? are you sting?
do you want me to raise for you: Ahmedu Bello,
Obafemi Awolowo, Nnamdi Azikiwe
to take your blind goad & evince the way?
should i raise: Bob Marley, Fela Kuti, Mariam Makeba
to bifurcated the frothy webs, between your brows?
or should i raise: Chinua Achebe, Christopher Okigbo,
Ben Okri,
to remind you of history, itself. of how you mend hands
against slavery, stealing your bones from body.
maybe i should raise, a marble of writers of grief, drooling
blood from their circlet
to wayfared, to you, the need for one against belief
in these perilous weaves of climate troubles.
Plateau, 2021
Olayioye Paul Bamidele is Nigerian writer and a student of mass communication. He writes poems, plays, prose and essays, and draws his inspiration from the things happening around him. His works have appeared or forthcoming in the Chinua Achebe and Threpo Poem anthology, as well as in Spillword, Terror House, Lunaris, Afreecan, Artlounge, Inverse Journal, Fiery Scribe Review and elsewhere.