A name is the way to riot,
pressed between algae-patched walls
limpid water streaking down ancestral tress
where delphinium has wilted like winter into autumn.
Body takes the colour of that wall,
dilapidated in English sentences,
cysts blooming in a perfect dark
and ready to ovulate,
unfertile soil fiddling skyscape into tender feathery silhouettes, lathered at their hems with glass splinters.
A name is the day I remember I was good
and undressed with such briskness.
When I taste things such as redemption where there isn’t,
I fear that when the giver of name calls me mine,
I would have gone into many places
treaded in silence.
’tis a name tha ’tis a query.
“My poem “Carrier of Names” explores the voice of a black man in the places ridden by silence, the struggles to hear his own name and not be marvelled by it.“
Olúwádáre Pópóọla is a 19-year old Nigerian poet, a student of Microbiology and a Sports Writer for a media company. He writes from a city by rocks and longs to see the world without discrimination of any form. Learning the art of imagery, his poems are up/forthcoming on Mineral Lit. Magazine, Headline Poetry & Press, Feral: A Journal of Poetry & Art, Roadrunner Review and elsewhere. He can be reached on Twitter @Kunmi_sher