TAIWO HASSAN
my body
is way more than a raging river
trying to purge the insecurities of my past lovers.
these fleshy folds and stretch marks
also double as fine sediments of fear,
moist mosses of despair,
and slimy qualms,
all thriving under a mirror
holding reflections some hands,
like birds can never taste; another
naked home for bloated hopes – sardines
who fill each of the bubbles
that escape from their gills with prayers
that a new day doesn’t leave them humming
the hook’s song of a depressed fisherman,
or trapped in the talons of a hungry kingfisher.
i
this, is how we love here;
devoid/ of any speck/ of light
heavy hands/ squeezed/ into each other/
pumped full/ of emotions/ these lips/ can’t spill/
lacing the lines/ of each palm/ with tears/
and salvation/ and hope/ and /
ii
my lips are running towards ruin, again;
a desert/ water/ vultures/ a carcass/
a sinner/ salvation/ my knuckles/ light/
this house/ loss/ & longing.
iii
we all have a special type of hunger
songs here are souvenirs of the past;
battered beats holding rhythms of regrets,
multiplied melodies divided into empty choruses,
the sheer despair of a poet trying to gather his metaphors.
iv
even i, can be the remnants of an arson;
a butterfly with no shade of direction
on the colors of its wings, i once heard,
is hatred, absolutely nothing but love
that has just lost its way.
i try, i rearrange this reality to fit me, to
arrange this displacement, to undouse these fires.
v
protect yourself first, then try building trenches for others.
here, i’m no firefighter,
just an insane soul diving into these full flames,
carrying only high hopes that
any burn i get doesn’t feel far from familiar.
vi
i just want to remember the good
what more can this body stand for
than strange confluences of blood, sweat and tears
struggling to strip away the saltiness sheltered in them?
what else can this reality be, if not a simple burden?
Taiwo Hassan is a writer of Yorùbá descent, a poet and a vocalist. A Best Of The Net Nominee, his poems have appeared in trampset, Kissing Dynamite, Lucent Dreaming, The Shore, Brittle Paper, Dust Poetry Magazine, Ice Floe Press, Wizards In Space and several other places. He emerged the first runner-up for the MANI 10 year anniversary Poetry Competition. He’s also an undergraduate student of Demography and Social Statistics at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ilé-Ifẹ̀, Osun State, Nigeria. His first chapbook, Birds Don’t Fly For Pleasure is forthcoming for publication by River Glass Books.