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blacknessonseapoet

Poem No. 28

[Untitled]

POEM As the world played possum, i gave my umbrella to a bronze

statue on his way home to his family.


i gave my umbrella away, because

a juju man foretold,


there would be an April shower: a fusilade

of poisoned arrows i must dance in


if i want to speed up my reincarnation— a reappearance in 1939

as a cancer cell in Hitler's brain.


but it never rained. & i'm at home, painting my self

portrait on a dimension: 77 cm x 53 cm


medium: ash, from the damp remains of another failed note mortem.

over the mole on my face, i paint a bullseye to court a warning shot.


in my desperation for a dance

with death, i cut off the tail of a lizard on my welcome mat


then, squatted, jealously watching its dance moves

in my skin, like writhing, convulsing— a star oozing through my mouth as foam, as

regret.


imagine two faceless dancers by a jukebox, barefooted

on a floor of broken glass & promises.


& god watches on. always. his seven eyes moving to & fro the earth

but what i need are his hands in motion; queching fires, smearing balm...


he won't, although he can: his fingers hatching,

in a split second, this prayer


beads i have fondled all these years

into eggs. each, warm with embryos


of migratory birds i dreamt grew & transported me elsewhere,

from this nest, free from the deafening crackles of forest fires.


promise you will not tell my mother i've stopped praying, to prey

on the right hand of god refilling mouths driveling what he tags forbidden.


speaking of deathwish, it can be many things. like, unlearning

my safety lessons:


i practice with my country's flag

as a pall: wave it at soldiers, hoping their headwind spreads it over me.

it rains, today— seawater leaking from the tear sac of the innocent

— men in police custody. men, whose embalming


will be on news desks, where the numb lips of a newsreader

are pulled by telephone wires from a government house.


these days, news hour, after my favorite show,

is when i remember to bury my hearing


aid under my pillow. then, stare through the TV screen as i do the void

called a 'thorax' in my human anatomy textbook. in there,


my kid sister says i'm losing too much weight. but isn't this the process

—a beautiful process of weathering, as with all of the beautiful things i know


in which god hides the rusty nails that held his cradle & an urn

of ash from his mother's portraits in a colouring book.


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