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By Babatunde Waliyullah Adesokan
(Twitter: @tunde_adesokan
Instagram: @toondayatkins
Facebook: tunde.w.adesokan)
—Silent Home—
One day your silence will wander the graveyard
Settling on stones that are forgotten – on dead
Stems that have lost greenness.
One day your
Silence will be a constant autumn where dried
leaves rustle with murmur of voices dying away.
One day the curtains will be drawn on the dawn
–a universe of worms will take over the quietus
with algae becoming the compulsory attire.
One day the wind will force flame off our candles
–the urn will no longer hold teas but memories
or remains.
One day epitaphs will be forgotten
– last words lost, the living that once curried us
will hurry from where we sleep.
The land, we
pranced – the land we desecrated will be
the final – the only home
—When You Are Young—
( After W.B. Yeats)
Now that you are young, virile
full of life and brimming with fire,
fast-forward this poem and quickly
envision those declining grey looks
your old eyes will wear,
those regrets at lovers who now
squirm at your wrinkled brow and
stayed with you only for the beauty
that vanished
and the respite of those true friends
who love your soul bare, unfurnished
and still cherish the happiness of your
wrinkled soul
while you bend tiredly over a crooked
stick – watch with nostalgia how grand
sons flee dangerously across a sharp
bend of familiar valleys and disappear
amidst the clouds of seduction.
—A Boy Says—
(On 5 June 2022, a mass shooting and bomb attack occurred at a Catholic church in the city of Owo in Ondo State, Nigeria. - Wikipedia)
Let death end here
Let bullets grow flowers
where they have torn flesh
Let mothers find their lost
children
& fathers find their homes
with no rubbles
Let a drum of storm settles
into a violin of worship
where violence has torn &
wrecked a church
Let worshippers spring from
those charred sands
Echoes of their praises
opening this nation
Into rebirth
Into manacles
Of her redemption.
About the Author:
Babatunde Waliyullah Adesokan (Toonday) writes from Oyo State, Nigeria. He works with Firstbank.
He is a lover of poetry; a lover of everything that breathes poetry. His works appeared / forthcoming in Pangolin Review, Wales Haiku, Ethel-Zine, Shallowtales Review, Stillwater Review, RoadRunnerReview, Lucent Dreaming etc.
Twitter:@tunde_adesokan
Instagram: @toondayatkins
Facebook: tunde.w.adesokan