I Carry Their Dreams and Songs of Water

By Tajudeen Muadh Akanbi

I Carry Their Dreams

I carry them in my arms-the death
of my blood, I carry them, as
they dangled on my forsaken shoulders,
after hugging with servitude and pain 
and neglect, that seems like an apparition of dead hopes.

I saw arsenals knocking on my gates of peace,
I saw shredded pieces,
The butterflies vivid, as they lay and feed on 
those lifeless things,
my throat and tongue in a babel,
a warzone, I tried to jingle the bells of peace,
only my olive branch to the massacred my the suck ,
on those meaningless things.

Those lifeless things are not dead, but
resurrecting particles,
that tells us stories of how grenades swept the floor 
of mother earth and caressed its palms too.

Those lifeless things saw Santana too,
Not with daggers but with clubs and whips and batons,
In their dreamland.

They lay on the pregnant soil,
ready to give birth to a seeming peace,
they only lay on the same soil,
and fertilizing it with their dreams,
the dreams and goals birthed by the death notes that lurked
in their fingers.

Under the muzzle of the trigger,
They saw pieces and not peace.

They saw the same soldiers bleating/ YES SIR!
under their aching throat, with beads of sweats 
embroidering their faces.

I saw the ones, with gloom and fear,
ran into woods and bushes- I saw them later,
hiding under the earth’s crust.
I could only see them- writing their dirge
on their palms with their own blood,
to dance to the tunes
of their collective sorrow.

Songs of Water

On the bank of the waterfall,
the pebbles trickling the bark of the mahogany,
I saw cacophony of tears in your lids _ ready to give way to 
the Waters and cries which I wrote on my palm.

Taste of the dessert sweat that danced on my tongue
giving a way to the tickle of Waters from my flanks
to sing your canto which I engraved in
my face and wrote in my palms.

The dance on the waist beads that embroidered
the eulogy of my poem is the metaphor to the taste
of my smile.

Have you seen babels and twisters in the mouth acting a war zone?
the tongue and teeth engage in a bout_ to taste the lick of Mama's pizza _ 

I too_ sat by the blazer, ready for the spoons and knives
to cry for a bleed on their blunt edges.

I sing the praise of the healing aroma from the Waters.

Tajudeen Muadh Akanbi, Lightening pen X is a poet from Nigeria, he’s a  member of hilltops creative arts foundation and a memorizer of Qur’an, and his works appear forthcoming on different literary magazines.