Three Poems by Fasasi Abdulrosheed

 

Red Wine

Yesterday, a town became a memory; 

A story of ashes, of actions and inactions. 

Under tattered canopies 

are hopeless children with their mothers

reviewing what has befallen them, how

homes have become inexistent, their children’s lives cut short —

How they could not help but bury their own children

like yam seeds; terrors they'll all water in memory as they grow.

In a town drooling smoke, the dragonflies are thirsty,

they have been to the fields, to the rivers,

to the wells all around the town, 

but everything seems to be mourning: 

the flowers, the rivers and streams mourn 

the dead city till they ran out of tears. 

In a room with tiny shreds of light was a man,

dead, in a pool of unclotted blood — a man with a widely opened mouth.

And his eyes fixed onto the sky, watching his soul depart his body,

In his blood; red wine the dragonflies found solace.

*

Stories of Silence

Mama said

We do not talk when we know the world will never speak for us,

Maybe for the colour we wear or for the bumps on our tongues

Mocking our accents, a child does not speak of agonies. 

Their mothers should not speak of griefs growing on their breasts, 

Their better place exists in the memoirs, when justice would have strayed, 

Most of them are better told as stories that never give the hint of the violators and the violated. 

So were the men who stole from us, men who broke the vaults of our souls 

Men who planted on our lush, tender body a garden of thorns, 

Men who robbed us of our worthy boyhood, 

Dragged us by the neck to the border of regret, 

Murdered our unripe esteems. They said

Do not talk of these to your parents, your friends will never help,

Keep us in a room of silence; a dark apartment in your heart.

*

Song for another day

This song follows me everywhere

To the party of happy men, where grief seizes my heart, 

To the grave of sad women, where pity is written all over me 

This song follows me to the cities, to the suburbs seeking to be sang. 

The song of a girl asking for help in her mild but helpless voice,

The song of a girl whose voice may never be heard because we live 

In an environment buried in noise, the song of a girl whose father 

Had turned to well; mining all day, digging all night.

This song is that of silence that led a girl into a canal, 

A silence; where she loses herself, this song is a song of grief — 

a song to be sang with broken lips, this song is a song for another day, 

For the day, for the night, for the ears cannot contain it.

For its notes, too heavy, no stave can hold it. 

A song for another day, a song of silence seeking an amplifier 

to sing her griefs. 

___

Fasasi Abdulrosheed Oladipupo is a Nigerian poet, a Veterinary Medical Student, whose first love is making art. His works has featured or will be featured in Night Heron Barks Review, Poesis Journal, Praxis Magazine, The Citron Review, 433 Magazine, Stand Magazine (The University of Leeds) and BBPC July 2019 anthology.