Tag Archives: Death

INTROSPECTION (songs for plath)

Someone I know presented this at a book club, and something about the content made me decide to share, as I told him.

pic by_aeternum_art-d6vy5hm.jpg

I

My heart is a tomb where hope comes to live,

I go to parties of happiness to breathe,

I inhale all the light around me

and leave the parties when it gets dark,

too dark for men to see

without stumbling into the sadness.

Too dark to feel for lighters that lift the souls of men high.

 

I watch their fears colliding from a distance,

I giggle.

 

II

On quiet days

when there are no songs left in my lungs,

I write.

 

I like to write stories of women that died

while embracing life-

firmly

women we thought had too much of her in them

but we never cared to look beneath their skins.

 

On autopsy,

the pathologist said he found castles living inside them,

Castles that echoed whispers.

 

III

There are nights when I dream;

 

I am a bird, carrying happiness within my beak

Flying towards a nest I do not know.

 

I never get home.

An angry storm breaks my beak into two,

happiness dissolves into a stream of darkness.

 

I wake up screaming.

Sweating.

 

-OLUAFOLABI

THE LAST DANCE

 

If looking through your window in the rain doesn’t move you, or even looking at this picture doesn’t touch you, then you need to see me for evaluation.

Finally I have seen it all

I have seen all the seasons of life

All different kinds of people

I have learnt all there is to know

 

Time to dance to the last rain

 

Gradually these clouds gather

Heavy nimbus clouds

Carefully in formation

These kinds don’t come by accident or regularly

These dark clouds over my estate only

They snigger playfully, sardonically, as they march in place

And soon some sweet little rain drops show

They trek carefully down my windowpane

In sync with those down my cheek

In-between these drops I see seasons of my life gone by

 

In-between these rain drops

I count the many blessings I have enjoyed in my short living

I see the many smiles that have wrinkled my old handsome face

The bright mornings I woke up happy and strong

The sweet quiet times strolling in the midnight

The awards and honours to a distinguished psychiatrist

Who has seen the chaos of men’s souls and survived

The wealth I have amassed and shared

 

In-between these tear drops

I count the many sorrows I have suffered in my short life

I see the many frowns that have wrinkled my old gravely face

The grey mornings I have felt like lying all day crying in bed

The loud weary times toiling away in the sun

The dilemmas and confusions of a chronic shrink

Who has not remained the same after seeing the mind’s darkness

The heartbreaks I have amassed and caused

 

I say no word

It is loud enough as it is

I am still quiet and peaceful

Totally at ease with the clouds in my world

I have cleared my house and sorted out my affairs

The stage is wide-set and the audience seated

They wait happily for my debut

For how I dance as I exit

At the applause of a million showers of the last rain

____________________________________________________

BACKGROUND: I find myself recently constantly wondering how actually short life is. For anyone like me who runs a tight schedule (and I can count many of you that I have met), you occasionally scold yourself for not stopping to breathe or enjoying happier moments than when you have just completed some project and soon you define your moments by your professional/work accomplishments. It’s only occasionally we do this because we are way too busy to even indulge in such thoughts. We soon are lost in our “slavings-away”. For all the drama and activities we go through as humans, the whole story seems so short and pretty incomplete for a movie producer to even make a timeless classic from.

Here’s a little reminder and toast to the fact. A reminder that itself will not last long. A reminder that will be gone and forgotten with the first drop of the next rain over my little tropical city.

WALKING OUT, APART

walked away

I am gone and out so don’t
Gaze at my disappearing silhouette
Smell my fragrant bed sheet
Wait for my returning shadow

May spend years building the house but I
Painfully exit at slightest call
Don’t longingly return at night
Never willfully return to same place

Because once I obsess it
Tirelessly tears me out
Radically redefines my existence
Shamelessly makes me a full-blooded vagrant

Count yourself special if I
Remember to say goodbye to you
Take the pains to warn you in this writing
Send a postcard from any phase of my life

You don’t know or remember me by the moments
Noisy in grooving parties or hearty laughs
Nostalgic over wine with movies, music or poetry
Peaceful around music and dead midnights

And I most certainly did not
Make myself this wild way
Look in my wardrobe one morning and
Pick out this personality to put on

Welcome me with half a heart when you see me
Handle me with one arm whilst I’m around
Smile with your lip through the moments we share
Kiss goodbye with a one-eyed tear drop when I leave

_______________________________________________________

BACKGROUND: This appears to be another tribute to the outcast. It is about relationships and human interaction and loss. I am a scientist still being amused and amazed by the concept of human interaction. Its biological basis alone is something to sit at dinner with.
I should add here that the CLOSER you get to people –just anybody –the more of their uniqueness you get to see and appreciate; and this MAY affect how you’d react to their absence.
No, this is not a tribute to me; but if you feel you must make yourself believe it to be, well I can’t quite help you on that I am afraid.

PS. A few weeks after writing this, Trent of http://www.trentlewin.com whom I met here was planning to make a next step in his writing career and I felt honoured he thought to share his itinerary with me. I would be further humbled if he should remember to send me a postcard from the place he eventually gets to.

A nail to the head

image

(Source online, unknown)

I now stand tall proud loser
Gracefully holding my head
Empty of any sensibility
Hence easy to bear
My heart beating passionately easily
Because of the hole in my chest
Letting out the heavy sea of blood
The heart normally has to cope with

So, after my head empties out,
What next?

I boldly display my monkey-tail
Put up as I scamper away in frightful flight
From all the stark raving difficulties
Faithfully stalking my daily life like psychopaths

Then banging my head on the floor
In manly resignation to the insanities chasing me
To end up contacting ifeelshadows.com
So the kind Doc. can help nurse my mental bruises

I throw hands up in the air waving like at a musical rave
Poetically exclaiming the hopelessness of it all
Before even my penned hands get tired and chained
For this whole homicidal act on the dignified person of poetry

And I lie on my damp bed
Stinking un-bathed soul
Drenched with rain of sorrows
So cold in this life I can’t get dry

Never mind I am shivering epileptically
And I have to cover myself
Keeping me further damp, sticky and stinky
Yet You(God) don’t stop

But in all this call me sad –a sad, sad man
Because I see even no relief or sense in suicide
I am no judge in this frame of mind
But least, I was sane enough to analyse my hopelessness

What do You want from me
Will You be happy when I let it all go
Throw out my life
And hang myself on a cross?
Continue reading

Autumn’s song 1

image

(Source: unknown, online)

Something’s wonderful
About autumn’s signature
Sometimes making one artful
Out on the roof with nature

It’s leaf by leaf
Breath by breath
The tree heaves with relief
Burdensome leaves crash to death

On the forest flooring
Scope the bloodbath
Those souls autumn is tearing
Sprinkling on life’s sad path

Several meters up
Same autumn sings reverently
Once like a full inverted cup
Tree now stands silently

From a close distance
The writer observes
Taking a humble stance
The awesome nature deserves

Birds sing no more
Staying away from this tree
Now bereft of glamour
But feeling so free

Work your art writer
Sing with the season
As trees around you falter
Write without reason

Of the tree feeling great
Its life-giving leaves fall
To hope for fresh leafy weight
Or die slowly with ease by next fall