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Silence Haunting the Tongue of a Guitar
I begin this poem with the hands of a boy
gently cupped into hope. his eyes
holding everything his body suffers from:
fire, pain, slings of dreams unwearing
themselves, & a stream of memories
waning on the mouth of depleting oxygen.
don’t tell him what it’s like to always
run, he knows. even when heavens say he doesn’t
have to always peel his soles like pears
because a fire ricochets inside him. they say
a metaphor for fire is cleansing.
2000: two narcissists bathe a boy with fireworks
of prayers, each folding in his tiny hands, before
fading away. every prayer that doesn’t
look like us floats above our heads.
a grandfather would die some
days later and he knows he would forever wear
the soul of a man he’s now shapeshifting into.
this poem is a ghost in a haunted town, and
a boy is withering like the sun withers into sunset.
a country is moonwalking into a labyrinth.
a boy is dousing himself in oil, to levitate a thicket
of weariness from his tongue.
About the Author
Olowonjoyin Muhammed Sanni, he/him, studies Biochemistry in University of Ilorin. His works have been published or forthcoming in My Woven Words anthologies, Poemify, Livina Press, Arts Lounge, Nanty Greens, in his head and elsewhere. When he’s not tracing biochemical pathways, he’s either writing, playing games, reading tweets, or thinking about making his life better. He tweets @aperse_ and on Facebook as Olówónjoyin Muhammed Sanni.
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