Kola Tubosun


IF THESE WERE WRITTEN IN TIMES PAST

They would smell of rum, maybe wine
Of a pristine dance on brown keys that tapped,
Rasped in echoes across father's dusty lounge.

They would reek of innocence, shy lines
Of the toddler whose eyes lay only in the silence,
laden trivia of books, and old record sleeves.

They might show relics of a hopeful child lie
Within a bulwark of rage in the silence of night,
Quiet when adults slept with ears apart, dead to the world.

They would try to hide the author's disgust
for past bustles, home noise and day jobs,
Useless rants that mainly deter than fuel a budding muse.

But it wasn't written then, and so the past remains
Bilked in bits of old rum in even older flasks, and pains.


MACEDONIA
Lagos again, December

Speak you must, muse, in taps, raps -
Drum, tat-a, rolls of a furious key.
The tongue to rile a fog of blabbing naps.

As with a lost wing, flap on white winds -
Serrated dots of letters, dice dials of thought
Move the night with mares of omen rinds.

Why do you forget yourself so? Soul-
Journer of a sea of words and flaming fate?
It is I who call. Grant the bearing role.

Speak you must, muse, in raps, taps -
Drum, tat-a, rolls on a furious key.
From this fringe of meagre dream of wraps

*both poems forthcoming in Drumvoices Revue


Unspoken Love

All the while we stand silently there
Staring aimlessly at minutes gone by.
Flighty love shining hopelessly bare
Waits endlessly, and leaves, asking why.

All the while you look at me, tender,
Like a blooming rose on a frail headland.
And smile, on the sly, knowing that love's long slender
Mind drools of slimy tears that fall on waiting hands.

That while you hesitate to keep open
That heart gate, for love warmer than known blood.
You slipped on the slimy grass of a love to happen
And trudged ahead of a waiting, frothing flood.

Perhaps the good Lord
Might help with another Moses' rod.

*previously published in Book Poetry Corner


ON RETURNING TO EARTH/After 48 dark hours

Thanks due,
for long hours in warm bosom
as the world moves on wondering
tales of mad symptoms
with snide lonesome looks.
Thanks due,
for permissions freely given
and stolen touches at chocolate cleavages
when hunger bit and all that was
defied naming, except on eager lip folds.
Thanks due,
for a heart loaned out,
however shortly, as breeding land
for things "that were as though they were not"
thanks due
as rat dangles on,
light rolls multiple in growing glows.
PS: What's the date today?
Is it Friday or Sunday?

*previously published in Janet Owens Online