S. ABDULWASI'H OLAITAN

 

 

A Grove Of Shelter

 

After Rhonda Gail Williford

 

In my heart I have planted you like seed

for some opaque reasons, nebulous as it seems.

firstly, the cluster on your face fades

the spiel of your crib carries a worn-out citole

yet the music walks out of asphyxiation, outside

the door to its grave, Othe threadlike

the smoke of cold chrysanthemum tea in the street

touches everything that touches you. equilibrium/

in the dappled life of our shared breath, I've drunk

the progeny of your canvases then found an oscillation

within choices, flowering, year-round the long veiled

of shadow. Secondly, your verses chiseled off -apartheid-

a wall paint of skin with familiar seeds of justice

sown in the fertile soil. now, the gavels fall

in silent, automobiles are fashioned into the glory

of the soundboard, the zither is loosing a string as

if by loosing virginity. her snoot telegraphed

her displeasure.

when you speaks

everything about you speaks/wears

the music of gregarious hounds: a self-portraits of

a woman as a genus dendrocalamus.

 

A Second Watch Of The Grief

 

i painted my body blue-black with an acupuncture needle canister

the tack for placing it into the eyes, my diamond! a chronic longing.

i hear your call, mom, you know how many stones i have counted

to measure the distance between these shadowy beacons that are little

closer to their heavens &i. i opened up my wounds, to the rendezvous

of interior vena cava &the right hepatic vein _like a surgeon

every page of my light like a galilean moon, that i do not seek grief

that grief finds me. that i do not drink too deep, from the evil mirror

of my snow white. that mirror is not important here, for it offers you

 a cacodemon, flying, in your end. i hear your call, dad, you know how distance i am

to the portrait of the child you sketched; whose body was once a museum

of exhibits. i swear to grasp the candle flame again, maybe after this poem.

 

S. ABDULWASI'H OLAITAN

 

S. ABDULWASI'H OLAITAN is a Nigerian introverted poet, a savant, graphics designer &essayist. He writes from a city 5,280 miles away from hell &a second close to haven ilorin. He is deeply devoted to God and lover of his parents. He is the author of the shortlisted chapbook "Life, An Objet D'art"(Arting Arena Poetry Chapbook Prize 2023), Co-winner for Prose Purple Writing Competition 2024 (Poetry category), Honorable Mention for Lit Shark's 2024 March-April poem of the month and was a finalist for Chukwuemeka Akachi prize (2024). His works appear and are forthcoming on Believeau Books, Bare Hill Review, Pictura journal, Lit Shark, Pawners Paper, Carolina Muse, UGR,The Graveyard Magazine, Arts lounge, Eco punk literary, OPA, MMXVI, Avant Appalachia, Ta Adesa, Wordsmpire, Shooting Star, &elsewhere.