A Hymn of Grief, Prayer & Ode to the Bowl, Gulping Water from the Col by Olayioye Paul Bamidele
A Hymn of Grief.
hymnal 527. page 662. solo high life.
no strings. but i open this hymn with
a forlorn organ, lying to the nave of
the room. cascade in dust. my heart,
cake in depression. the last time i strike
arpeggio on this organ, was a time
of elegy, crooning to a fallen hero.
my mouth stitch a new cloth, lace it
with the memories in my cerebral -
blossoming like a peacock unclog its
feathers. in this place, we are filled with
vastness, stretch into the desert.
last night, i dream i am in an assemble
of mourners, having the voice of mockingbirds.
a girl walks up to me & asks me to rill my
worries into a basket. says it's the best
way of forgetting. i bawl, slavering tears
into it. but they evaporate & fill my eyes,
like tsunami flood a city. laugh crack open
their mouths, filching the dirge once
dwindling on their tongues. haunting. eerie.
i wake up, and turn to the table
to unfurl my thoughts on a bumf
but i transform into a star, fog
from the vision of the organ - and
the organ lose my voice. my ears
were flower with the mocking voices
of my dreams. and to write a poem is
to seek its taste. but what genre of poem
can suffice it? i opt for music, shred a
paper & title it: songs of other land.
but nothing illuminate this music than grief.
nothing color this music than grief - not
even joy, its opposite. nothing, absolutely
nothing - save grief.
Prayer
I open this poem / a boy afar open a bud flower / & its blossom, wear a smile on the boy's face / promise me, poetry demigod / that this poem will be a happy one / promise me this poem will be / the (b)right ocean / to cascade my grief into rivulets / into extinction / yesterday I was bedridden by grief / & I plug my earpiece / to swill the grieves / like boomerang / it falls, & returns / after the music stops / all my life / I have dream of a life / unstain / my eyes like flickering light / seeks the tranquillity of the stars / at least a still / at least, a calmness / wilting honks / if we can't keep a quiet life / how can our dreams sail seamless / like a ferry on a flatten sea? / dear Lord / give this poem / a sprinkle of joy / a seedling / an olive leaf / let me know I can smile again / after forty days of grievous tempest & raining.
Ode to the bowl, gulping water from the col.
a tsunami. i christen my mother,
name her after the valley; where i
watch our house flux to, & my father -
a tree - stand & gaze at the vagrant
duplex. a new form of weeping, i
don't know how his voice, like drone,
rhythm to the toot of the waters.
however, ode to the bowl, collecting
everything the flood has scooped from
the city. ode to what we can't help erode
or stop, but give it a name. ode to
that name, register in our cerebral.
ode to the cerebral, drizzling everything
into this watery poem.
“I thrashed these set of poems due to internal reasons. When I first wrote these poems - most especially Hymn of Grief and the third poem - I felt I was resurrecting a grief memory. As climate change were fostering, most houses were flooded which form the basic part of the third poem. I remember how an infant was rescued, already death. It was saddening, so I cast them away. Until recently, I decided to revisit them and let the world know about these events.”
Olayioye Paul Bamidele, also nickname Shakespeare, is a Nigerian writer, hidden in a cornered area of Plateau state. He loves God more passionately, than the poetry demigod. His works have appeared or forthcoming, Ice Floe, Spillword, Artlounge, Eboquils, Afreecan, and elsewhere. You can find him on Facebook @paulolayioye.