the little girls that look like capsules to you,
the voice of birds wearing us shred sounds,
the car your grandfather’s wife knocked against a pole,
the copper-coloured children speaking in tongues,
the exhaustion of your mother's body,
the streets that favour finding rest in war,
every living creature that looks so peculiar
the last time your mother hugged you before
you left,
the walls in your father's house; becoming taller than your body,
your ex-lover 'Ada'- that looks like malice.
Don’t bother about the roofs: we are reaching the end life left for us.
& we no longer have the potency to build things anymore,
even our grown-up boys left their muscles;
doodled by a kind of wreckage.
the herbalist you'd collected ache drugs from died two years ago: his body still smells of hunger inside his room.
when you get home: ask your younger sister why her stomach is bigger than her dreams
& don't blame her but blame yourself that did
not to remember home anymore.
the rivers are bringing fire to the end of us
stretching their legs: hands and body to
the peak of our houses & we don't blame them but you have grown-up boys who forgot the origin because they've grown wings & no longer see the pain in our hearts but age.
did you just ask of your family's house-
what greeted you when you came in?
THE ROAD LEADS TO SOMEWHERE
somewhere the road drives the children
into the school of art and humanity;
full of fruits pocket with challenges as
we walk the road through a map of a destination.
The road doesn't have a gate
so we are opened to errors and distractions.
The last thing I could remember
was naming every road we passed
not to get lost.
The last road was beautiful,
tender, but filled with strange designs,
nothing lasts on earth. birds die. flowers wither.
humans die, but something remains
- the road that still leads us to somewhere.
About The Poet
Joseph Adeniran is a student of Bowen University — poet|author| writer|
& lover of Literature. He believes in the power of words — healing. he hails
from Oyo State, Ibadan. Nigeria