aubade with mo(u)rning birds
the earth thumps like a body set to die
the heart of its core palpating like a fawn
fleeing from the fangs of a carnivore
comets rain into the earth’s bowel
hail mixed with ash and burnt wax
the world is a candlelight tapering away
smoke rises from the shaft of a bottomless pit
and out comes locusts with the croak
of a thousand toads mating a lithic prick
the noise of their wings alike the ululation
of a thousand chariots with horses running into war
sing o bach an aubade with gunshot sky
night sky with exit wounds with exit doors
with exit bodies flighting into night
apollyon strums the bowed moon
the first woe has passed behold more
woes to plague the quiet nested in our hearts
the vultures have come to feast
singing of sulphur of fire of smoke of sodom
and of brimstone singing of death and endings
Nocturne
after the famous painting, “Starry Night,” by Vincent Van Gogh
The night illumines the dark path
and the road’s asphalt gleams with
brittle light. I walk the steps of a thousand
solstice and slowly, I become eventide,
a pool of murky water depressing in bleakness
under the starry night and lustrous mornings.
Eine Kleine Nachtmusik– Mozart plays
in a garden chandeliered by light bugs.
A prism of music and light dispersed
into a spectral of melodic hue. I prattle
the eulogy of night and my soul swoons away.
Adesiyan Oluwapelumi, TPC XI, is an African poet and a naturalist whose works particularly presents a social commentary on the intersectionality between memory, language, identity, religion and selfhood. Adesiyan Oluwapelumi was the winner of the 2022 Cheshire White Ribbon Day Creative Competition and a finalist in the 2022 WeNaija Literary Contest.
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