Two Poems – Adesiyan Oluwapelumi

choreography of bodies

we plunge head-first into classical hymns/ dancing like plucked strings on an acoustic guitar/ our legs a
montage of footprints horoscoping into orbits of bliss/ there is a chime in the ways our bodies break/
music at the fraction of dislodging bones/ we relish in our breakage/ this sharding art reminding us we
are bodies made of plastics/ soft like a feeling/ like an irredeemable compulsion to drown in liquor/ &
sin(k) high-strung into alkaline rivers of cocaine/ our bane dignifies us/ bluebirds warming their skin
on a grill/ makes us wear wounds like carapace/ an overall shielding us against the air saturated
with aerosols of gore/ we exist in all our travails/ sombre melodies ricocheting in our bellies like misfired
arrows/ there is a spindle of threnodies spooling in our craniums/ we unfurl like acacia trees shedding
their leaves in autumn//

litanies in reversal

tonight     like a rhapsody   i want to
    pour into the rivers of your body

stream
            d
              o
               w
                  n

like lava upon the hills of your thighs
              till our orchestra is complete

                    with a duo of appendages
cascading through memory for a pinch
                                               of nostalgia.

                  but     here       forgetfulness
     is a bane and in resistance   i grow
into ache.

                          i am learning to forget
you
    and by you i mean me and by me
i mean you

                      fossils of you & i
                          carbon dating to the past

boy
you are the song of my song
                           memory of my memory

and again    the ocean has come
                 in the form of your reflection

o foreshadow       the light evades you
you are sinking into the wholeness of
yourself again

tonight
i want to singe into a nocturne with you
                                  scarecrows with fear
and make jars of starry dust.

o foreshadow
                      o memory
    o song
      o butterfly in a chrysalis of rainbow

i am       b  r   ea   k  i      ng
                                             into pixel dust

my shell cracking in reversal

tonight     like a rhapsody     i want to
    pour into the rivers of your body

stream
            d
              o
               w
                  n

like lava upon the hills of your thighs
               till our orchestra is complete
                    with a duo of appendages

cascading through memory for a pinch
                                                of nostalgia.

---

 Adesiyan Oluwapelumi hails from Osun state, Nigeria. He was the winner of the Cheshire White Ribbon Day Creative Contest (2022). Some of his works are published/forthcoming in Poet Lore, West Trade Review, Tab Journal, Poetry Wales, IHRAF and elsewhere. He is the author of Ethos (forthcoming from Ukiyoto Publishing). He tweets @ademindpoems.

Art: Subterfuge/submerge, a visual poem by Robert Frede Kenter. Twitter: @frede_kenter, IG: r.f.k.vispocityshuffle, icefloe22.