(After Dylan Thomas’ Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night)
(for my brother, for my grown-up J.who left for heaven, october 16, 2020).
chapter 1
sorry to say, i was– at a friend’s place, such fateful-friday–/ on WhatsApp,/ rapidly rending replies, until i swiped to status/& sank-in a brother’s post of ‘gone to soon’,/ & with– my fingers & tears emoji, the one/ with a single-teardrop by the side of its right eye,/ i type, in my dialect,/ “tatunibai”. /& then the grief that would haunt me for years, let a fast reply shoot at me./ ‘go home! go home! your dad & brother, J., drove into an accident/ & your brother is gone./ at first, i cast my wine coloured cap to crafty winds,/ wound it on bare ground, & read again, charily./ ‘go home! go home! your dad & brother, J., drove into an accident /& your brother is gone,/ yet, this time,/ the damn brother is gone didn’t stagger into/ a number or something distinct to relevance./ my feet ran cold, my body shivered into dizzy dusts,/ distant limpness like, dried fallen leaves,/ a rat cheetahered by a cat in a cleared cosmos- chanting misery/ &, doomed, &, i realized that day,/ how the word, ‘accident’ kept banging on the damned door of my haunted heart,/ & i kept rebuking it on behalf of my own flesh./
chapter 2
/i hushed home on bike/ & alighting morphs into meeting souls outside/ hawking hollowed faces/ fucked faces/ faces that would never feet our/ homely hut for years/ immersed into oceans of/ tears & punctured peace/ wanderers outside with mob-cloth/ dashing their faces– whet with wails. i/ dashed in inside a room corrugated with iron sheets/ unplastered/ unfloored/ such open space with a side-bed with/ mom lying in pains/ tears dripping rebuff of control of/ groans in her own voice/ bursting bitter truths (& tears) like a witch/ whose spells were broken to speak/ dad sat closing his eyes/ sniffing in gloomy grief through the holes of his nostrils/ while people gazing at me/ with sorrow/ & shaking their medulla oblongata like a toddler tossing– no/ to a stranger’s gift of love/ were like torn-tables/. our j/ soft general/ who wields spiritual sword & tell heaven’s tale left/ yet/ dad’s left arm was broken/ rendered round with plaster of paris/ big brothers brawling like 1 holy pastor that/ preached salvation for 50years/ sinned at last minute & missed heaven. i/ turn(ed) to the backyard/ because they say/ ‘you do not weep in comfort/ in/ the eye of a mother/ who lost her son/’ & there, i sang him sia’s ‘titanium’ in corroding tears,/
(dark songs/requiem)
ah, o guiding angel;
what dozing is this, that you let death sneak in & juice my J. away?
motherhood incarnate– forgive me. your eyes see things. abiyamo. i behold your toils & tears, like, wastes of hawked vegetables squashed in tin-trays &, sold in the streets, glory carved from father’s fluids of sweat, &, swollen debts– rotten fruits of labour.
on times like this, death, fuck your heavy stinks. fuck your every stings.
why do you gift grief to the doorsteps of those who never ordered grief for a door delivery, nil items in their shopping cart?
aboki, are you dumb? what are you? do you think?
can’t you see? are you blind?!
oluwa o!
these elegies are without drums, no busy-body is dancing
my J. has toiled like the curved back of market load-carters
who will curl this wind or winds from unwrapping the ass of the fowl in broad daylight
unearth the sand-sepulchre –do not ensconce my baby like a dead drunker!
can’t you see i’m singing chordoverstreet’s ‘holdon’ upon the hills at naked nights?
can’t you see me hitting my heart (so hard? x2)
notice me now, so humble like plain candles;
kiss-sticking my knees on the earth in sacred pleas?
how will he wine with us when this tempest cease(s) its senseless storms or storm?. this is a complete child at risk.
what are these unfunny dream or dreams that slay like the
slaver bellies of devil’s doctrines?
what is this death, this mystery that unbuttons lovers like reverie,
without getting a go from god?
who so took away my J.,
who so, dust its feet away.
Olude Peter Sunday
is a hyper-realistic pencil artist, writer and poet from Nigeria. He has his arts, stories and poems published/forthcoming in magazines including: Caffeinated Journal Anthology, Hayden’s Ferry review, The Shallow Tales Review, Kalahari Review, Erogospel magazine, African writers, Parousia magazine, Madswirl magazine, Eskimo pie and elsewhere. He came third place prize in the Endsars National poetry contest held in October 2020.When he isn’t writing, he is painting pure portraits with pencils and Photoshop. Find him on twitter @peterolude, IG @cee_tawpson
