A Requiem for Bodies Reduced to Little Things
Playing aloud the song by Bob Nesta Marley
Blending hope out of Babylon — as his voice punching
the peak of scale — music is an art. A healing visible art
But my heart is a broken ground
No good portrait or paint by music could fit on it.
They said my grandma’s room is the cradle
Of all grief. That I watched her crossing the bar
But not raise alarm or break the bridge
I was an infant tearing heavenly culture
off his mind — a little human following
Every ray of light with half closed eyes.
Half a decade ago, a beloved friend
carried all his dreams & rolled them into
A long marijuana and cigarettes
In the covert he lit them and swallow their stormy
Whiffs — he burnt his body — & crossed the bar
His body is a small land, near my grandma’s room
They said, I keep mute when he’s burning his veins.
What can a boy who is finding his footsteps in a
dark city locked in his heart do? — but of his
demise, I see little things.
4 years ago again, a classmate breached the rule: he
made a route for himself in his thought,
And travelled down his village – he’s
filling gunpowder in a gun — and boom!
He sneaked out of the world through a route
He built. & of his gunned head, maimed body
swollen veins & our hot tears. I see little things
Decomposing. Huge things can’t find home
Beneath soil — only little things &
They are atoms of grief & are hard to break.
The Dance
Talking drum speaks
The story of legs,
Its shuffling and bending
Over a wide carpet of ground
front & back, & either side
It talks about how it compels them
Through the rhythms dropped
In leaf-like ears.
A dancer moves his mass of the body
Stylishly, twirl his ribs like a worm
In the meantime, he closes his eyes.
He set legs into a riddle, holding the helm
Of his attire. & saunters into gods’ realm
Where drum gods sit on the stilted ledge
By his performance.
To reach this recondite realm,
The drummer must have called him names:
Of a god who possesses a lithe body,
& of him who stands by the threshold,
weighing the cost of twirling torso. He
Must have bathed him with gods’ lyrics
For the dancing steps must be recondite,
& godly, & align with the rhythm.
Dance is everywhere: blacksmiths dance
To metal shrills. Farmers dance to
The arrival of rain in the dark cloud,
Life flows with every beat of nature:
Night twirls into day & day into the dusky night
Poets’ body flow with pen dancing
On the Tommy of papers.
To dance is to be spiritual and sincere.
Minkail Olaitan
is a Nigerian writer born in Ogbomoso, Oyo State. He is a poet who unfurls his heart into paper with his magnificent quill. His poetic languages and voices are the remnant of a boy who wears the grief of others. His articles have appeared on Nigerian Tribune, Insight, Morganable, Thekable, Mouthpiece among others. His works has also appeared in the Poetry Tuesday & The Stripes Magazine. He’s a curious-minded poet who writes every day. At his leisure time, he prefers listening to Brymo & Asa bimpe to other things. Social media handles: Twitter: @minkail100, Instagram: minkail_olaitan, Facebook: Minkail Olaitan.