by John Tinneny
Trailing Dots
after ojo taiye’s i keep having the dream where my father is dead…
the country takes its tides from my tummy.
the sea, flirtatious & fishes sprint along the bank
the country takes its tides from my tummy &
my father is the tide, river, & bird all at once
i trail the dot of his shirts & there, flowers crumble,
pollinating before the arrival of butterflies
i trail the dots on his trousers, and i found a bus to 2002, 10:30 pm
i sat on the sofa when he brought home wide spinach,
chillies in a black polythene bag
they now stand as the souvenirs from the last night we dined under a roof
he birded the next morning but he shall resurrect after three days
we await this homecoming.
Tell It to the Wind
tell it to the wind that the ghost i conjured inside my room
is on the street seeking solace in the fearsome eyes of children.
that when peter struck his sword against the man’s ear, it was my ear that fell off
& was glued back by the love in master’s eyeballs
swords are the living grave of your tomorrow dead, the master said.
perhaps you’ve not heard, but tell it to the wind, that the similarity between grief and brief is
time: like an ocean, it surges with waves until your feet soak and your body, washed ashore
tell it to the wind that on a lonely street of terror, i trampled on every open heart, open arms,
of strangers.
yet, the solace they bring is a libation for my survival from past vitiations.
tell it to the wind that losses are not counted with fingers nor ferried with boats of tears,
mum said dad hated, hated me so much his eyes broach with puzzles.
tell it to the wind that when he turns a zephyr, sons should trim lamps with their mouth.
each should dig a well in his woman’s body & irrigate their seeds with sweats.
Ojo Olumide Emmanuel is a writer, a teacher and a spoken word artist. His works have appeared and forthcoming on The Nigerian Review (TRN), Quills, Writer Space Africa(WSA), Poets in Nigeria (PIN), Pictorial Poetry; Expanding Horizons, Love My Religion, Raindrop of Love, Voice of Voiceless Anthology, The Conclusion Magazine, Imomotimi Anthology (WRR), 50 Poetry Salutes for Ikeogu Oke, Ibabanaija.com and elsewhere. He is a co-editor at Coauthor-Labs; and is also currently the curator of the monthly Online Wakasoprize for Poetry and Abubakar Gimba Prize for Short Fiction (both administered by The Hill-Top Creative Arts Foundation). He is a fellow of SprinNG Writers Fellowship.
Born and raised in Belfast, John Tinneny now lives and studies in Glasgow. He has been exhibited in the RUA Exhibition and was also a finalist for London Photo Festival’s Seascape competition.