Mr. Love
By
Yusuf Salisu Muhammad
Your love calls my name
which is always in a red
in my heart is a white,white man
it shines like a star
oh ! he is a gold
ah!, love you are a bété de scéne
that no one angry at
oh ! Mr. love recall
when I chatted you
You confided in me
you will never betray
& never bite me
so if you dare do
I will retaliate.
Yusuf Salisu Muhammad writes from Katsina state.He is Currently studying at Umaru Musa Yar'adua University,Katsina state of Nigeria.
3/7, 7:10 am
choose your week, name your month
can’t stick a label on time
my breath won’t bring anything closer
the floor tries to influence my direction
doesn’t trust stillness
if the light could switch itself off
the faucet would rather chant than sing
i almost forgot the stove, the subtle differences
of the flames’ shapes and colors
a dozen or so sparkling vibrations
orbiting my skull’s bald plain
thin fog no match for the sun
the sun never sleeps
always a car moving somewhere nearby
as my walls expand incrementally, unsure what to do
with the space tween interior and ex-
like the surprise of a line of jam
tween two volumes of cake
as long as i cover my hands, feet and head
if my mouth skips a breath
something else will catch it up
whether my heart is bass or drums
my eyes violins or flutes
take the time to make space
my internal compass searching for its sun
sky so vacant the stars can’t sleep
What If Sun and Earth Are Ovens
A hole in my working pond as if something screamed in
resolving spin, momentum, heat and appetite
as the stillest pond continues breathing
with the sun’s warmth exhaling before midnight, mindnight
when the dough immediately springs back when pressed it’s time
to keep it from fermenting any further:
bread with sausage,
bread with fermented cod, a loin of pork rolled in rock salt
to clear a path through the snow of hunger, this internal mountain pass
so steep you can only carry water and a cloak with many empty pockets
since I’m next to a bakery I like I’m hungry and must go in
used to be a warehouse, indoor soccer, testing grounds for
paper airplanes hurled by the lifters in the basement gym
powering the ovens with their cardio
where do they hide all the pumps that hold up the tallest buildings,
keep Miami above water, why does no one say our major earthquake
will be caused by all the new weight on the land of this
former delta of two large rivers negotiating a mutual surrender
after a billion years of yeast, tectonic dough folding toward the seethe
with permanent icing and seasonal convection above, our subductions
beginning to overheat and who knows what mutant crystal lattices
what heavy meatal muscles, inert and anonymous gases
releasing their eons of choreography as the dance floor
unzips everything’s jeans we have no idea what amazon will be selling
or what we’ll pay to stay here, the imaginary numbers of address,
the lack of durable seismic surfing gear, the temperature
when I’m hungriest, the shopping lists in solar flares
When Time Could Dance and Stutter
hollow as the breeze
take the skin off my arm
and see a busy neighborhood
storefronts to live above
how many years of path
window reflecting what’s several blocks away
who gets to scent this late morning
two dogs walking each other
because chocolate melts, cause oats
won’t leave the bowl voluntarily
last day of May, and June was stopped at customs
sent back to wherever the future is
like an underground spring not caring
which way’s downstream, the cat
who’s a different species each night
drilling at dawn’s door
clothes demand to be worn
clocks don’t need to think about moving
news breath, traffic breath
my lenses fog despite the temperature
I pour a little coffee into my milk
all the chairs are full, no one’s home
waiting for the rain to set the agenda for a dry week
striking my finger against the sidewalk
as if a match
becoming a mini-sun
a transformative flashlight
on the tightrope of noon
no one is ready to roar
with more days unseasonable than seasonable
what do we call this time
as if ‘June’ means anything out of context
out of habit, out of frustration
Unscription
suddenly sepia, watching myself
the air is frictionless, thin, breathable as normal
or have my lungs acclimated
so many feet in this crowd—which are mine
in the event of the inevitable
camera catching car, everyone gets out
and the car keeps going
I’m not in the road but on a the porch of a plantation
now a care facility, or a banquet hall
where is this
walking into empty places
clearcut 20 years ago and nothing’s changed
the doorknob comes off the door stays closed
window shutting like an eye
a chimney three miniature people are escaping from
the chimney of my neck:
is my head smoke or a stork’s nest
I’m running on the inside, trying to inflate,
the sunlight’s picky about which windows
to shine through, one window nudging another
the street too dry to reflect, mind wiped
by weeks of rain, not racing the earth’s rotation
but never wanting the day to be dry enough
to go out in, driving without windshield wipers
the air smells like gasoline, I doubt the existence of stars
rising from my fetal curl cause this is my stop
either the stairs up or the stairs down
like a parking garage with more birds in it than cars
staircases remind me of bow strings, of bass strings
notes the ears can’t hear but from chest to groin can
after dinner all the lights and walls go away
an on-shore breeze, a deep orange full moon
just clearing the ocean’s border
not sweat but salty rain from inside me
Retrospeculative
if rain fell as one thin sheet every couple minutes
would wind cooperate.
drive for a slice, cut for tomorrow
lean out the wall where a window should be
how do i shift gears in this living room
a 27 inch rear view
dialing 911 gets me helicopters
outside two o’clock is riddled with potholes
a million clocks step backwards at once—
no one wants to be now, ready but not willing,
clinging to the recent past coz it’s still edible
so many garden hoses migrating toward the ocean
i only wear shoes so i don’t root
if i was naked i might photosynthesize
and what would that do for the economy
i’m feeling retrospeculative
is the future north or east
would it take a billion staying up all night
for the sun to hesitate, whether out of curiosity
or self-doubt
like china, every continent should be a single time zone
no more of getting there before you left
a day no one remembered to experience
even the calendar goes right from 22 to 24
it’s usually Wednesday who complains
people used to be able to assemble clocks
but time could never be fixed
space is constant but room keeps shrinking
as do lots and apartments
not a walk-in closet but a studio
soon be a world where those over 5’ 10”
will either stay outside or develop back problems
i was once able to see the future
but my vision got corrected
i can’t decide which of the labels in my pantry
is my name, how to know which can wants to open
what i think is outside is a warehouse
i can’t see the other end of
one path is red, the other is slippery
there’ll either be a place to lie down
or a place to swim, the mice and fish
are slow enough to read but their
evaporating language, how a couple of my muscles
want to break off and fend for themselves
when i get this far inside
when the right direction’s not the answer
if i can get a majority of my parts
to believe they’re someone else
we just might reassemble
100 DEAD BABIES
the conductor’s wand rises
suspended in the air
for a speechless moment
one hundred dead babies wail away
a mute harmony on the floor
of the orchestra pit
& the audience sways gently
to the thunderous roar
of the air conditioning unit
and a billion goosebumps
tickle their arms
and nipples
while the rest of the
nation sways in unison
as they veg-out
on a lethal dose of CNN
Welcome to Hard Times
Under the hard stares of armed guards, the work parties dragged corpses to the ovens or simply threw them into the mass burial pit. Passersby couldn’t see over the fence, but they could hear what sounded like the tinny music of kiddie rides. Until you asked why I was smiling, I hadn’t even realized I was. Mysteries always ultimately seep to the surface. I’ve tried to learn to live with this, to not overly analyze or philosophize, and just observe. Out walking before dark, I saw today, amid the lingering grays and browns of winter, dead-looking trees beside the road just beginning to bud, gnarled, knobby fingers of fierce invalids.
A Cautionary Tale
My wife and I were sitting at a wobbly little table in the window of the bakery/café. As we waited for our superhot coffees to cool, the town’s orphans and foster children were paraded past in chains. Some of the people clustered on the sidewalk behind police barriers wore white arm bands or had white ribbons pinned to their coats, but whether a symbol of support or a silent form of protest, I don’t know. We could hear ripples of gunfire coming from the direction of the warehouses, the local militia shooting into alleys and cellars where they suspected fugitives from the dragnet might be hiding. The soul of man prevails, I remember my wife quoting, but only when moral struggle is present. Any wonder I love her? The gunfire sounded more intense now. I lifted the paper coffee cup to my lips and took a careful sip.
A Whole New Ball Game
A massive glacier heads for home. The catcher tears off his hockey-style face mask and shockingly the top half of his face with it. In the visitors’ dugout, the manager is busy applying Kabbalistic numerology in an attempt to uncover a hidden message in the uniform numbers of the players still on the bench. Slowly a dirigible emblazoned with a death’s skull logo comes floating over the stadium. The first base umpire points up and signals for timeout and then flees the field as fast as his sizable bulk permits, setting off a general rush toward the exits. Women are knocked down and children trampled, but vendors in the stands just go on howling, Beer here! The next day’s sports pages carry no references to Marx or Lenin or the withering away of the state.
The Personal Is Political
My words echo before I can say or even formulate them. It’s been that way since you went in for tests and didn’t come back out. Now the Russians and Ukrainians are centerstage singing a tortured love duet. I’ve taken an oath against modernity, the sheer vacuousness of it, real people who base their identities on fictional characters. Rumor is that the North Koreans have a missile that can hit the West Coast. I’m no ornithologist or any other kind of -ologist, but the gulls flutter in the wind like dirty scraps of paper.
Before the Fall
I was three years old, maybe four, lying on my stomach on the itchy wool carpet and filling with ecstatic scribbles the blank pages of an old business ledger my father had brought home from work, the future, with its mistakes and setbacks, the hot smell of scorched metal, still unscripted, undefined, formless, and my heart still a soft red peach without a savage bite taken out of it.
The Beauty of Poetry
The beauty of poetry
String words together,
Make them look better,
It shows you,
How our fair lady is.
She is a honeycomb
dripping honey that tastes
biter sweet.
She is a bird
sitting over a still pond,
Singing a tone to the fishes
swimming below
of the approaching fishermen.
She is a medicine for the heart,
A wind with hands to calm
the beasts that bellow
inhumane and immodest acts.
She is a wine that eases pain,
Therefore he who knows her name,
sit and dine with her,
and he has his fills.
She is a cup of solace,
Eases one of his melancholy,
She is a paint brush
tossed in a bucket of paint
and create a picture on an
empty canvas.
She is enigmatic in form,
She is the peace that comes
after a breakup with the Devil,
She is the ring of the bride and groom,
she puts hearts together.
She is a blanket of cloud
that covers the cold, wandering
souls,
She is a lamp house on an
island of where do I go,
Her commitment is beyond understanding.
Driving on a rainy day
Sloppy hills with muddy waters running down its sides,
Frostbite chills that runs deeply into your marrows,
That's how life is like a bitter today and sweeter tomorrow.
But you have to get your art together,
Stop gallivanting about be keen on her.
Like a driver drenched from the soaking beat of rain,
We sometimes become soak with rain of adversity,
Life sometimes becomes like riding on a rainy day,
Calamity splashes on your face like rain drops on sloppy hill in a thunderstorm.
After a while of intense rainfall,
Comes a bright and beautiful sun sitting at the face of the horizon,
In our ways tress fall,
But we have the will power to make our ride better,
Or to make it worst.
Riding on a rainy day,
Is like taking a trip into an ocean of the worst has happened to,
But if you prevail against its perils,
You come out vigilant,
The journey of life is like a day out in the thunderstorm that seems never ending,
The clouds of despair clapping their hands with frustration,
The lighting of fear drumming with the band of doubt,
Playing along for defeat.
You have got to see yourself as victor,
And see them as victims,
But don't defeat yourself.
Drive without fear,
Move on with no dread.
The moon is a damp alloy curdling
with a blue snarl. Chilling ministries
speed hearts on October nights,
your sleeping face hammered with moon.
A simple walk is all of my duende’s
deep song. I will trek the Liberty Taxes,
abandoned storefronts and dark arcades,
easy noir mosques, sober gas stations.
Brittle fangs grow in vacant craters,
a stinking smog seals an astronaut’s
scream. Night’s natal gnosis rings
in dormant dilation, woolly syllables
ring in the cicadas’ splitting aural assault,
a discordia’s assonantal, atomic ablation.
An ill choir doubles: You can stay here
when things get warm. You will only hold God’s
hand to chew it off. A knee bends in the desert,
coptic scripts of lunar foil nicked with rotting stars.
And where are you? You of retail revolt,
misshapen hubris, pragmatic puppetry.
A simple waltz of eloped faces, Slenderman elisions
and discarded industrial beer cans
are all of my days and nights.
I’m sick of hearing about your condition.
In a forest’s blue rot, fireflies will eat
on the body of your poor person,
You’ll struggle in the dark, and only be found
as something witchy.
John Thomas Allen likes the slow unfurling of meditative poetry which is almost too much poetry to be poetry–Wallace Stevens, James Wright, and the early surrealists.
Spiritual Advance
Purple Heart
for Freedom's Stance admits
choices I've drawn from
the Well of
Endless Light ,
Where Being is Laid
in the presence of
GOOD
Knowing all is Well.
