Breathing

hear me: we do not immerse our pages
with words because our hearts are swelling
with grief, sometimes, or floating with joy.
we do so because these poems want to breathe;
they want to live their own lives.

here in my country, it’s the season of harmmatan
the cotton tree in our garden breaks open its pod
we gather the seeds & the snow-like wool into basins
the papaya tree close-by ripens with the wind & sunlight
other trees shed their leaves & dryness is the new culture
the ground is with littered leaves & they sing under our soles.

we are all seeking to breath, even in warmth,
in cold, when our skins are pierced with the lune of chill 
our bodies immerse longer under our duvet.
we are still breathing, everything wants to breathe
this poem is not about misery, bliss or nostalgia;
it is about you, it is about [the] poem--- breathing.


Conversation

because i am kneeling down between the pew
sifting my thoughts on what i should have confessed
i wanted to cast the pitcher deep into my heart &
draw out every word from its place 
i wanted to purge; to fetch out the darkness beneath
to the rays radiating from the sanctuary.

because my heart is full & bubbling with water
i wanted to break a part of me & leak
i wanted to flood everywhere until i’m lean.
i shudder like one met by the steering of a dagger
i shriek like one almost eaten by his foes
i gather words into groan & my lips began to bleed.

because i am cut open by the laser of truth &
all i know about myself gushes out
i break open to all who care to listen
god above or the other worshippers
staring down at me from across their benches.

Ojo Olumide Emmanuel is a Nigerian Poet and Book Editor. He is the author of the Poetry Chapbook “Supplication For Years in Sands” (Polarsphere Books, 2021). His works have appeared and forthcoming at Ake Review, Feral, Quills, Poemify, Melbourne-Culture, TNR and elsewhere. He is the Editor-in-Chief of The Nigerian Review (TNR).He currently curates the monthly Wakasoprize for Poetry and Abubakar Gimba Prize for Short Fiction. He is a fellow of the SprinNG Writers Fellowship. Say hi to him on Twitter @OjoOlumideEmma2

Sirens

When the branch snaps I feel it in my head
dry an orange gorge up licking air from blue
eyes my feet score sleep tones from bird alarms
the minute earth turns over the rock I’m clinging on

The underside of my day drones green deep in
gnash safe breathing the ties I’m on the wheel
against singing flames crush on black wood
cat on the deck snorts upcoming traffic hills

There’s no thrill to balk at in crumpled-up sun
slices tops of trees of grin juiced by my own blood
for the bugs mist down the middle difference between 
my gut and its cousin full with disappearance on the lawn

Your depth horns reed pages into stitched skin
the branch I’m on means holding it to my bones



A pox

In the pinched morning hours thoughts have teeth
that hound with heat blossoms on his gray skin
swallow the creak of a half-broken fan
turning air over to watch what crawls beneath

He rewinds his gaze to savor his salvation
vacated sky streaked with blue boils over
green that clouds the streams with sharp hair
half scalped and left behind to gum the ignition

He’s not going anywhere, at home with tight sighs
breathing in the memory of cleaner Springs
coiled, turning over, saved for the usual fangs
where he bleeds the lake of everything that dies

There’s a sun rolling over calculated hills
There are blankets to cover up what kills



Your hymnal

On her wedding day a white dress full of ashes
blows down an aisle lined with sawdust pews
The music silences everyone and is itself mute

Empty churches possess a psychology
that only the dead can read
This is one way I won’t exist
This is a picture of me, silent dust

another way to save her
They say when he was young he was so thin
they feared the wind would blow him away

and it did, after they’d rubbed him smooth
Empty hymns press a threnody
into my hands, describing how the water whispers

how the boat mutters as it launches in the dark


The goddess of love

With late Spring in my nose the sun through sawtooth leaves
in a chain linked with birds an ivy steps over my open mouth
hums blunt lust of toads when I brush your nipples with cum
to the pond to silence lillies to leave light stains on the surface
popping errors off on trees with latent rise your warm is skin
to my pit in which chills wound an implied gust of wishes

Witchcraft in my noise the stun you thought on me for loaves
over my open mouth talks to mulch you to cover me in chains
runs front of most blood you draw across my thought to strum
along with broke clouds my moving very fast upon culled dust
loping rubs boots to be a parent to the rocks live on us meal
widens as your wise arms siphon freckled with stuffed eyes

Your rain bows only for the planet turns
intravenous sunshine is a goddess of love

Sex

I’m you

The mirror of life.
  It's a gift. Time will tell. 

  Some twist in the wind. 
Some fly above the clouds.

It is given,  time
 and again.

  Window Swing Free!

    Known,  knowing 
      Reflection from glance
       to stance

          I've Begun.

I cannot tell you
   all I'm feeling in
     a timely manner.

My smile is all of Me.

Apocalypse Not Now

Things don’t look so grim to me at this juncture,
the roving blood goons with veiny neck effort 
and pillows for fists,
believing there is strength in numbers
just as Vegas and the warring armies have taught them,
that fear can be mastered like an obedience school dog
off the chain,
and concealed weapons if 
that fails.

Myself, I prefer a pair of mating ducks in the inner harbour.
Male with proud felt green head.
The female by his side and the young ones in tow.
Or a leaky faucet that refuses to fall in line.

Staring out of windows, I see windows staring back
at me.

Underwear friends 
with spider veins for legs
so you know the fangs of pet store tarantulas 
are real.

 
The Public Has a Right to Know Nothing
	
that is why it is the public 
and the rest of it is 
private,

but such blanket statements 
from the blubbery populist blowhole
go over exceedingly well with 
the idiot masses

which is why that fabricated argument concocted 
by marketing 
as to whether a Crisper was a chip
or a cracker

did so well
according to the people
down in accounting.

 
Axiom Reel

cut the room
cut the floor 

spark an axiom reel

hard the hat
hard the landing

tell that bloody 
pilot Turbulence 

to land this role 
nobody wants 

or ever 

asked 
for.
 
The Hunt for Hairy Movember

I have grown over four inches in the past calendar year.
All horizontally.
My white whale of a belly swelled and distended 
and alcoholic 
as though some handsome shoe polish messiah 
could be cut right out of me.
	
I have been practising my breathing.
Inhale then exhale, seems simple enough.
No more difficult than the divvy up of pub grub
chicken wings on the fly.

While Norway tracks me down.
And Japan readies her harpoons.

I was never long for this world, 
but this is getting 
ridiculous.
 
Duty Free

Quite simply unaccustomed to safe-cracked whistles, 
all stock yard light shows 
of the immersive disk drive blow up 
queen shaved down into one final
ball of incendiary thunder
under silly perched aggrandizement, 
and knowing what I know now, 
I would have never sat in the airport 
that long
in plastic blue bucket seats 
watching clean shaven men drag their 
entire lives behind them,
rushing to catch connector flights
onto places with other blue
bucket seats.
 
Kicking Cans

Kicking cans around long enough,
there is always the threat of botulism.

Explain this to your schoolyard bully 
and they will punch you in the head
a little extra 
for making them feel 
stupid.

There is no advantage to being smart
until you are out of school and 85,
old enough to just not care 
anymore.

The world will always be stupid.
With or without you in it.
 
15 Bucks

for a working DVD player 
seems quite the deal
and we drive down to this 
apartment complex
along Mississauga Avenue
and sit in the parking lot
waiting for the boyfriend
to come down.

Some young kid is smoking by the entrance, 
so we get out and approach.
Asking if he is the boyfriend 
and he says he is.

And he hands us fifteen bucks from his right pant pocket
and we give him the bag.

As we drive away,
the missus tells me she is glad 
I came with her.

It is the first of the month 
and the squirrely junkies 
are looking to 
score.

And I tell her it reminds me 
of buying drugs back in the day.

Strength in numbers,
I get that.
 
Ghost Shows

I’ve seen those ghost shows 
where the orbs of light fly into people,
I am not some hermit.
I have a local cable service provider.

My shrink does not believe in ghosts, 
so I do not believe in ghosts:
go along to get along, right?

And I am sane as folded towels in the shape of dying swans.
I have not laughed at my own armpit farts 
in years.

A learning curve, sure there is.
If you are intent on learning.

Don’t the blowjobs of university wind tunnels 
seem way too easy?

                                                                                               
Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle though his garbage.  His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, Synchronized Chaos, Literary Yard, Red Fez, and The Oklahoma Review.

My homeland.

In my homeland
Why pains ranges like a burning fire
And tears is what it requires
They said men don't cry
And I held it up, burning inside me

In my homeland
I have been through hell and back
And my eyes had become tears bank
Where I try to cry, and the word rang
Tears is a weakness,
In my homeland
no place to live
Terror has put on her garment
Beckoning on the emissaries of death dancing to the beats of herder's drum.
Like grief, pain feed the state of taraba.

In my homeland
The frightening gloom of darkness
Loom silently in the starless skies,
My homeland, filled with heartless savage
My homeland, on the footstool of brain less bastards.
Dear, my homeland
I fear for my life and future

For the infants yet unborn
I fear for the lives of youths
Who's future bases on strive.
Dear, my homeland
I fear for what life has in store
The more one lives, the more he dies
It's not a bed of roses,
Where one lives in comfort and love.
I fear for my homeland
Where peace and tranquility are imagine.

Innocent blood decorate our land,
Yet, we have been possess by orgyloving and bloodthirsty evil spirit.
With a loud thunderous voices.
When can we have a better homeland?
A better homeland,
devoid corruption,
Free of greed.

My homeland.

In my homeland
Why pains ranges like a burning fire
And tears is what it requires
They said men don't cry
And I held it up, burning inside me

In my homeland
I have been through hell and back
And my eyes had become tears bank
Where I try to cry

God’s heart is a Giant Tear: June 1, 2022

I was sad to see Louie’s close, I thought to myself.
At Lands’ End, today’s destination journey.
A place where I can find myself again.
One of the most beautiful sites in the world.
Where the ocean meets the land.
I come here to ground myself and breathe.
This is where the butterflies flutter and lizards sprawl, as families saunter,
near swallows and chickadees, pelicans, and gulls.
Ocean waves leaping and lapping.

Today whales are reported, by a woman with two tawny and white dogs.
She lets my Bella sniff her dogs, while she tells us of the whale spouts sparkling near the surface. “Now I see!”
I see the blowing just at the surface. Some spouts shoot up out of the waters,
others just to the surface. You can see the pod is swimming around the very blue waters.

The Golden Gate Bridge stands so tall and proud amidst the 1000-year-old Cypress trees!
Three young girls, led by a mother, stand on the large cement wall bench to take a selfie.
All giggles, for today we have a clear view of the Golden Gate Bridge. The cars look like matchbox cars.
These are just some of the things our children taken away too soon, by angry teens, barely men, bearing arms.
Shooting at our children, Killing them!

Now, these children will never see these things I see.
Lost to us before they had a chance to choose where, they would journey,
on a free day like today.  June 1, 2022.
The birds chirping; sounds to me, “Please, please, don’t shoot.” 
Over and over. Yes, here at Lands’ End.
Over and over, they sing it again.
I look up to the clouds.  I see God’s arms caressing, admiring, perfectly, tiny babies in the clouds created by He.
He admires each one before they are sent here.
Yet, these days, God’s heart is a giant tear.