Four Poems|Psalmuel Benjamin Oluwasheun

WHEN YOU SEE A BOY CRY

Boys don’t cry, only leak.

the abs & chest are wide enough

to hold a torrent after every lynch.

When you see a boy cry, grief has just pinched his soul.

This is a sour song of dark rhythm–

Its lyric is aligned with bitterness, & aches,

they bite the beautiful ears that take them.

I try to hawk my anguish, but my tongue is burnt

with oil of voiceless sounds.

I am weary with my groaning.

My Soul sore, vexedly.

This is a sour song of dark rhythm–

Posthumous child!– my existence label–

scrubbed off my face, yet, reigns inside;

time & time after time, as period, I leak

like a sieve. Hope only flickers in & out, like a fire–

lit to the face of a dancing wind.

This is a sour song of dark rhythm–

and my heart is melting away into the soil,

memories of laughter rusts like metals, father, too,

is disintegrating into fine dust, tomorrow,

as void as today & any other, no news but olds of good days.

I can say: these days are the best, for no single joy they bring.

This is a sour song of dark rhythm–

I’ve eaten boiling balls of beautiful bad luck– a million of them.

Today!

I’m drumming the nunc dimittis to myself

& to every shell of joy, falling off me,

& all of the scar, engraving solid rocks of pain,

upon the cliff of my soul.

Let this soul have a moment of solace, dear grief!

just a break: to pour my alabaster of plight,

at the feet of the divine deity!

just a moment of solace, dear grief!

DEAR GIRL, WILL YOU?

A letter of warning to every girl child. A gospel for every beauty that bag a battalion of blessings.

Sit/ dear girl/ Azedarach you/ sit & breathe/

Same seat of woods/ same bitter song/

Yes!/ yet/ suck now/ with your ears/ galls/

chew these stones I spit/ & save your fingers// will you?//

A hot cake/ is magnetic/ various fingers are metals/

They like to slap/ stick/ chew/ & sing the doom/

Of emptied vessels/ with microphones/ in closets//

Descendants of the cocks/ are they// see/ the(y’re)ir

nothing/ness/ will you?//

Your eyes are doves/ let them in/ at eventide/–

No or less angry bullets fly/ in the day’s prime//

Soft like waters/ receptive/ yet/ 9 moons crack/

Before joy hatches/ define strength/ will you?//

Dina [a defiled maiden] is glorious/ Jezebel is

Exalted/ the path of Delilah is intriguing/ crowded/

If nothing but them Mama’s bleeding laps/ & crest/

Nailed like thieves/ you see/ will you?//

Motherhood won’t begin/ until to close your legs/

You’ve learned// when freezing/ to blankets turn/

When visited/ by lonesomeness/ alive/ when

Body sings ballads/ go off key/ will you?//

The night is dead/ but the stars won’t doze/

When unto sweet words/ your pulchritude is

Strolling/ consult these throng of stars/ & fetch for

Your head/ a rain of rapt remembrance/ will you?//

Sit/ dear girl/ Azedarach you/ sit & breathe//

A PEEP FROM THE SKY

A symbolic perspective from the sky, though written in the first person, also,

typifies the way God sees the universe from his throne– on high, and definitely

knows much more than we do. The characters in this poem are also symbolic.

As an Eagle soars, I ride on the wings of the wind.

As a Bat hangs upside down, I watch the wonders that

blossom as a legion of roses/ under the laps of the blues.

I see the companies of shrubs that are united & medusas of leaves–

the trees that are waving at me are as green as a precious pasture

with pleasant postures.

I see the stretch-marks– drawn across the faces of the soil– the pedestrian rails.

The rivers are mirrors of liquid. As clear as crystals.

The oceans are chameleons– they bear the images of the sailors with

every Canoe that sits on their faces.

Timid waters are the wrappers the Islands tie while the deserts thirst.

They lack water so much that crying is impossible.

They lack anything but the heaps to hide in oblivion–

every visitor of their red, aching, vast & bald soil.

I see the ocean, too, and I understand her silent language.

She mothers the fishes and the prawns and the turtles.

With patience, offers herself to the panting deers–

who lick the hem of her robe with great libido.

Also, the hunters I see, with barrels– feeding from

their strong breasts of salty milks that the hardworking sun

is fetching from their scalp to cook, in the firmament,

for the hungry and weary roots beneath: she’ll pour them

a spaghetti of liquid and they’ll be filled to float food

into men’s mouths.

‘Tín-ko-tín-ko’ is more than a game

A symbolic cultural milieu of a typical village in Africa.

Mama’s mortar: our left palms,

glued fingers on the right: the pestle, & invisible

yams we pound.

We’ve featured in the massacre of boiled yams

to feed our roasted esteems.

Guilty as charged but legal murderers…we drink

the chorus of their elegies.

‘tín-ko-tín-ko’…at sunset, our faces/ brilliant blacks–

left over/ when the sun is filled.

‘tìko-loko-tìn-ko’… pounding palms, clapping oscillation

with simultaneous operand/ a testament to the security

of our brilliant brains.

‘tín-ko-tín-ko’… like the clanging of woods,

Not of irons, not of bloodbath, mutual palms rehearse the

‘afri-martial’ art– as we aim at the

shame that maims our name.

‘tìko-loko-tìn-ko’… we just want to pacify our malaise–

too climatic a time to lose, lads & lasses

won’t die until the sun is buried.

‘tín-ko-tín-ko’… our huts– our paradise, each time

we fold our eyes up like our intertwined mats,

we melt into blurry dreams; for the thatched roofs that cap the hut–

where-in our resting bodies lie are traitors–

they won’t betray the pride of protection for a bribe from benevolence,

but for no charge, strokes of water will smuggle in like spies &

like butchers, slaughter our warm suffusion upon our woven slabs.

‘tìko-loko-tìn-ko’… & after the fluorescence of the sea, the leaves

roll out of slumber, because the sun is awake, & ressurrection

weave a spell over our gone bodies for the sake of our pretty black bloods.

Glossary

Tín-ko-tín-ko’ is a game– a typical play that involves two people.

It is a clapping game with a certain simultaneous operand.

Photo by Melissa Askew on Unsplash

Bio

Psalmuel Benjamin Oluwasheun is a young christian Nigerian poet and writer with works appearing/forthcoming in Eskimopie magazine, nanty greens, Kalahari review and elsewhere. He also writes short stories. Aside writing, he finds ecstasy in drawing, acting, painting, singing and teaching. He is an aspiring lawyer.
He has phobia for animals but can eat beans three times a day. He’s the vice president of Godly steps family.
Hi him on Whatsapp: 09152608781
Facebook: Benjamin-psalmuel Oluwasheun
Twitter: Psalmuel_Benjam1

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