Ayoade Olamide
I Run Into Prayer When I Try to Genesis a Poem
bismillah-ir-rahman-ir-rahim—
this is how i now offer my prayers
& my soul for i am trying to master
this new religion without throwing
myself into a prison yard
i once opened the scars on my Face
Arm
Ischium
Testes
Heart
& they do not smell like fresh wounds
but petrichor—
the newness
of wetness
after a long dryness
often i run into the
hands of irish whiskey
as an attempt to escape
my grief but instead
i draw it even closer
i've been longing for freedom
& i wish to take the form of a wind but
my body is a dump site of wishes that never happened
how do i rename myself
in another man's tongue
without losing my identity
without becoming a sandcastle
after walking out of my body?
God i am a grain of sand
on the shore of your vastness
& my prayers are pebbles
cast into the ocean of your mercy
i worship you mostly in my poems
& everytime i write
i hold a dua
in my palms
the exact way
grief holds me
Requiem of Fire
After Hassan Usman's “Anatomy of Fire and Finding Solace”
“burning yourself is not a sin. there’s
also heaven for those that like to burn.”
there's also heaven
with the nakedness
I watched a wildfire
on my tongue like
I burnt vowels on
my mouth
that are speechless
a sinew of smoke
my sore throat
blooms a conflagratioin
in this poem
a body of language of
somewhere
my father refuses to burn
as our home choirs
for those that like to undress a matchstick
of their fingers
consume a nearby house & an inferno grew
sunflowers
my lips &
unfolded words
like pain
tries to fit into
& out of its narrow
of flowers
beauty is ashing in
fuel-woods
my mother tries to unweave her scars
in a prayer of coal
a requiem of fire
