Tropical Man

Fall:

The wind cries Wendy,

as bodies resonate with its hypothermic rattles. 

The ground is a tapestry of yellows, 

shapeshifting as the wind demands, 

the sky obscured by yellow laden trees

constantly waving hallelujahs. 

Wendy chills with the Michigan, as the wind seeks her

Tropical man in a temperate land, 

brace up 

for the song has just begun, 

and you must dance.

 

Snow:

Tropical man stares through his window,

at white flakes

hurrying from the sky

for a destined meeting with the ground. 

He wonders about the whiteness

& cold that will happen around him, 

and once again he longs

for the sweltering Lagos he once detested.

 

Dates:

Lit candle, 

bitter coffee, 

soft music and a frail looking 

white woman wondering

who this brown jacketed black man is 

underneath the boyish facade. 

while he ponders, tani eleyii?

 

Love:

He met

this temperate woman

On a starless night when he dared to bumble,

But love was like a shooting star, 

bright once but soon no more,

 

Loss:

Sparsely furnished room, 

bare white walls. 

Cold raging on the outside, 

loneliness doing a tempest on the inside. 

Schultz’s voice wailing continuously from the small speaker 

“but I let you go, oh I let you go” 

 

Regret:

There is no love here, 

just cold, concrete and metal. 

You can’t find petals, 

all snuffed out in the Arctic winds, 

all you can do is grin in despair

at the stoic faces, 

dream of the tropics and wonder 

why did I come here?

 

Stranger:

But you must learn 

to see loneliness as a companion, 

and embrace the cold

to preserve your soul from thawing. 

You must keep your brain in vigil, 

and your body going through circles, 

for someday you may emerge 

and smile at resurrection

having drank from Lethe

 

 

Med-Love Similes

 

You are the tourniquet and the green cannula

The gas tank, oxygen

And the whining of the Nebulizer

You are the white coat and the gloves,

the rush of feet along the hallway

However

you are not the used needles

The cold unmatched blood

Or the browned cefuroxime

And you are not the antiseptic laced air

You can never be the antiseptic laced air

 

 

Owo Requiem in 70

The service ends in harmony,

to gunshots singing in symphony,

Hic est finis

perpétua lúceat in lead and blood

The aftermath is death and gore

esu gbomimu nile oluwa

70 souls in recessit.

Victims of Nigeria, they shall be no more

Requiem aeternam