Goodness Ayoola

the watchman sleeps—the evil is on us. i pass by a shop. cigarettes.
rum. & men with the issue of blood. i see a flag of revolution. it is
flying. a man is fanning it with a gun. it is by the thread of blood, the
clothes of revolution is sewn. is it by the thread of blood, the clothes
of revolution sewn? spell ruin. & wait for a boy to run in a white flag.
after the swift of anger. mob & laughter. he is not going to make it
out in one piece—& the flag—a worn peace. a man is talking about a
name. i want to remember what my country calls me—an adjective of
woes. i fight the memory. just for today. i sit like a festering dream
between funerals & flowers. what mafkes the world ire with favour?
flowers? funerals? this mad man. unfree & happy. i am free. & sad
—shackled by the sermon of lime will soon see the light. do not my
autopsy perform when i die. now. sterilize your eyes. cut keen. me.—
you will find fading fossils of boys who left home
without
the prayers of their mothers. you will find news & twenty-six girls
who ruined seeking paradise from the fire of their country. lights off.
shut your eyes. do you steam. stream. scream. like me—a sore river
calling for salt?

a man is talking about a name. i want to remember what
my country calls me—a nominal of woes.