Survivor
Yesterday, the wind swept a bird’s carcass onto our front porch. Its left wing was twisted to rest on its chest, like one making a pledge. The other day, a mockingbird wounded from a flight or fight, perhaps, limping around the front yard, sang a dying tune till sunset when it spread Its wings, falling backward on the tip of a nail. In this poem I present myself a survivor of the Holocaust that ate the early years of my life, leaving me with fanged memories & a tender passion to write my sorrow. I present myself in surrender to this music filling my ears—A weightless curtain parting itself for breeze to enter. I hook myself to the string of a bow that promises failure, yet I hook anyway. I summon the Dead in me as I stretch backwards. I am the Archer, the Archer’s taut fingers, the strained string & the weightless arrow pulling back at itself— How a body can accrue so much weight and still be elastic. A swift release & I shoot out of my isolation in full defiance of the wind. The cool whiff of my flight, annoys my stepmother. She says, boy you don’t deserve to fly. But Grief, like death, is purgative. & I forgive her for thinking I’m not empty enough for an afterlife. My resurrection troubles my family Like the teachers of the law were, regarding Jesus'. Yet, it is written & shall come to pass. At the peak of my flight, I thrust into the hard flesh of the world & it doesn’t bleed. Was I blunt? I have no idea But the wind keeps bringing dead birds to our front porch. & my family inhales their stench as oxygen. When my mother died, I died too but was never availed the stink of a corpse. Perhaps explains why my body never found affection in the nostrils of my family. Because I survived, you see, I fucking survived.
Ode to the Fertility of Music
I sit, ears plugged--
The lush country of a song,
Pouring into my ears--
I am made whole by music.
A song is as fertile as a memory & I
Am a meadow bathing in the wind
That percolates through my body
No longer will I bathe in my own silence or watch
Death tease me with the fracturing of a dream
I sit in surrender to the soft grace of the violin squealing
Slitting, thread after thread, the interlocked seam of memory--
The Dead silent in me, open their eyes & reach their hands towards you, o music
Like the bleeding woman reaching for the Hem of Jesus garment,
Towards you o music of our resurrection to be.
Your tongue slithers out [ like a cobra’s] from the melody of violins, pianos & voices,
Licking me clean of all dryness. Wet me with Love & more Love
The loop itself is an interlace of melodies. It becomes a multi-rayed lit torch piercing
Through the glass prism of a heart; effusing a spectrum color-fertile with revelation.
I have given myself up to this wind. Roll the tombstone, you won’t find me there.
The lush country of a song,
Pouring into my ears--
I am made whole by music.
A song is as fertile as a memory & I
Am a meadow bathing in the wind
That percolates through my body
No longer will I bathe in my own silence or watch
Death tease me with the fracturing of a dream
I sit in surrender to the soft grace of the violin squealing
Slitting, thread after thread, the interlocked seam of memory--
The Dead silent in me, open their eyes & reach their hands towards you, o music
Like the bleeding woman reaching for the Hem of Jesus garment,
Towards you o music of our resurrection to be.
Your tongue slithers out [ like a cobra’s] from the melody of violins, pianos & voices,
Licking me clean of all dryness. Wet me with Love & more Love
The loop itself is an interlace of melodies. It becomes a multi-rayed lit torch piercing
Through the glass prism of a heart; effusing a spectrum color-fertile with revelation.
I have given myself up to this wind. Roll the tombstone, you won’t find me there.
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BIO:
Omodero David Oghenekaro (b.2003) is a young Nigerian writer and poet. He's currently an undergraduate student of Biomedical Technology at the University of Portharcourt. His works have appeared in African writer magazine, Arts Lounge, Ngiga review, Icefloe press, Poetry Column NND, Eboquills; and is forthcoming in Lolwe. He tweets @OmoderoDavidOghenekaro.
Omodero David Oghenekaro (b.2003) is a young Nigerian writer and poet. He's currently an undergraduate student of Biomedical Technology at the University of Portharcourt. His works have appeared in African writer magazine, Arts Lounge, Ngiga review, Icefloe press, Poetry Column NND, Eboquills; and is forthcoming in Lolwe. He tweets @OmoderoDavidOghenekaro.
