lullaby- a soothing song, usually sung to someone before they go to sleep, with the intention of speeding that process.
His kiss lullabied my broken
Pushed me through my process
With speed so I could fly past
My ancient decayed grief
He songbird my freedom
Into weapons marked dangerous
I watched him catch my heart
Rebound over stars and cross-fireworks
He cradle rocked on my harmonies
Lifting me till i rediscovered the true composer
Of the sweet music spinning over the
Broken record of my heart
Earth Quake
Earthquake looks like a storm that just rolled through town
And we discover the signs are all the same
The rocks have returned to dust
Fed-Ex trucks deliver right on time smoke to all exposed throats
I wonder if they wonder who’s watching
I wonder if they wonder who’s coming
And basic things will never COME anymore–you know
I have no garden
There is no river my lips can touch
That will quench my thirst properly
Maybe rain will fuel this empty water bottle.
What are we going to eat?
All of my cans are sleeping in the bottom
Of all the rubble I thought was only
Real in other places like construction sites
I get my apples from stop and shop
My bannanas from Trader Joe’s
How many mailbox’s will I need to drop my note
To guarantee it will be delivered to somebody
My note is VERY important
It’s a matter of life and death
The note says
HELP US PLEASE
are you here yet?
And nothing changes
Silence last longer than it’s supposed to
Who’s gonna come to deliver me?
It’s getting dark now.
Where’s the electricity?
Who’s in charge here!
Let me speak to your supervisor!
Who’s in charge here?
Where’s the POLICE?!
Shit! They NEVER show what REALLY happens next
When this scene happens in a hollywood movie.
At least no scene that I wanna take part in.
Wha…! Hey!?! What??!
Are we supposed to be looting?
God did NOT just hit the reset button.
Is the sky falling all over the entire COUNTRY?
How will they know what happened here
If this happened everywhere?
How far is everywhere?
Does everywhere also mean everybody?
IS THERE ANYONE OUT THERE I CAN SUE?
VERDICT PLEASE:
YOUR HONOR…WE THINK the UNIVERSE IS…(dramatic pause)
GUILTY!
UNIVERSE, AWARD THIS GIRL HER SILVER LINING
Better yet…
What’s mine?
Where’ mine?
How do I get mine?
Wait! Who’s got mine!?
EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF!!!
Ok–yeah that won’t work.
Hey you-!
Yeah you…! Let’s form an alliance.
We’ll call ourselves the Alliance State of Unimerica!
With liberty, and justice…………………………………..for all.
I wonder if they will wonder how this started.
I wonder if we will remember who was guilty.
commission this poem please. pledge on kickstarter.com
shine amazing like an Olympian Warrior. Bring the BALANCE and the artistry. Bring the FOCUS and determination. Research the LEGACY of the WORD. SPEAK THE LANGUAGE of Corinthians possessing the UNBREAKABLE intention to embrace the unpredictable LOVE long enough to allow the miracle of the MOMENT to settle in from DUST to untouchable RAINBOWS. BE AN UNTOUCHABLE rainbow. The kind that will INSPIRE a thousand AVATARS of you. Let this illusion resemble your memory of anything struggling to be permanently GOLDEN.
Bring on the flow of a perfect
run
on
sentence.
Moon-LIGHT down on the STAGE every time the NIGHT SEEMS TO COME.
Remember how quickly the night will come.
Replace the CHAMPION you are with the CHAMPION you are likely to become—and so on.
The EVOLUTION of you becomes a CHAMPION every single time. a perfect 10 will answer none of your questions but the one you needed to believe before you chose to speak anything into the silver glare of that microphone.
Until i overflow: (a song)
i feel closer to you now
and i know how far away you really are
like the moon that hangs down tonight so low
no one knows why you appear to rain down until i overflow
inside me like the light that dances around my soul
i hear music now in ever room you used to be
city lights chase the sun ray you gave me on our last days
everything we were
i still believe we could be
and no one has to know
no one has to know
no one has to know
no, no no—
until i overflow
no one has to know
no one has to know
no, no, no
until i overflow
ooh…
how long you have loved me
how long it will take you to let me go
how long it will take for me to find you again
somewhere far from this place we used to know
until autumn traces these tears falling on Beacon Hill cobble stones
until we remember how softly winter comes and goes
until i can breath as freely as the sweet spring that carries on
until a summer rain sings a song to cool me down
until i overflow
ooh…
the wind will follow me now
take the break to glide on your own
remember me being somewhere believing in you
somewhere closer to god
i will send you a prayer to find your way
cut up the moon and replay every moment of our yesterdays
this time i will let you sail away to that place you will soon call home
and no one has to know
no one has to know
no, no, no…no one has to know
no one has to know
no one has to know
no one has to know
until i overflow
ooh…
until i overflow
ooh…
poem after breaking down again
part of me missed it
the intensity of the sleepless
the 4 hours or less
the getting up to the daily
the drive that gives everything
the unfamiliar
the insomnia
the exhausting fear of anything heavy lasting longer than I can carry
the solitude
the missing something that wasn’t happening
the missing someone who wasn’t here
the breaking
the breath that shapes the smoky cold wind
i feel myself overcoming
sometimes not too often
then returning to the birth of believing
that part of me misses this
letting go
letting my words
change me
taking you there
taking me there
taking us anywhere
that lifts us beyond this
i’m so ready
for the melody
for the spell to be broken
for the next time
the next song
the next reason to collapse on stage
to be real and vulnerable
and embarrassed that i’m doing it again
the letting go
the breaking
the breath that shapes the smoky cold wind
the poem that turns it all back into sunshine
sparks of creativity. productive productivity. the next idea. i could go on forever with this. i think i farmed 7 harmonies today. Honestly, I have no idea what makes the perfect combination that completes me. What I do know is that Life doesn’t end in December–just the calendar year. Leads me to believe that new years have new meaning and “meaning” is a big deal. FIND IT in the moments you choose to invest in. Take this as your calling—your OMEN of good things coming, your vision of a beckon. You can begin again. Not quite born again. But close enough to taste the wind like it was your first time flying.
(THESE WORDS born FROM A BLOG I WROTE HERE) because i gotta trick myself into writing sometimes.
I sculpted my spirit a perception of love.
I beckoned my heart to look upon this image daily
and return with word of the vision the heart felt.
The heart confessed that her eyes were hungry.
Distant was the memory of her last love’s feast.
Lost was the promise of a love labeled new.
The heart replied lovingly to me,
“This sculpture reminds me of you.”
Iyeoka ivie Okoawo 2009 ©
Brand this sacrifice beautiful
When the night comes
and your moment has a feeling of homeless
Identify the part of you that suffers
And remove this
Brand this sacrifice beautiful
Move on to the next
Find the extension that flows across the
Parts of you that would rationalize drowning
If drowning was the circumstance attached
To the obstacles keeping you from living
This is how the body TESTIFIES
Becoming the means to serve the purpose of the dance
Capable of identifying beautiful
You put on your black sequence dress
And you dance
You find salvation in movement
Each synapse reflecting a new lift
a relevant twisted teasing action
You breathe in your human
You mold your fingers around a mound of clay
And label this place home
And your house is stronger now
Recognize how efficiently loneliness cuts you
Brand this sacrifice beautiful
Move on to the next
Find the extension that passes like osmosis across the
Parts of you that would rationalize the white noose
As if hanging was the circumstance attached
To the obstacles keeping you from living
This is the price you pay for illusions
Imaginary miracles sweeping you off your feet
If nothing you promised yourself includes PEACE
Move on to the next
Find the extension that passes like oxygen across the
Parts of you that would rationalize the act of voluntarily holding your breath
As if suffocation was the circumstance attached
To the obstacles keeping you from living
In the light of forgiveness
Remember who she is
Imagine yourself walking past the barriers together
Visualize the limitless
Forget everything that never was
Move on to the next
Discover the art of this ritual
Brand this sacrifice beautiful
Find the extension that passes like fire across the
Parts of you that would rationalize the flames
And how amazing the sun feels so close to us
As if ash to dust was the circumstance attached
To the obstacles keeping you from living
Iyeoka ivie okoawo 12/09 ©
poem from MASTER WORKSHOP @ WELLESLEY COLLEGE
Here, Iyeoka Journeys to Wellesley College one week after presenting a concert at the Multi-Faith Center. She guides participants into a free write collaboration that introduces the first three sentences of this poem. She challenges herself along with participants to accept an invitation to create a current anthem.
Impractically, water becomes roses.
Roses create vessels for spontaneous collecting clouds.
We slide in-between—effortlessly.
And perhaps this is why we come
Bending in these rituals
Finding joy in the trees that appear
As dark shadows in the backdrop of a grey sky
Finding joy in pretending there is a grand piano
creating music somewhere in the distance
Finding joy in believing ANYTHING is possible
That ANYWHERE is exactly where you can find yourself
Knowing that this time—THIS time…
I will find my way.
-Iyeoka Ivie Okoawo
BECAUSE I GOT YOU
Lyrics Iyeoka Ivie Okoawo © 10/09
Verse 1
IT’S A TRAVELING DAY
I’M ON THE ROAD TONIGHT
I’M TRYING TO MAKE IT BACK HOME TO YOU
YOUR PROBABLY WORRIED WAITING UP LIKE YOU DO
IT’S A BEAUTIFUL THING
TO THINK OF YOU LIKE I DO TONIGHT
WITH ALL THE THINGS THAT YOU WANT TO GIVE ME
ALL I NEED IS YOUR LOVE TO BE THE STAR THAT GUIDES ME
Chorus
Part 1 chorus:
I AIN’T RICH
I KNOW—OH I KNOW—I know…
BUT I FEEL LIKE I AM A MILLIONAIR
I FEEL LIKE I AM A MILLLIONAIR
I AIN’T RICH
I KNOW—OH I KNOW
BUT I FEEL LIKE I AM A MILLIONAIR
I FEEL LIKE I AM A MILLLIONAIR
Part 2 chorus
BECAUSE I GOT YOU
BECAUSE I GOT YOU…
BECAUSE I GOT YOU
BECAUSE I GOT YOU…
Guitar/piano solo tension riff
Verse 2
LATE NOVEMBER
ON AN INDIAN SUMMER’S AFTERNOON
LEAVES ARE BROWN AND THE SEASONS ARE CHANGING
AND ALL that I CAN THINK OF IS THE LOVE WE ‘RE MAKING
ALL THAT I NEED
IS TO BE IN YOUR ARMS TONIGHT
TAKE A PASS ON THE DIAMONDS AND THINGS
TO MAKE IT THERE BESIDE YOU I’D TRADE EVERYTHING
chorus
I AIN’T RICH
I KNOW—OH I KNOW
BUT I FEEL LIKE I AM A MILLIONAIR
I FEEL LIKE I AM A MILLLIONAIR
I AIN’T RICH
I KNOW—OH I KNOW
BUT I FEEL LIKE I AM A MILLIONAIR
I FEEL LIKE I AM A MILLLIONAIR
BECAUSE I GOT YOU
BECAUSE I GOT YOU…
BECAUSE I GOT YOU
BECAUSE I GOT YOU…
BRIDGE:
IT REALLY DOESN’T EVEN MATTER TO ME
IF THE WORLD WAS MINE
FILLED WITH MATERIAL THINGS
A FANCY CAR – OR A FIRST CLASS TICKET TO BALI
IF I –HAVE– NOT LOVE
THAN I HAVE NOTHING
chorus
I AIN’T RICH
I KNOW—OH I KNOW
I know I know
BUT I FEEL LIKE I AM A MILLIONAIR
I FEEL LIKE I AM A MILLLIONAIR
I AIN’T RICH
I KNOW—OH I KNOW
BUT I FEEL LIKE I AM A MILLIONAIR
I FEEL LIKE I AM A MILLLIONAIR
BECAUSE I GOT YOU
BECAUSE I GOT YOU…
BECAUSE I GOT YOU
BECAUSE I GOT YOU…
the science of slamming
Iyeoka Ivie Okoawo will be among the ninety-six of the world’s top performance poets, representing slam venues from around the globe, converging for three days of competition and community for the 2009 Individual World Poetry Slam (iWPS) Oct 8-10 in Berkeley, California.** Iyeoka writes on the science of slamming:
I say for arts sake SLAM a poem.
You can READ a poem just as casually
as you can declaim what is on your mind.
You can take a stab at leaving OUT the poetry and the rhyme.
Delete the memory and the melody.
Leave the gut alone.
Forget about who is listening.
Better yet, stop listening to poems you could never write on your own.
Choose to rearrange the game to pronounce every poet who touches the stage a champion.
or…you can watch what happens when the rules of engagement is injected into the formula. You can write the syllabus, the curriculum, the objectives of the movements. You can DANCE if you want to.
You can witness the emergence of a qualitative standard of fierceness.
You can testify to a simple action suddenly becoming more difficult to accomplish.
A moment involving voice and words, body and microphone to materialize into the art of balancing strategy and poetry.
This is the science of slamming.
Technically anyone of us can win.
To win is not why we come.
To lose is NOT why we come.
We come to slam.
Anything else would be uncivilized…
or boring.
**Iyeoka Ivie Okoawo went on to win the 2nd place title at the 2009 IWPS competition on October 10th, 2009.
I Travel Home
I travel home to remember the sound of morning
I choose the evening to pray I remember this as it is
For when the city returns
When the sound of the green-line trolley cars and skyscrapers
Surround my senses diminishing this version of my imagination—
I will remember this
The silence and the night time
I will remember red sand on bare feet
My skin sticky glistening in the sun
My hair like untamed wool
I will remember the air thick of Africa
I will remember my mother in the night
And the children she cares for
I will see them once more as they play
Peeking at me from the crack in the doorway
I will remember my aunti– her famous Jeloff rice
Asking me in flawless Ishan native tongue
“ofure…Onegbe?”…How is everything…your too skinny”
And I struggling to keep up clumsily responding
“Butayay aunti?” That means, I don’t know what you just said
I will remember the market place
The women selling smoked corn and plantain
The taste of moy-moy and egusi
The sound of Doris pounding yam
Fresh oranges from the Arrimogiga farm
When Boston city lights mask the majesty of my favorite constellations
I will remember the moon…
Pregnant and smiling
Because I am a poet
Invested enough to write about it
Perhaps because I am a poet
I will remember the unseen
The homeless and the beggars, the roadside wanderers,
people just trying to survive
Children roadside selling cell phones and unwanted trinkets
I will remember the local roads
Beaten and eroded by rain and time
Huts built beside a 15 story hotel skyrise
So many having so much
Neighbors with others living with nothing
But the hand me downs on their backs
And the realities of poverty crushing their
promises of tomorrow
I leave behind my rose colored glasses
In my grandfather’s village
Because when my plane finally lands back in Boston
I want to believe that Nigeria changes me every time
These moments teach me how to recognize what we take for granted
constant electricity and clean water
hospitals on every corner
the opportunity to rise beyond our native borders
These are the details that risk a fate of becoming forgotten or lost
Like sounds of the morning
For when the city returns
When the sound of the green-line trolley cars and skyscrapers
Surrounds my senses diminishing this version of my imagination
I will remember this
We need to remember this
By Iyeoka Ivie Okoawo 2009 ©
HAPPILY EVER AFTER (song)
Verse 1: YOU WILL ABANDON ME YOU WILL BETRAY ME chorus: verse 2: YOU WILL BETRAY ME YOU WILL DISCOVER bridge: chorus: verse 3: SHE WILL get up in the morning chorus: vamp: end.
I AM YOUNG
I WEAR NO ARMOR
NO ABILITIES TO BECOME STONE
WHEN I AM BROKEN
YOU WILL ABANDON ME
WHEN I AM OLD
YOU WILL BETRAY ME
ON MORE TWILIGHTS
THAN I DESeRVE
DANCING ON THE GRAVES
OF OUR YESTERDAYS
DIGGING DOWN DOWN
THE BONES OF OUR LOVE
die de die die die de die
die de die die die die
die de die de die de die
die de die die die de die
I AM YOUNG
I WEAR NO ARMOUR
NO ABILITIES TO BECOME STONE
ON MORE TWILIGHTS
ON MORE TWILIGHTS
THEN I DESERVE
THAT I AM NOT THE GIRL
I AM NOT THE GIRL
YOU THOUGHT I WAS
FOR YOU HAVE FOUND A WAY
TO STRANGLE HER
BURY THIS SWEET LITTLE GIRL
INTO THE GROUND
chorus:
die de die die die de die
die de die die die die
die de die de die de die
die de die die die de die
BREAK DOWN BREAK DOWN DOWN
THE WALLS OF HAPPILY EVER AFTER
BREAK DOWN BREAK DOWN DOWN
THE WALLS OF HAPPILY ever after X2
die de die die die de die
die de die die die die
die de die de die de die
die de die die die de die
YOU WILL LEAVE THE GIRL
YOU WILL LEAVE THE GIRL
YOU WILL LEAVE THIS GIRL BEHIND
SLOWLY DETACHING
FROM THE MEMORIES
OF EVER KNOWING A LOVE LIKE MINE
SHE WILL avoid wasting THESE days
SPEAK: “I WILL find a way
To revive the woman I loved
Before I chose to LOVE you THAT WAY”
die de die die die de die
die de die die die die X2
BREAK DOWN BREAK DOWN DOWN
THE WALLS OF HAPPILY EVER AFTER X2
I AM YOUNG
I WEAR NO ARMOR…
NO ABILITIES TO BECOME STONE
MY EYES WILL REFLECT EVERYTHING
ABOUT ME THAT YOU WILL NEVER KNOW
message to you
Keep Heaven close wherever you go.
a good place to put it is in your back pocket.
Heaven comes in handy you know.
So hold the globe.
You’re invincible now.
We are here like the dust in a sunbeam
Wondering how they will remember us when we are gone
Pondering if these moments will matter
Battling with our need to live in this manner
Detached with the echoes of our journeys tattooed on our backs
Now for me life moves much like a dream
Complete with TIME skipping rope
With the path my hopes want to take
And sometimes I fear like I’m falling
Sometimes I know when I need to fly
Most times I’m standing very still
Sight reading the meaning of the brail
Raised beneath my fingertips
And I believe each lift to mean
We are still discovering which of our
Senses we can trust
Or perhaps right now
is happening in this sequence
As time jumps and yesterday sails
In the same rate of forever
as every breath we
Inhale (hope)…Exhale.
Inhale (hope)…exhale.
MY POEM TO NATIVE SON AND PRESIDENT ELECT BARAK OBAMA
Defuse me as promised
Contend me
Choose me and the transition into HOPE will become a part of our mission
Do not fear what they told you could possibly be a mirror to the impossible
Do not fear when they tell you that you may fail
Remember you MADE today possible
Paving a version of this vision that began
As a new generation and dissipated
Into a witness of perfection ready for reconciliation
Of the trials and tribulations of a people ready for this moment to come
Find a moment to build your personal campaign to victory
Succeed when your moment comes for you
Focus and recognize the turning point when it happens
Watch them as they analyze your success
Know that they will celebrate you and criticize your journey in the same breath
Trust that you will be the same man you were
When you failed at inspiring the person
You wanted most to inspire
We will soon understand the feeling of that echo
We will define and defend
What it means to lead the life of rising
From the bottom to the top
To cracking a ceiling of glass
To being 5 generations removed from slavery
To being proud once again to declaring yourself an American, an African, a woman or a man, a Patriot, a part of something greater than anything you ever thought was worthy of being shouted over a rainbow or a mountain top
Today is the day we learned you became President of the United States of America
Today we celebrate in the present tense
We believed but knew not what the definition of the
Ultimate perspective would ever become
But now we know
Now we know that in time
In time you can survive
The hurricane that will come for you
Now you know that in time
That this change in our lives will leave us
Better than we ever were before
Iyeoka Ivie Okoawo 2008
What She Said
Let us start with what she did not say
She did not say:
Abandon me
I am broken
I have the ability to become stone
My eyes will reflect everything
About me you will never know
I will betray you on more twilights than you deserve
You will discover I am not the woman you thought I was
For you have found a way to strangle her
Stripping her spirit like a mutiny in the night
This image of pure and perfection
Of yours and happily ever after
This deep-rooted pedestal
This pluck of beauty and magic and human
We are both damaged now
Dancing on the hollow graves of our yesterdays
But you will only endure one side to this story
And believe what you need to justify
That which has blinded you for so long
You will regret every moment you contemplated
Leaving her behind
But you will leave her behind
Slowly detaching yourself from the memory
Of ever committing to love like this
You will replay your life in reverse from present to past tense
In attempts to retrace the position of the trapped door
The hologram, the imaginary friends, the scent of another woman
That led you down the path of doubting your heart again and again
The ONE thing you could have trusted amidst the
Illusions of immaculate confessions and conversations
So let us continue with one of them
With what she did say
She said:
I am leaving you
I am finding strength from the parts of myself
That you have neglected
I have the ability to become stone
But will choose to remain a woman
I will cry when I need to cry
I will never contemplate suicide
I will breathe
I will write
I will balance dancing eating sleeping
i will get up in the morning
I will avoid wasting days
I will find a way to revive the woman I loved before I loved you
This image of pure and perfection
Of yours and happily ever after
This deep-rooted pedestal
This pluck of beauty and magic and human
Iyeoka ivie okoawo © 2008
Women's Leadership and Revival Tour
The Berkana experience began like this:
We gather together
Sometimes under noisy highways
surrounded by painted oak trees drawn over dusty concrete and cement
The memory of the green
reminds us of what is still possible
revitalizing what remains
every day becomes a tug of faith
enriched in the moment of our lives and what is provided
shifting into a partnership between the universe and ourselves
I surrender
Acknowledging the chaos of my expectations
acknowledging an understanding of patterns like
poverty leads to war/
impatience divides us/
and love conquers all/
And so now here we are/
following the energy of the moment/
trusting the consistency of the sun rising every time/ time spinning clockwise
and the moon becoming the third eye of my night’s sky
And we surrender/
constantly renegotiating with the current/surrounded by our own thunder/
surrendering to our own availability and vulnerability/
permitting life to magically connect us and miraculously unfold/
as we frantically endure/carving our names onto dusty car windows/
we search for traces of ourselves in every vessel that promises to carry us there/ meanwhile, here we are/ a vessel so magnificent it protects us from scolding ourselves too boldly for misplacing the power within us/
our bodies choose to believe in us until it can’t/
peacefully building and breathing until it can’t/moving us from this moment into the next/investing all of our time in the moment/ so much that I become the moment/ nurturing myself/mentoring the seed from the sand up/with help from the sun and the tears from above/ sending the light straight out of heaven/
guiding the roots to ground us again/
I dream for us
Dreaming of the tide of ripples promising to take us higher
iyeoka ivie okoawo (written & performed during close of women’s conference w/ Berkana inst. 6/2006)
and so it begins. the slow restless surfacing of inspiration. the dance that begins in the snapshot of a moment. the ripple that rides the cans from the can knots. i am break-dancing in a sweet sun ray of yesterday and now. blending my unforgettable birth with my future self.
the moments that want us
The Present was already happening
when i awoke from my daydreaming
The Past warned me of too many moments
I would miss if I blinked:
the first three steps of my niece
sharon’s last breath
my brothers becoming men
my parent’s dancing together like children again
I will catch as many as I can
hoping the Future will allow
my dreams to reunite
with the moments
that are still waiting
for me to arrive
iyeoka ivie okoawo© 2008
Surviving Seasons
I choose to fall on my own time
I begin believing that nothing needs me
Not the Winter as He delivers the first cool snowflake
of a soon to be covered canvas of white and frost
Not the Spring as She embraces the breeze from the Atlantic waters
Not the Summer as time sends the sun to my doorstep
chasing the shade into an already delirious
landscape of shorts, sandals and tank tops
I collapse effortlessly as Autumn shakes the leaves
to do what I fear of doing too easily
I am used to fighting against the fall
Developing compelling reasons of why I came here
Defining journeys
Separating a park bench and isolation
with Thanksgiving dinners and Christmas parties
I am used to surviving seasons
But tonight I take a different approach
I surrender to the failures that will no doubt outlive my desire
to prove all my private critics wrong this time
I welcome the challenge to outlast my need to win
with my instincts to let the cards deal what was meant for me
And I’ve never been one to gamble with life as barter without a backhanded guarantee
The stakes are too great and there are far too many roads that call for me
to fight for the path that will certainly call for more uncertainty
So tonight my approach resembles freedom
Freedom to fall if I must
To paint the sand blue before the waves come
Freedom to watch how quickly things can spin out of control deliberately falling apart
Freedom to face the days believing that everything…all the pieces are there like a jigsaw puzzle waiting for you to rebuild them again
We need to believe that sometimes…everything that needs you will find you
Whole or broken
Starved and unsatisfied or replenished and confident
Celebrating that this gift of days and seasons perfect in its imperfection and uneven ends
This gift of moments making me crazy
with more love and loss, more pain than I can handle in one breath
This gift of hopeless freedom needs me to exist
more than my willingness to freefall blindly past it
a poem a day keeps
the meaning of irie
Current mood: addiction to the rubberband
And so now I am recalling stories
Of you changing open spaces
From caves to canvases
From a maze
to memorable
I make sure
the shoe fits
more than once~
I pick several moments and watch you wrap into them
Slipping through
A silhouette
Divided
By crazy
and how I believe you’re driving me
A kiss reminding me of everything I was afraid of
Including love
including the rest
like death
By the very lips that rehearsed
The same curses that sought
To show me how to cry myself a river
by myself twice in 2 decades.
for now, the punch line is dangling on rebirth
But who’s to say run on sentences were created to loose us
in the dust of words deserted by the whirlwind of the minds
and the desire to keep going, keep moving
fear nothing for whatever doesn’t get
baptized on the page
gets recycled in the mysteries
of the divine
timing of
everything.
…just allow the ink to dry several times on the same line
i miss the maze
i miss moments of the rat race
i miss time showing me how to remember love
i miss knowing too much
i miss running away when i felt like i didn’t get enough
gone are the days i shift from powerful to helpless
gone are the days i follow a path that leads to homeless
gone are the seconds i wasted on whispering my love letters
i want to relearn how to embrace the emptyness
teach the universe how to meditate in stasis
still the mind
resurfacing again as a grain of sand
unknown and anonymous
an orphan of joy
an observer of miracles
iyeoka ivie okoawo ©
