SEMINAL BLUES
(Post conversation with death)
“Dying / Is an art, like everything else.”
-Sylvia Plath, “Lady Lazarus”
Your words do not meet the hearth in my ears
they are always met with insurgence
from the wind that presses the ears beyond its strength.
I may be mistaken by the way each gully builds
when these words rummage my ears over and over
and mountains it to the height of the casket
you once told me – a passerby – not to come near
when you are measured into its strands.
Do not think I came here barefooted
to sleep with the hand that denied you safety
when your last morsel of words choked you
like a worried foetus does when it decides
to greet the Earth with its feet.
I have come here to gossip to aloneness
the scarlet craters that have been made
on the surface of the moon by the hand
that denied the canoe its course on the ocean.
Do not ask questions.
Do not ask why I am here alone.
For tonight, your wife and two sons
shall fork their graves next to you
and you won’t have to worry anymore
over why your words break each time
they touch the hearth in my ears.
PETITIONING CHRIST
Dear
Christ,
Whenever I mention your name
(In short brackets)
The vowels in my minuscule mouth
Become a sea with broken eyelashes
From the makeup of my future wife
But
Christ,
Why is her face Europe?
And her legs Africa
Dear
Christ,
(And Satan interjected)
You poet of little faith
(Thunderous exclamation
Two long dashes
One full stop)
And Christ retorted
(In bold inverted commas)
Ephesians 4:16 KJV
And my face
Became planet 3
Forged into 7
Motionless plates
______________________________________________________________________________
Abeiku Arhin Tsiwah performs poetry with The Village Thinkers, Ghana and serves as the poetry editor for Lunaris Review, Nigeria. Tsiwah, an international award winning poet and author of Afro-conscious heritage writes from his fatherland – Cape Coast, Ghana.
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