Song, (Un)declared
By Ernest O. Ògúnyẹmí
For the majestic kudu, braided horn
Like an invocation of mercy, folds on folds
Of skin, muscles spiralling on the side, flashes
Of lightning down the back, like clawed
Stripes by an almost quiet painter,
I have a hymn, a hymn has me.
For the sable antelope standing
Before the bronze mirror in my dream,
I have a word, and another, a star
Locked inside the soul of each.
But for you, frothing, wanting body
Language appears a mute door, pure
Absent salt. The rhythm inside me
I cannot name; nude animal air.
I name the roses by their dusk, and
The lantern by its lost, the bitter melon
By its promise. My eyes a cold coin.
Out of the mouth of a broken piano
A fragrant light is flown; in the pocket
Of a hymn are twenty-four birds mooning.
Tell me, body, where you wake.
Inside me—this I know—are seven
Sick alphabets, whose form I sense
But cannot sow to music. Each a door.
Each door a gift to me from bleeding.
How to touch them into laurels. Flaunt them
Like nothing. Harp be made alive in me.
For the majestic kudu, braided horn
Like an invocation of mercy, folds on folds
Of skin, muscles spiralling on the side, flashes
Of lightning down the back, like clawed
Stripes by an almost quiet painter,
I have a hymn, a hymn has me.
For the sable antelope standing
Before the bronze mirror in my dream,
I have a word, and another, a star
Locked inside the soul of each.
But for you, frothing, wanting body
Language appears a mute door, pure
Absent salt. The rhythm inside me
I cannot name; nude animal air.
I name the roses by their dusk, and
The lantern by its lost, the bitter melon
By its promise. My eyes a cold coin.
Out of the mouth of a broken piano
A fragrant light is flown; in the pocket
Of a hymn are twenty-four birds mooning.
Tell me, body, where you wake.
Inside me—this I know—are seven
Sick alphabets, whose form I sense
But cannot sow to music. Each a door.
Each door a gift to me from bleeding.
How to touch them into laurels. Flaunt them
Like nothing. Harp be made alive in me.
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BIO:
Ernest O. Ògúnyẹmí is a writer, literary journalist, and editor from Nigeria. His work has appeared/ is forthcoming in AGNI, Bodega, Southern Humanities Review, Bath Magg, Cincinnati Review, Rust+Moth, Joyland, Agbowó, the minnesota review, Mooncalves: An Anthology of Weird Fiction, and elsewhere. He currently studies for a BA in History and International Studies at Lagos State University. |
