SHORES OF MEMORY

• I surf through the shores
  of my soul
  browsing memory
  with hands ready to embrace
  the blurring landscapes of our dreams
  but the ghost of the darkness comes
  on line
  And shango's promise of light
  becomes a joking thunder tumbling under
  the vanity of babel
  ..Still I wait up till the grey hours
  hoping for mother's nipple to sprout milk
  but I see forty decades of engorgement
  I see the horizon lined with leaking plates
  naked for a coin or two
  overnight, plastic flowers grow in potholes
  a trick for the future podium...
  I choke and choke under the heavy darkness
  but if being still means the resurgence
  of bitter pain, let mc be a whirlwind
  of freedom.
  
  II
  Across the road
  I pick pieces of my history
  scattered under trampling feet
  My siblings swim through great torrents
  to escape a country tall with oil wells
  my brother the poet is
  now a saint of poverty eating snow
  Sister in Italy; my tongue is incapable of disowning you
  I only hope you dance, soon, the lament of illusion.
  This giant is a colossus of mirages
  A budha without the promise of nirvana
  A melting sun
  but this giant shaped me into a vision
  this budha is the sum total of my reality
  this sun is my warmth
  how then can we keep failing our ancestors
  by throwing away our skin
  on the slab of a centered madness...
  In my scattered history I am yet to laugh with
  careless abandon, but if all was Cotton - white
  what will be the meaning of our redeeming
  Creation?
  
  III
  ...But how can I fly miles in the clouds
  only to end up washing dead bodies
  and paying bills?
  At the crossroad, I see my pain and my beloved
  At the crossroad, I see dollars and cold machines
  My beloved giant has turned me into
  a viral citizen
  Yet I dream of a telescope that will
  exalt my invisibility in the future of light
  Aha, a slow dance is rising from my bowel
  I maybe a circle of zeros
  a dot of silence
  but I feel the power of ascenslon
  I am also a miracle of calvary
  I see the eyes of my beloved light up
  the darkness.
  I dare the wind
  I leap into your presence!
  
  IV
  We must walk together
  to behold the path of great dawns...
  We gather at the healing tables
  ready to loose our tongues in the
  wine of sisterhood
  At the witness box, atrocities
  compete for visibility
  Lawyers debate the dialectics
  of a soaked handkerchief
  At the highplaces monsters become mere
  mortals of incoherence
  And our martyrs
  converge in sad heroism
  lighting tomorrow with their sainthood.
  We must learn to seek together
  now that our mornings rise to the sky
  now that our ancestors blow the charm of unity
  we must learn to put our tongues
  into one lip...
  I surf through the shores of memory
  And I behold an unfolding joy
  for which I become a child of void
  striving for the indifference
  that will unite all differences.

• ...But Eden broke apart
  filling my head with cyclones
  and questions
  The tower of heaven
  became a babel of tongues
  burying my answers in the
  footprints of unborn memories
  the garden left Eden
  and nature became several channels of deconstruction...
  
  I salute the Rain
  that nurtures the womb of life
  Yet I find scattered screams
  in the flood of California
  Yet the embers of our grief
  Still glow under the rivers of Ejirin
  
  I embrace the sun-center of Energy
  But must my sisters in India whither from your heat waves?
  Must my brothers in Kano lose their necks in the gripping fever
  of meningitis?
  And is the oasis enough for the deserts?
  
  How can I comprehend the hatred
  of disease-filled viruses?
  Are they songs of an inner Atlantis
  or notes from the ark of Noah?
  
  Eden broke apart
  and I hear whispers in the forest of my dreams;
  I am one of one
  one of many
  one of all.