Singing Rags

Singing Rags
Bi omode ba l’aso t’agba,
ko le ni akisa t’agba
A young man may have the robes of an elder,
But he can never have as many rags
-Yoruba proverb

© 2010 Oludamini
All Rights Reserved

Of this alone my faith consists:
There’s no sweetness but your lips
And I know this from your kiss
For the Prophet
I kiss this hand because it held
A hand that once touched yours
I kiss the ground because it was
Beneath your feet a floor
I sing these words because they were
sugar from your lips poured
Your voice is like a young dove’s purr
Hidden within a lion’s roar
I wear my clothes, my smile and hair
Just like I heard you wore
And if you granted me one glance
I couldn’t ask for more
Unless it be that you make me
The dust at your heart’s door
2

Singing Rags
The fine embroidery of my mind
Has come undone it seems
My tattered heart, torn, full of love
Is bursting at the seams
And all I have to offer you
Fluttering like a thousand flags
The tongues of my experience
These stained and dyed and singing rags
3

My room has two windows
But the sunlight won’t shine through
I found a leak in this roof
That my soul’s got to rise through
My heavy sins are many
And my saving virtues few
The world has many colours
But all I see is blue
Your mouth is full of answers
But all I want’s the truth
I’ve tasted plenty raptures
But all I want is you
4

And then you appeared
Like a flame amongst the flowers
More alive than life itself
And brighter than all colors
My heart follows your every whim
Like smoke whisps dancing on the wind
Lip to lip and limb to limb
I’ll kiss my way to you, my friend
Like tears in the rain
Like sighs in the wind
Light in the sun’s rays
Drops in the ocean
Shadows in the night
My lips in your kiss
Dust dancing in light
We were made for this
We were meant for bliss
5

So will you walk with me tonight?
Leave cloudy footprints in the sky?
And hang your soul out up to dry?
Let go, let me teach you to fly
I’ll fill the white night of your pages
With black stars, dark lights of sages
I’ll scribble rivers, not equations
We’ll wash our words and become nameless
6

Lovers are like firemongers
We go chasing lightning strikes
Carrying the blazes back
On dead trees’ bodies all alight
Come sit down by our smoldering books
And warm yourself by these bright flashes
Roast your body, cook your soul
Over these black and white ashes
Melt the ice around my heart
She’ll run in rivers down your cheek
To trace love’s destiny in verse
And rise sun-bound on your mouth’s breeze
7

Some men when words fail them
Have to resort to their fists
Your beauty’s past description
So I fall back on my lips
Love’s language can’t be spoke or heard
Just tasted in a kiss
I throw down words like stepping stones
To walk across the sea
And cut through whirling clouds of foam
That hide your face from me
I’ll keep singing these words of yours
Until I reach your silent shore
8

The whole world’s running after you
It won’t rest ‘til you do
The planets’ whirling round in space
Is just for a glimpse of your face
You hid the secrets of the sun
In rainbows and chameleons
Come dip your pen in my heart’s blood
And write the story of our love
9

Last night I dreamt that we kissed
And woke to the taste of your lips
And I’ve been searching for you since
Some memories you can’t resist
Oceans float on seas of fire
That burn and swirl around my heart
Every word makes me a liar
Silence rips my soul apart
When I’m on fire, I smoke
When I’m a wound, I bleed
These words are not hopes
I just write what I need
I say just what I mean
10

The dawn wind blew and smelled of you
I woke up drunk, my hair on fire
My veins filled up with your perfume
The trees sang like a wild choir
The sky dark orange like your eyes
Your tracks upon my golden palms
I saw you move in thin disguise
Through dancing leaves and soft birdsongs
And now a wordless melody
There’s nothing to compare you to
I see your face in everything,
and everything I see in you
Anything that can be said
Is just not worth the breath
So give me music’s poetry
Or kiss me silently instead
11

If you put your ear up to my heart you’ll hear your name
And if you read the ink within my eyes you’ll see the same
I’ve waited here so long, if I die, then who’ll be to blame?
If you won’t ever answer me, of course my eyes will stray
Your face is everywhere I turn, how could I look away?
The way I take your shape like water, no one can explain
The nights I spent waiting for you, they now all seem like days
And days without you are long nights of sleepless, endless pain
Touch me even if it’s just to push my love away
Curse me if it means that your dark lips will kiss my name
You’re the one who lit this wildfire in my soul’s hay
Flames can’t put out flames, so smoke is all I have to say
12

The world can talk to my left hand
My face is drowned in yours
My right hand’s in your midnight hair
I kiss your dawn mouth’s doors
I hung my heart from your earring
So maybe you would hear me
I made my bed your memory
So that you could be near me
You sprinkled my sweet words into
The black bowl of the sky
And let them roll and glisten there
Like tears that never dry
13

Hang your lashes with bright tears
Like the pearls that stretch her ears
The sky’s been adorned with stars
Let her paint your heart with scars
With your lashes sweep her yard
Make her dark mole your North Star
And then you walked away
With my heart between your lips
Bound to your caprice like
A balloon tied to your wrist
14

When your face peeked in my soul
And over her horizon’s crease
The howling night wind, fierce and cold
Became a rosy morning breeze
I woke up and my heart was gone
It got lost in your tangled hair
And so I’ll search your face lips-first
In hopes that I can find it there
15

If you put your mouth by my ear
And breathed to me your name
I would leap into the sun
To cool off from love’s flames
The sun’s a spark tossed in the sky
From the fire within my chest
The moon’s been burned and branded by
These longing sighs, hot and restless
And so I’ll sing your song each night
Harmonizing with crickets
And this is how I hope to die
With music, watering your eyes
16

My fumbling lips and clumsy love
Flickering like the candle’s tongue
I know that you have no need of
These raindrops in your flood
I wrote this vow in tulip blood
And published it on fresh rosebuds
I’ll cling to your ankles like dew
‘Till I’m fragrant as your footprint’s mud
If you keep ignoring me
I’ll sing so sad the sky will weep
And rain on your parade that’s
Trampling down my heart like wheat
So be careful around me
I’m crazy as a love-drunk teen
My breath will make you tipsy
I have a vineyard for a spleen
I’ve drunk from both sides of the sea
And all that lies between
So if you say you love me
You’d better know just what you mean
17

No words can ever capture the way you wear a night
Except for that sweet laughter you hide in your eyes’
starlight
Carry your prayer mat, I’d rather have my pair of dice
I’ll take my chances with this wine and secret prayers at
night
If I can’t sing love songs to you on silver prairie nights
Cut out my golden tongue, I’d rather lie here paralysed
For your face I’ve gambled away my last my pair of lives
For hopeless parasites like me, your lips are paradise
Why’d you ask about my heart?
How could I tell you how it felt?
It’s been in your hands long since
So go ahead and ask yourself
I’m sorry if I’ve been rude
Or a little bit off-putting
I figured if you wouldn’t kiss me
Maybe I could make you hit me
18

The Hung-Over Student
So love-drunk during my exam
From what we had just done
That it seemed like your name was
The answer to every question
I put your birthday, not the date
Down on the dotted line
And I wrote your name on top of the page
Because I couldn’t remember mine
19

Your smile makes the sun self-conscious
The moon goes dark with jealousy
A twinkle in your eyes’ dark nights
Is all that I could hope to be
My soul’s all ablaze like fall leaves
Standing with you feels like falling
In love, there’s no cure for disease
My doubts fly south like flocks of geese
Before your warm breath’s morning breeze
After all, your kiss is all I need
Love’s tears are not salt, they’re sweet
My eyes will pour them down my cheeks
Until they drown your bitter sea
And make your pain a memory
20

Your Name
If you should cut me with your words
My blood would fall and spell your name
And if you stabbed me in the back
My cry of pain would be your name
If you looked at me with kindness
My mouth’s smile would sing your name
If you graced my lips with kisses
Then mine would mouth your name
And when I’m dead and in the grave
The flowers growing from my heart
Will bloom with petals of your name
What can I say? Your name, Your name
My heart holds your name
Like a lock loves its key
The memory of you
Opens Love’s mysteries
Your eyes are like bees
In the flower of my soul
By some secret power
They milk honey from my gold
21

Love pours itself into a cup
And pours until it’s all filled up
We’re bubbles whirling in the wine
Knots in the pearl necklace of time
The ripples on her bottom lip
Hair caught in earrings during a kiss
Folds in the warm bedsheets like shells
Of Love curled back upon itself
And like a new rosebud unraveled
Her parting mouth’s the road I travel
22

To walk and sit and sleep
on the edge of a knife
To live on the horizon,
that’s the true lover’s plight
Not knowing if his blood’s red
is from dawn or twilight
With no strength to retreat,
and no choice but to fight
It’s these poor burning hearts
whose glow lights up the night
And stumble in the dark
to vanish in love’s light
23

Love left a footprint in my heart
And locked her hair up in my chest
A secret whispering in the dark-
-ness half-undressed and half-confessed
Wrapped in clouds of hot passion
And cloths of flesh and bone
Love flashes and roars that she’ll
Consume me and my home
Until I let go of my life
And live for her alone
I sip your deep purple lips
And ride the silence of our kiss
Music flows and moonlight drips
Between our skin’s impermanence
And an eternity of bliss
My heart’s grown dizzy and love-sick
Spinning on your fingertips
Trying to forget all this
I’ve tried it all, but nothing sticks
You’re the one habit I can’t kick
24

Love come down and melt my bones
Dissolve my hard heart on your tongue
Beneath this blue and spinning dome
Make your dark glances my home
And like a sad song on the wind
Embrace, erase me and my sins
My end is where your lips begin
Blow my flames out and breathe me in
25

I see you behind my eyes
And I feel you beneath my skin
Your whispers echo in my ears
I catch your scent wherever you’ve been
I taste your lips in melodies
And flee from all my friends
Because when I speak to you like this
They think I’m talking to them
26

I can’t dream about you
Because when I do I wake
Your face is all that’s real to me
The rest is just a fake
Without you, life’s a nightmare
Where hearts ache and sigh and break
Come haunt my dreams tonight like
Dawnlight on fallen snowflakes
27

A lover’s one who only cares about one single thing
Another tongue or two I’ll need to taste your lips and sing
We climbed mountains like stormclouds to crawl underneath
your wing
We sold our wealth and souls in hopes of catching just one wink
How divine, to sip the spheres of light in wine thinking
My self’s bubble has popped so my love now holds everything
Like the moon, your beauty pulls sighs from my heart like tides
But I can only see you by the brightness of your eyes
And there’s no way to reach you unless you teach me to fly
Or still my waves and realize you’re the sight within my eye
28

Japanese Arch
Your name’s a hole in time and space
Your breath wafts through in winds of grace
I’ll climb through to make my escape
From everything except your face
But when I had climbed inside
I found there was no other side
Like an old Japanese shrine
You were hiding in plain sight
This gate without a wall opens
Your heart but not those eyes
29

In the ceiling of my life
Your shadow burned a hole
I lift my eyes and realize
I’m the mirror of your soul
Sleeping Beauty
Last night I woke up in your dream
And I couldn’t quite get out
Trapped behind your eyelids’ mirror
And longing for your mouth
If I could only find you
And wake you with a kiss
We’d be one and disappear
On the gasp of your real lips
Love is like a hole in the pocket of your soul
If you walk around like that, you’ll lose your sleep and mind
But like coal on diamonds, or the ore hiding the gold
You can only lose what was never there to find
30

So before we kiss my love
There’s something you should know
I’m the shadow of her reflection
And you’re her reflected shadow
The meeting place of sky and sea
The bright skin of eternity
Infinity’s shimmering boundaries
The kiss that joins you to me
The features of your face above
Take form in ripples from below
And all my mighty striving up
Is just your body dipping low
Leap through the mirror, leave your shadow
The stars are calling your soul home
31

My love is just your love’s shadow
And yours, my love’s echo
We breathe as one like birds and trees
And see by each other’s glow
We’re just strings plucked by silent hands
These songs blown by a secret wind
Clothes on your dancing body’s curves
Invisible, naked as sin
Your eye’s wink turns hearts and planets
And like your mirror clouded with sighs
I can only kiss your lips
When you lean in to kiss mine
32

Flowerpots
My body’s clay cast in a pot
My soil’s soul hides deep inside
Your love’s my buried heart’s dark seed
The rose above’s your lips and eyes
Like pearls of sweat on cold glasses
Or rolling down bodies’ hot nights
The fruit’s skin might taste just fine
But what’s within is pure delight
My shadow’s here for others
But my body is all yours
My heart is just you in disguise
And my eyes’ light is yours
And the Love that moves all this
Of course, of course it’s yours
33

Soar over valleys of shadows
Harmonize with your echoes
Don’t confuse yourself with those dreams
Learn to see with your eyes closed
Find your heart’s clear mountain lake
And hover over it ‘till you see
The rippling outlines of your face
Then look into your pupils’ seas
To witness all my mysteries
And all that could, will ever be
34

Love sculpts a sculptor sculpting her
She paints herself with brush in hand
And weaves a mirror from her dark hair
Reflections cast in clay and sand
What can we paint flecks understand,
Except the soft strokes of her hands?
Poems bloom from my pupils
When I look into your sun
My heart’s become your windowsill
That you look out and lean on
Love’s the body of my shadow
And so when she walks, I run
35

Between the worlds of stars and streams
Are rivers in which planets cry
Flocks of white flamingoes dream
And watch their reflections dry
But leave these ripples far behind
Stretch your heart’s wings and learn to fly
Come join me high up in the sky
Climb through the moon and wave goodbye
Those worlds are just the echoes of
Your secret face behind the sun
36

ABC’s
A piece of advice my friend, true words can pierce a life
Acorns falling on asphalt sometimes break through the night
Be a friend to those who stay awake for their Love’s sake
Be afraid of those who tell you she’s not worth the pain
See the world through rainy eyes to understand your fate
Seas and rivers, mists and clouds are one tall, spinning lake
37

Autobiographies
You pulled a mirror out of your pocket
And blew into its face
Then licked your finger, and with it
Traced out your holy name
You plucked my heart before its time
And used it to pick your guitar
It ripened in your lyrics’ rhyme
Seasoned by those smoky bars
And then you put it back inside
This ivory crib made from my ribs
It tried to give you a goodbye
And it’s been singing ever since
38

I stumbled from the bar at dawn
And fell into a drunken sleep
The king’s slave heard my drowsy yawns
And brought my body down the street
In my wasted delirium
I’d try to fight his grasp and run
But he dragged me into his home
And set me down before the throne
And then the king stared in my face
On my closed eyes his fingers traced
And all my nightmares were erased
Waiting for waking’s embrace
So don’t be scared by life’s earthquakes
They’re just Love shaking you awake
39

I’m the slave of the one whose shackles I wear
I worship the one with the dark braided hair
She hides behind our minds like masques
And climbs inside my soul to dance
With volcanoes and sea breeze
And taste her own infinity
40

1 2 3 / 3 2 1
(This wine will play with your pronouns…)
I used to think that all of this
Was just all about me
But then I learned to see myself
Like you, objectively
Until I disappeared
And I and all are He
I thought you were a distant he
Far-removed from everything
And then one day you spoke to me
And we’d share how we felt
Until I finally realized,
I’d been talking to my Self
41

Close these eyes
To see with those
Take this off
To wear these clothes
Stand up tall
Fall on your knees
Learn to harmonize with trees
This one song is all you need
My heart’s held your face so long
That your hair became my veins
Your love built up in my blood
Until my pulse became your name
My love worshipped at your lips
Until they tasted just the same
42

The calabash of sky and earth
Sewn with lightning and rainbows
The two chambers of my heart
Strewn with your old cast-off clothes
Twin glaciers wandering far from home
Floating in love’s crashing sea
The stars are splashes from the foam
Of Love’s boiling ecstasy
Put down your book, come dance with me
Set your heart and the world free
43

Our lives intertwined like vines
Of your dark hair’s stars and night
A duet of braided flutes
Two flowers woven from one root
Whirling round like sun and moon
Mingling like sweet perfumes
The ocean sky and the night sea
Dust dancing in a misty breeze
Lightning-kissed baobab trees
I am you and you are me
44

I made the you who made me
A dream inside a memory
An echo in a mirror
A shadow’s harmony
But as I stare into your eyes
Like skies gaze at the sea
Our infinities realize
I’m in you and you’re in me
Between, beyond reality
He is all and all is He
45

Your road to heaven goes both ways
I left a weeping refugee
Blinded by the dust and clay
My tears were all that I could see
In waterfalls of nostalgia
That whirled around the world
Your warm breath troubled up my blood
Until my heart’s flood boiled
My eyes rose back into the sky
In streams of steaming joy
The far shore of your heaven’s sea
Is pure and silent ecstasy
46

I wept until it became clear
I’m just a tear within a tear
A dream within your sleepy nights
Rolling back into the sky
I’m a tear dropped from your eye
And you’re a tear in mine
A tear ripped deep within my mind
The sight that makes me blind
The silence that lets my heart see
The bright black of reality
47

I’ve grown tired of tending the me’s
Inside of everybody’s minds
More fickle than a shadow’s word
And impossible to find
And so because you know me best
I’ll polish myself in your eyes and
You’re just how I think of you
And what you think is all I am
Love made you a mirror
So that I could see my soul
In all of its foolish glory
And behind our parts, Love’s whole
48

Take a bite out of my pride
Just like the crescent moon
Show me that my light’s borrowed
Before my shadow meets your noon
Duga
The shadow of love’s angel
Touched me as I lay down to die
With the moon’s crown round her neck
She swooped down to catch my last cry
When my soul kissed me goodbye
She flew my flesh off to the sky
Earth and sun at last are one
In my angel’s sharp talons
My life’s breath is spent and done
Love on vulture’s wings has come
49

My wisdom’s feared like chaos
It won’t teach, it just erases
Sunlight melts away fog’s lies
But it will blind your eyes
Your knowledge is my ignorance
My love grows from your bliss
Like the curls caught in your comb
Like clouds blooming from sea foam
Everything I’ve learned and prayed
For is just to undo your braids
50

I’m your heart, and you are mine
You’re the meaning, I’m your sign
Your heart’s my fruit, and I’m your rind
Because you’re nearer than my mind
Where could I look, how could I find?
Make me transparent, blur my lines
Because, in truth, I’m not, you’re kind
I’m the paper, you’re the ink
I say just what you make me think
51

You can only know yourself
So become like Love, be clear
We’re Her clothing, so be sheer
Know Her like hair knows Her ear
She’s your Self, closer than near
It can’t be helped, hearts must be broken
So let yours be broken wide
Open as the ocean sky
And from its ruins, love’s bird will fly
Don’t let your heart get broken in
By bad habits and sadness
But rise above them both and try
To Love, and Love without a why
52

The ocean heaves and sighs with love
But seagulls take waves personally
So either try to fly above
Or dive down deep into the sea
If to the world you’re cool as ice
and in its blows, happy as fire
You’ll walk on waves like the messiah
And ride the winds of your desire
While you’re drowned in this puddle
You’re so far from that sea
Or rather you’re inside of it
But you just can’t see
53

How can a goat tied to a tree
Sing long and sweet and beautifully?
You cut them down to make a drum
So what then will you do to me?
It’s love, so cut off your head
To grow like a banana tree
It’s love, so ignore your bed
Be persistent as the sea
Knock on her shore patiently
Until she lets your love’s tides free
It’s love, don’t think or do, just be
54

Don’t forget to remember
To remember to forget
Everything about yourself
Until there’s nothing left
And then all will be right
The waves of your heart now at rest
The stars hidden within your sea
Can shine if you just let
The moon smooth out its surface
And stare into your dark depths
You’ll be a twin for the sun
And for the sky a nest
Your soul’s mirror so clear
That you can’t tell it from the rest
Of all of the world’s secrets
You’ll be the one best-kept
55

Settle Down
Wisdom will fall from you
If you keep jumping around
Pour wine into a shaking cup
And it will end up on the ground
In patient, quiet stillness
Is where true love’s to be found
The water you are meant to drink
Can never flow past you
Things aren’t always as you think
But they always do come true
And all of my life’s longings
Are bound to end in you
56

My tongue’s so quick to fall in love
But my body’s rather slow
When will my love back up its boasts
And become what it half-knows
Let my mouth be my heart’s match
And these words the spark that catch
My life ablaze with your tongue’s flame
May my last breath be your name
Don’t care what others say
Are you in love with them or me?
Or is your reputation
The one you truly fancy?
Don’t let the blind pick out your clothes
Or ask the deaf about music
This love only you and I know
Our secret to lose or choose it
57

Speak half a word to my heart
And I swear it will be whole
Look deep into my eyes
And I swear you’ll find a hole
Through which the world climbs in and out
I swear that on my soul
I scour it for your meaning
And I swear that’s just my role
But there’s no need for swearing
Once the truth’s finally been told
You once said that you loved me
And “I love you” can’t get old
58

Your face shines through my dreams
Like the first flower in snow
Your lips bring me to life
Like the spark over a stove
Your voice makes my love flow
Like a stream poured from a stone
Your kiss like sunlight showed me
Love’s the only way to know
59

Your eyes are like the fires of dawn
That burn around the sea
Your hair’s the night sky and your yawn
Is like the morning breeze
Your cheek paints the sun with its dye
Your glance changes the leaves
Part your lips of earth and sky
Forget the world, kiss me
60

Like Dolphins in the Deep
Lost, you call my secret name
My soul echoes with yours
We’ll keep up this crying game
Till we find each other or
When we can’t take any more
Of beating down this stubborn door
One of us will realize
I’ve been knocking from the inside
I don’t love you
I don’t love you
I love that wind
That breathes through you
Back out, then in
To me you’re just
A sweet perfume
Intoxicating
As the moon
61

Love wants you so bad but
You keep finding lame excuses
Preoccupied with your image
Or trifles vain and useless
Love nudges your back late at night
But you’d rather go to sleep
Or get up to make sure that
You haven’t wrinkled the bedsheets
While you’re reading about love
And staring at her picture
She just wants you to shut up
And turn around and kiss her
62

The path to your rosy mouth
Is twisted as your thorny hair
Your heart’s the labyrinth’s center
All of our roads start and end there
Roaming through my soul’s twists and turns
I met your heart, love-sick and burned
What a shock it was to find
It had been searching for mine
But after all’s been said and done
We found that our two hearts are one
63

Since we parted
I drink my own tears and
Feast on my heart’s flames
I weep thirst and fill myself
With hunger’s hot pain
I don’t want love for you
I love want for your love
More fire in the food
More salt on the wound
Stretch my heart with longing
‘Til eternity’s too short
To hold back my soul’s seas
My Love pouring free, uncorked
64

I love you past words
Past tears, past promises
Beyond all bets and wealth
I love you
Beyond display and stealth
I love you
Beyond hunger and sleep
Past heaven’s oceans
Beyond hell’s hot deep
I love you
Sleep flees from my eyes
Like snow on the sun
Ask the stars, they know
How my teary nights have run
Afraid to sleep
If I dreamed of you
Waking would be worse than death
But I’m dead if I can’t see you anyway
Rhyme and reason have fled from my head
Like sleep from my bed
I lie
Because the only truth I know is
I love you
Perhaps these lies will let me
Lie next to you
…
65

…
Lying near you
Is better than truth at a distance
But without you
There’s no logic or truth
Just second-hand stories and empty proofs
That confuse but won’t sooth
and dull all sweet love pains
I love you
Like a wound loves its blade
Don’t leave or I’ll spill my life
All over this fine page
May it slice your finger
And mingle your blood with my ink
I love you
Past love and madness
Beyond possessed
To tell the truth,
There’s no one but you to love
And no one to love but you
66

Every story, every love song
Every glance, every bit lip,
Every gasp, all rights and wrongs
Every wink and every hint
Every lie and every truth
Are always all about you
It might’ve been about them too
But it’s really just for you
I get jealous hearing poetry
Because I know it’s sung for you
Though I can’t hope to be worthy
I still have hope in your mercy
Please pick my soul’s wounded flower
Not so pretty but so fragrant
With blood and longing’s quiet power
That makes us all what we now are
But if your eyes are closed to me
I’ll sneak with dreams inside your sleep
Or if the door to love is closed
I’ll seep like smoke into your clothes
Speak to my soul in jasmine rose
Sneak into my heart through my nose
And teach me what we’ve always known
Our loves are from each other grown:
My love is yours and yours my own
67

Ugliness is your shadow
And beauty’s your reflection
The circles and the lines of your
Lips’ spider-webbed perfection
Light wraps itself in shadows
Naked truth throws on old clothes
With kisses like stitches you showed
Me that we’re robes in Love’s wardrobe
68

I’d never been myself
Until our eyes met
Without you I’m nothing
With you, even less
I’m gone, when I’m with you
There’s no one but you
Like the moon in the day
Or the shadows at noon
You burst hearts like bubbles
Boiling over fire’s heat
I’ll fight against heaven
To lay down at your feet
I’ll weep floods like Noah’s
Wash away everyone
From my heart to yours
Our love flies like a dove
Searching for land between
All the tears and the blood
Your eyes’ oceans call me
Come away with me, come
69

The dawn wind came with the scent of your kisses
And left your lips’ colour all over the leaves
Your wink burned the dusk clouds golden delicious
Your glance left me naked as cold, longing trees
Your smile blossomed in flowers and sunbeams
Your eyes laughed like stars floating in night streams
Your kisses like rain made the earth sing in green
And I realized your face is all I’ve ever seen
Hold your heart in Love
Till it becomes sweet-smelling flame
My soul turned to smoke
Just as soon as your dawn wind came
A night spent with you
Is better than a thousand days
Unforgettable
Sleepless, wild, and without shame
That’s the reason why
When love gets sweet, we gasp your name
70

You’ve heard what no one else has heard
You’ve seen what no one else could see
And now is the time for you
To be what only you can be
And this is more than destiny
It’s your responsibility
“If not for you I would not know love
If not for love I would not know you”
but shhhh now, I’m busy falling in love with you
O Majestic, my Beautiful
71

Index of First Lines
A lover’s one who only cares about one single thing
28
And then you appeared
5
And then you walked away
14
A piece of advice my friend, true words can pierce a life
37
Anything that can be said
11
Between the worlds of stars and streams
36
Close these eyes
42
Don’t care what others say
57
Don’t forget to remember
55
Every story, every love song
67
Hang your lashes with bright tears
14
Hold your heart in Love
70
How can a goat tied to a tree
54
I can’t dream about you
27

I’d never been myself
69
I don’t love you
61
I drink my own tears and
64
I kiss this hand because it held
2
I’ll fill the white night of your pages
6
I love you past words
65
I made the you who made me
45
I’m the slave of the one whose shackles I wear
40
I’m your heart, and you are mine
51
I see you behind my eyes
26
I sip your deep purple lips
24
I stumbled from the bar at dawn
39
I throw down words like stepping stones
8
I used to think that all of this
41
I’ve grown tired of tending the me’s
48
I wept until it became clear
47
If you keep ignoring me
17
If you put your ear up to my heart you’ll hear your name
12
If you put your mouth by my ear
16

If you should cut me with your words
21
In the ceiling of my life
30
It can’t be helped, hearts must be broken
52
It’s love, so cut off your head
54
Last night I dreamt that we kissed
10
Last night I woke up in your dream
30
Like tears in the rain
5
Like the moon, your beauty pulls sighs from my heart like tides
28
Light wraps itself in shadows
68
Lost, you call my secret name
61
Love come down and melt my bones
25
Love is like a hole in the pocket of your soul
30
Love left a footprint in my heart
24
Love made you a mirror
48
Love pours itself into a cup
22
Love sculpts a sculptor sculpting her
35
Love’s tears are not salt, they’re sweet
20
Love wants you so bad but
62

Lovers are like firemongers
7
Melt the ice around my heart
7
My body’s clay cast in a pot
33
My fumbling lips and clumsy love
17
My heart holds your name
21
My heart’s held your face so long
42
My love is just your love’s shadow
32
My room has two windows
4
My shadow’s here for others
34
My soul’s all ablaze like fall leaves
20
My tongue’s so quick to fall in love
57
My wisdom’s feared like chaos
50
No words can ever capture the way you wear a night
18
Oceans float on seas of fire
10
Of this alone my faith consists
2
Our lives intertwined like vines
44
Poems bloom from my pupils
35

So before we kiss my love
31
So love-drunk during my exam
19
So will you walk with me tonight?
6
Some men when words fail them
8
Speak half a word to my heart
58
Take a bite out of my pride
49
The calabash of sky and earth
43
The dawn wind came with the scent of your kisses
70
The dawn wind blew and smelled of you
11
The fine embroidery of my mind
3
The meeting place of sky and sea
31
The ocean heaves and sighs with love
53
The path to your rosy mouth
63
The shadow of love’s angel
49
The water you are meant to drink
56
The whole world’s running after you
9
The world can talk to my left hand
13
To walk and sit and sleep
23

Ugliness is your shadow
68
When I’m on fire, I smoke
10
When your face peeked in my soul
15
While you’re drowned in this puddle
53
Why’d you ask about my heart?
18
Wisdom will fall from you
56
You can only know yourself
52
Your eyes are like the fires of dawn
60
Your face shines through my dreams
59
Your name’s a hole in time and space
29
You pulled a mirror out of your pocket
38
Your smile makes the sun self-conscious
20
Your road to heaven goes both ways
46
You’ve heard what no one else has heard
71

Oludamini is a doctoral candidate in African
Studies and Religion at Harvard University
where he studies Islamic and traditional Yorùbá
mysticism and philosophy.
“All my thoughts always speak to me of Love”
-Dante La Vita Nuova
“God is Love”
1 John 4:8