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Paul Idiaghe Nov 2020
⠀⠀1
snow spills
like stars shredding onto soil.
suddenly I’m sinking,
& the world weighs like a wound
wrapped in the white, wet wool of winter;

      2
autumn appears in amber, already
pulling out my pieces—
again, it aches;

      3
death dawns in darkness
& I dance, drenched of the desire
to dream—breathing and breaking
bonded before, now they birth
a boundless burden;

     4
night
nests its nails into my neck;
& I’m bone-broken, body-bloodied,
sprawling scarlet across my skin;

     5
eclipsing with you,
I lose my light, looking for love,
& all of my colors cease to conceive;

     6
sun sits
on the saffron spine of summer
but the melancholy doesn’t melt away,
dreams do;

     7
skies spout
my sorrow in spring—
garnished with green grounds, I grieve.
Paul Idiaghe Oct 2020
sky, a sea;
the sun is a ship sinking
slowly
into slumber  

& i’m a seed
sleeping
on soiled sheets,

sproutless, seeking the solace

of silence,
the nascence
of night—
the delight

in drawing dreams from dust
to dusk into day
into divinity;
in withdrawing

to the wild and wondrous
womb of waking.
Paul Idiaghe Oct 2020
the soul likes
when I dress him up like this:
few vowels,
more consonants,

syllables, and all the rest
that float
on the white clouds
of dreaming

on the red waters
of the heart.
he could hide, of course,
but would rather

show off scars and slashes.
naked, colorless being,
he needs
the glitter of language,

rhyme and rhythm,
similar, succeeding sounds;
he needs poetry’s depth,
beauty

and immortality
and the lucid glare of eyes,
substance
and stimuli,

to exist
to be more than a song
that plays
in silent frequencies—

so he flows—
from the deep of feeling
washes out burdens
like a mighty stream;

and unto paper
blooms up the slick and scented
petals of pain
like rain.
Heavily inspired by Mary Oliver's poem: "POEM" from her collection 'Dream Work.'
Paul Idiaghe Oct 2020
body blazing, he roams
with flames for feet, drags earth
behind his back, as in magma
melting mountains, as in moon
pulling, seas shifting; skull swinging
open
        like windows
                             at dawn—

all gloaming, sun slept on the satin sheets
of his mind; make merry the morning
melody till it awakes, it wakes—

he weeps, tears trickling like candle-wax
dripping from its flicker. he flares
& firmanents fall through the fumes,

bruised, blinded
—burning bush for his
banquet.

ash and cinder know not
his swelter. he bore the heat now
he becomes the fire.
Paul Idiaghe Oct 2020
show me how to wear diamond
dreams without trembling
beneath their weight.

I am a pebble, peeled off
from a peak, fraying and falling,
faltering at its feet. end up

locked between the lips of
married mountains; eyes
hinged to the sky, feet sinking

into earth, chest caving into
a coffin where my heart hides
its head. as despair crawls
in to devour the decay, I linger

between the decomposition, dead
to dust to soil—waiting
to bloom again.
Paul Idiaghe Oct 2020
here, time is a truck
with waxed wheels. but it
keeps pacing, keeps paving the path
to destruction; in dreams, I pluck

myself from its sheath, let it sweep
over me like a tide; on the
ground, I gather my garments,
as stones and seashells, slip

into their ethers, where eternity
waits. here, pyramids don’t converge
as they taper; they tunnel
like a lair that has lost its lucidity

& I’m wandering within their walls,
clueless, clouded—a captive child
eager to escape into enlightenment,
or another dream, where bliss befalls.

this is a paper-dream gobbling
reality—down to its
bone, bruised bare & bleeding.
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