What’s a measure of a valuable life?
dignity;
Or knowing when to ask for help?
Is it clutched in talons of the oppressor?
Is it living fast and dying young all for a story to tell?
How many should watch over your rotting corpse?
Because in the end all our blood pools black;
The ink of our heart’s quill desperate to get out

My light will go out,

it couldn't get any darker --


Here I am. Take me.

If I came to you
Wounded
Wound up
Winded
Weary

Then remember that I couldn't fight what I felt for you anymore.
Why battle beating hearts that besiege my pride?


And

If I fell to my knees

There would be no need to lift me.

You already have when you smiled my way.
Burying a vision of you in my memory.
On my gravesite, blow the pinwheel, so you could send my soul spinning to heaven with every breath you take.



Ifeanyichuku Okoro II © 2023

I
Humbled and haunted
Decided to let go of my breaths
Hold on to terrible and troubled terms
My eyes
Bar tears from encroaching terra firma
For fear of being human
When told I was interstellar

I
Heavy and hollow
Created chasms between family, friends, and flirts
It's not a sign so cold
But a zodiac killing field sans air
Blame is solely on my solar surface
I'm burning with regret I refused to own
Because I didn't recognize the seeds I've sewn

I
Heart-ached and hoping
Resign to my final destination
Loved her
Continued to adore
Pouring out olive oil and anointing my tongue to release the finest psalms to surround her name
Blowing kisses to the wind to carry my dedication and declarations to decorate her skin

I
Halted
This Earth's praxis upon invisible axis
To view you
One last time
Before I die again.



Ifeanyichuku Okoro II © 2023

Its strange how sound exists,
How silence fits around
The noise that may be far
Or may be near,
Yet always in the gaps
Within the noise
There is the sound
Of nothingness

I am noise and action
An assault upon the senses
Of everone it seems
In earshot or worse yet
Within the range
Of touch or eyes meet,
Close enough to sense
My inner turmoiled demons

Well soon enough,
Albeit not soon enough
For some,
My noise will diminish
My actions still,
And where I once crashed
About there will be purely
Blessed quiet.

Enjoy!

~for Isabel, Alex & Wendy, Theo & Rose~

be reading Whitman and Hafiz,
adding some Shelley and Frost,
for (no salt) seasoning, might add in
a biblical, King Solomon’s be-loved,
sugared Song of Songs…

won’t need to go far, on my nightstand,
search & reach, to love and preach to
generations next, a lesson last & simple:

read, read, read there by learning,
how to first define, then preserve the
variety of feelings rising from within!

here’s a starter morsel from Walt,
sort of a summary of how to do it,
all well and proper…
poppy

”This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families,
read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life,. re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.”

Walt Whitman

Preface to Leaves of Grass, 1855.
Walt Whitman, c.1887.