Bundled up in my big blue blanket,
Holding my heavenly hot cocoa,
Simmering as I'm sipping,
Nibbling on my noodles,

I gaze out the window,
Rain, rain, rain,
Grey clouds canvassing the sky,
Water falling creating rivers in the street,

The only thing I vow to accomplish today at all
Is finish season seven of Supernatural.

We were equally matched
Until a plan was hatched
You became the subtle aggressor
By making appearances lesser
Using your passion aggression
To steer a passive direction

You perform a vanishing act
By canvassing flak
Balancing black
Against a sky so blue
Teaching me that which is true
Is different from what I knew
So my anxiety naturally grew

You launch a resistance
By remaining silent
On this plane of existence
Where you're the pilot
Not taking the right angle
Into the Bermuda Triangle
That is your social sphere
Where you disappear
From committal fear
Of love being near

So I throw a search party
But your presence is tardy
Because you're departing
On the journey you're starting
Without me
Slouching
From my submission
To your anti-admission
Splitting our position
Like nuclear fission

The air has become radioactive
Through light that is refractive
Through ways which are retractive
Living this ugly way to live
Sharpening my shiv
To escape this cell of decay
Where flowers bloom and fray
But can't see the light of day
Not one ray

Stuck in the marked moor
Of this dark war
I use parkour
To avoid aggressor attacks
Never cutting me any slack
Bringing pain back
Until I crack

Lost in your blank expression
I make a grave concession
Enslaved to your impression
Yet afraid of your aggression
Caught between
Taking heed
And fulfilling needs
Born from greed
I'll only impede

You scream aggressively
Like you're ******* me
Just by addressing me
After making a mess of me
With deafening quiet
You attack with a diet
Of a steady riot
And I won't buy it

You left when you were here
But stayed once you weren't near
You switched to a guillotine gear
Based on how you wanted to appear
Striking me from the equation
By utilizing deflation
For a sinister elation
You removed our relation

if he is not made of them wholly, branches, he will be soon. they are everywhere, and he steps on them, and they are arms from hell. he wears a child’s football jersey, torn at his size and his sorrow. he reaches into it and pulls out his heart, a red balloon given the what for, inside of which he blows his nose. he returns the heart.

a yellow adherent hangs from both nostrils, as two ropes being cut at and then loosed from his brain. the first keeps an arm from heaven; the second he catches and loops twice to put on his neck. one is never out of the woods here, and he knows it, knows here is Baltimore, Ohio. he has watched the people, some of them, leave; their happiness would be better called remission.

he is giddy when he comes upon a man wearing only a barrel and he tips it with joy and makes better his headway home. the rolled over branches shriek and wake the man who nakedly bails. the branches up their shrieking.

his mother he has no dementia of his time in her womb. why for **** the despondent are given captions like ‘blank look’ he can’t say for in his mama naught but canvassing eyes. she’s what he calls ‘at grocery’, shaking a coffee can she’ll buy because a done melon can’t hold pennies. she often at the neck is saddled with two toddlers but in his projection now there is just one making miracle of not kicking the coffee can into another’s back.

any girl that occurs lets him take her with his tongue only as she seems to know he was circumcised and after that much paddled.

he starts thinking on dad and dad’s laughing when mother’d say boys be home before dog because that’s how it sounded from seizures and of course rock candy in the summer. the barrel splinters beneath him to be forgotten and his legs go to bleeding stilts.

his last things by his face are insufficient; rock candy, barrel, and twin. I talk on the barrel, I don’t need it, not anymore.

THE FIRST ONE
        *TO **** OR TO?

THE FIRST ONE  *was obsessed with the penchant to ****
Where he lay bare when darkness falls, lurking around looking for blood to spew and flesh to drill.
Customarily, from a distance, he looked calmer and more laid back, but on a closer view, he's a  frenzied  beast prowling for a prey.

***

THE CLOUD  gave way and an emanating surge of blackness forged in.
The green leaves became blur, the shrubs, dull and the air smelled dark.
And tonight, no guiding star traveled by
..............
The stars had refused sprouting, so darkness took charge, winning an inglorious war.
And in the midst of the thick chasm of darkness, stood a monstrous shadow. Hiding a knife neatly behind his trousers. There he was, prowling, watching the arena until he claimed it safe.
..........
Like a meandering hungry wolf waiting for a shriveling prey. This shadow swirled, turning in circles, hungry and abashed. His impatient attitude took the better half of him as he began canvassing round a circle. And as if fate had a penchant for entwining tragedies, a young and innocent girl with eyes that scored blue was seen walking into the presence of an unseen monster.
................
It was fate, not serendipity. And here she was, unsuspecting.
The monstrous shadow still in hiding, watched his new founded prey and was waiting for the perfect moment to pierce and attack. He's baying for blood and just within this dark patch of time, a beautiful and enchanting young girl was passing by.

All of a sudden, she felt some unseen eyes plucking into her soul. Someone must be lurking around. She could feel it.
The air smelt horror.....
The breeze was too cold.
The arena itself was encapsulating danger and turning around she saw a stranger.
A very tall, muscled ripping, Strong and unusual strange man. Fear gripped her. She began breathing too hard and too shallow at once. She couldn't make do the exact face of him, but from the heat of the moment, she could tell he wants just one thing. Her blood.

The monstrous stranger brought out a knife, sharp and direct and attempted to pierce. Groaning and roaring like a savaging beast he directed it to her chest, but then he paused. Her eyes.

It was her eyes

Her eyes held him there. There was something about her eyes that made him pause and ponder.
There was tears. Tears of a broken soul, that was long kept within the chasms of her spirit. There was hope, hope for a fallen soul, that it will rise again. And there was warmth, warmth for a cold heart, that it will melt again.

He looked into her eyes and for once in his life, he could see himself within those piercing sunken magnetic eyes

And for the first time, the monstrous stranger was on his knees, crying in pain and agony.
"What can bring an undaunted warrior down on bended knees"?
A woman's tears can pierce into the most rigid of hearts.
Raising his head, he could find her no more. She was gone, gone into the black night.
A moment of rocketing rage flew in as he screamed
"Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh"
Perplexed, fascinated and enraged at the same time, he would go into the night and search for her amidst the wave of blackness and spill her blood to the sands of time.

But could he actually spill the blood of the strange girl  with eyes that brought warmth, hope and whose tears brought him down on shriveled knees?

**Ovi Odiete© Dec, 2016.

You create art
Using the sharp edge
Of a multi-hued blade.

The blade
And your eye
Slide down the canvass

Canvassing for something
I don’t know what.
Something only you can see

I’m fascinated
And, Truth be told,
Not a little envious.

I want to see
What you see.
Know what it is like
To see the void
And the darkness
To pierce them with color
And to sit back
Look at your creation
And see
It is good.

Born with tragedy in his veins
Set his heart into flames
Ashes are all that remain
Hollow on the inside
But warm to the touch
Seeking a heart to devour
Through the world he scoured

Echos call to me
Distant voices longing
To fall on open ears
Traveling for miles
Traveling for years
Over land, over seas
Love is a yearning beast

Searching in chasms
Looking through bars
Running through deserts
Canvassing the stars
Chasing the moonlight under my feet
Following the rumble
Moving toward the beat
Of every heart in every chest
I am in a state of unrest
Moving toward the beat
Faster and faster go my feet
Love has turned me into a beast

It was a cloudy sky
Drizzle had just stopped softly
On this enchanting evening, I was lined lucky
As there was an ugly beggar who deserved care, swiftly

I stopped my car before that hotel
where sometime I used to visit for coffee
during my return from office, to home to dwell
Being pose area, side of it were shops selling toffee

I gone straight to that beggar
Enquired what he may desire to eat
He was holding one bit of an used cigar
Face to face, he was not willing to meet

I used to treat deserving beggar with food of his choice
Someone will ask for a particular dish
But this man didn't even raised his voice
Repeatedly I failed when I tried to ascertain his wish

Finally the shopkeeper guided and coded
saying he wanted only a matchbox to light his cigar
When I tried hard to get, every shopkeeper just eluded
As the increased anti-tobacco canvassing had worked clear

The beggar rejected money as well any dish
His world gets filled with just a matchbox
He stood firm and let me only to pish
As I too never keep such item in my toolbox

He loitered and left the place, helpless
Upset with this, I too lost my interest to eat
I also left without eating, as I became useless
Even in bed, with this thought, I felt my heartbeat

I get delighted to treat deserving beggars, stomachful
Or else with alms, to their handful
But above failure led me sorrowful
As I could not be fairly useful

It is the beggar who gives me a chance to serve
Of course, I had heartfully attempted and offered
Altogether, I sincerely strained everyone of my nerve
But he neither cared my efforts nor allowed to be adored

This miserable failure mows me miserably for the past two years
More so, whenever I used to cross that place every day
True to say, my eyes were about to cloud with tears!
What woes remain more for my heart to say?


Copyrights reserved

in a once quiet thought
my lips trembled,
tongue frozen still;

along the lined horizon I glanced,
missing the beauty,
I have seen the emptiness;

silently they whisper,
deception their embedded kiss,
sitting, I waited
while they walked;

bleak winters I have known;

your essence, filled my palms;
spilling onto the canvassing world,
you drew me a picture;

untainted reality,

taught my finger tips to sway,
from left to right,
my curiosity now eclipsed by this,
gift;

showed my hand to paint,
with such precautions,
being g very careful to color
outside the lines of *******,

clothed my nakedness,
the warmth of your radiances,

burned my voice into solid letters,
molding them into words,
you gave them their voice;
like glowing embers;

thank you...

The smell of terpentine permeates my favourite blouse
The glow of candle light flickers in my windows
The absent minded stains of ink splattered through out my house
The cool, soft clay feels like silk between my fingers
There is a chisel hanging from a nail in my wall
There is blueprint spread out on a table in  front of me
My eyes are canvassing everything, anything, all
There is a colour and flavour in everything I see
There is a word tattooed on my forehead, innovator
I can't help but find a way to reinvent the old and invent the new
What more beautiful a worship to offer the creator
Than to create with the gifts he has given you

Robins spike the lawns,
Pulling from moist earth,
Bobbing and rigging oil
Skinned worms topside
And butterflies hovering,
Round eddies over flowers
On a windless day, sailing
In search of colourful spots
On which to land, sparrows
Are nesting above the fray,
Winging with fresh supplies
Building bases about twigs,
Tufts and twine, canvassing
The nailed on house shelters
Left for them, finches, yellow
Headed come in, cheerfully
Raiding the red apple buds
Before trees are even laden
And flowers are out in force
As the rapacious humming
Birds thrusting their rapiers,
Lash all the hearts blooming.

.
Robins spike the lawns,
Pulling from moist earth,
Bobbing and rigging oil
Skinned worms topside
And butterflies hovering,
Round eddies over flowers
On a windless day, sailing
In search of colourful spots
On which to land, sparrows
Are nesting above the fray,
Winging with fresh supplies
Building bases about twigs,
Tufts and twine, canvassing
The nailed on house shelters
Left for them, finches, yellow
Headed come in, cheerfully
Raiding the red apple buds
Before trees are even laden
And flowers are out in force
As the rapacious humming
Birds thrusting their rapiers,
Lash all the hearts blooming.

Robins spike morning lawns,
Pulling from the moist earth,
Bobbing and rigging new oil
Skinned worms took topside
And butterflies dart hovering,
Swirling eddies over flowers
On this windless day, sailing
In search of colourful spots
On which to land, sparrows
Are nesting above the frays,
Winging with fresh supplies
Building bases about twigs,
Tufts and twine, canvassing
The nailed on house shelters
Left for them, finches, yellow
Headed come in, cheerfully
Raiding the red apple buds
Before trees are even laden
And flowers are out in force
As the rapacious humming
Birds thrusting their rapiers,
Lash all the hearts blooming.

Robins spike morning lawns,
Pulling from the moist earth,
Bobbing and rigging new oil
Skinned worms took topside
And butterflies dart hovering,
Swirling eddies over flowers
On this windless day, sailing
In search of colourful spots
On which to land, sparrows
Are nesting above the frays,
Winging with fresh supplies
Building bases about twigs,
Tufts and twine, canvassing
The nailed on house shelters
Left for them, finches, yellow
Headed come in, cheerfully
Raiding the red apple buds
Before trees are even laden
And flowers are out in force
As the rapacious humming
Birds thrusting their rapiers,
Lash all the hearts blooming.

.
Robins spike morning lawns,
Pulling from the moist earth,
Bobbing and rigging new oil
Skinned worms took topside
And butterflies dart hovering,
Swirling eddies over flowers
On this windless day, sailing
In search of colourful spots
On which to land, sparrows
Are nesting above the frays,
Winging with fresh supplies
Building bases about twigs,
Tufts and twine, canvassing
The nailed on house shelters
Left for them, finches, yellow
Headed come in, cheerfully
Raiding the red apple buds
Before trees are even laden
And flowers are out in force
As the rapacious humming
Birds thrusting their rapiers,
Lash all the hearts blooming.

I always
stop and
look at
the sky
to admire,
and to
compare
its empyreal
beauty
to you.

It is this world that makes me weep
Broken bodies and burnt babies
Exist in fiery moments
Then digital references
Etched in the bloodiest corners
Of humanity’s mind

And I find that I am to weak
Too tired to speak
To many thoughts to think
Ideas on how to link
That which is already connected

These invisible strings
How you forget them
Denying that we are part of a collective

Violence is a ****** wound
I stick my finger in
Pulling out viscera
And making paint brushes
Canvassing all the horrors
So you can see the sick splatter art

So you can feel what it is like
When warm becomes cold
When soldiers do what they are told
Without questioning
Playing
With the video game
Bomb dropping
Remote control plane

I cry
A less tempered metal
Melted flesh
That matches this madness
Holding your hand
And hoping
Something of me
Infects the essence of you
With love, peace, hope,
And understanding

There is a thing called the in-between.
It seeps into crevices;
canvassing the heart into colour.
Too small to be recognised by all;
but those who seek it;
develop an awareness;
of its internal framework.
Malleable and hybrid;
simply sailing between the real;
waiting to be invited.
Below the surface of the mind;
it calms the stormy seas;
resuscitating the imagination.

reality collapses
into a paragon of nothing
forming memory
of boundaries like detonating corridors
about primate organization
chemical interventions
and political furors

the mind of earth
forces a mashup
of alternating currents
as the higher sends the temporal
for excursions into whatever the ****
like a dog on a leash

in another clinical metaphysics workshop
for karma farmers
we lick hell's ***
in a greasy crowd with jaundice  
for our own ******* good

i cross dimensions
like an alchie with the shakes
where one reality collapses into another
making me ****** again
in a transfiguration
of canvassing beauty
towards deportment for a slow withering
like the astonished refugee
when shipped to a clumsy place
for shattered senses

with every crown
the gift of life
comes the guillotine

At sixteen, I was easily impressed with conversations of tattoos, septum rings, and pipedreams that internal biases created a tendency to wonder if you’d smoke those too in the art room.
When you spoke of the desire for a “creation of Adam painting to be inked across the canvas of your arm.”
I was enchanted though, unaware my embrace and unorthodox philosophy of loving the dead back to life would never work; I mourned in consumption of you and remained in a ramshackle shelter where we had class together.

An oxymoron, truly.

There was something sinister that washed down the room's rusted sink than your murky paint water. Every day, as if on schedule I lamented the opening of my veins in preparation for the inevitable.
You re-arranged yours with the help of a syringe and my mind questioned how best to save your life.
The focus of my grief was full of wonder in who would die first, but at least loved.
I began to know, the meaning of fixation so well, my lips tasted different even a shared laugh felt pathetic, but not as much as knowing neither of us could drive.
I became your girlfriend Suicide, experienced and immersed in toxicity.
I hated myself so passionately in undoing myself so vigorously all in act of loving you.
Breaths were not allowed unless you said so.
My world became the word "sorry"- your prevalent command, love should not make you guilty in having a heart that beats.
But it was like a ******* thunderstorm when you opened your mouth,
"Are there are any tats you want?"
  I remember you asked.

Today, I am aware of just how little I knew what I wanted.
I had sworn it was my mother's birthdate in Roman numerals, you disapproved and all in the spirit of mourning... I compensated and titled every poem about you in a similar fashion with the day we met,
but these journals had become a grave and shared spaces a graveyard.
Until sixteen, I was incapable of understanding this kind of ache.
I lied to myself,
that the mourning ceased in this season of my life, worse- I was your Adam.

An everlong ache.
I wish it had put me in my place because I did practically the same, instead of just blades that dug in
like your dulled needles, the pain felt in awareness never was. Always so obedient.
You held that deflated balloon filled with ****** over my head every moonless night in your mother's apartment.
I had to have known to beg was not love.
This was worship, utterly painful,
I recognize the role I have long feared as a martyr.
Your claim that I had made you so sad you couldn't feel anything became an incapacity for me though,
the sacrifices made in justifying broken things
function with the belief of no reparations are needed
and rather everyone should be as broken as you are.

You taught me the bruises from your crooked teeth landscaping my throat were entitlement.
Ownership.
These colors upon my flesh never meant you needed me.
You never wanted me, adamant you deserved me.
I was of convenience. This pain gave me something.
You were responsible for my rebirth, shut the door.
Another door opened that revealed who you are, rather another scar canvassing my body that I live with the intent of tattooing over.

Oh euphoria,
What’s the story
I am cold, tender, and thin

Oh euphoria,
I have my drug use
I am over you

You master of falsehoods
A drapery of tone and foolishness
Canvassing curious threads
To their ends

Plucking the ones
Spun to my brain
And leaving those
That weave me into disillusion

Finding the phrases in elemental codes

Oh euphoria,
I will starve you in cafe corners
Stirring your coffee
The heat licks your chin
Reminds you why you came
And why it’s worth abandoning

Similar to scrutinizing
an abstract painting,
this author begetting, canvassing
entreating... obscure words dumbfounding
readers (himself included), he eludes
(shading tree fore rest)
clear cut discerning,
yet oft times his woods
garner reviews raving
esoteric word choice,

how mind boggling
to this logophile despite
more than one reading
brow (sir) rendering furrowed -
cognitive region scrunching,
no matter intent concentration
utter futility attempting
bedeviled comprehension, whether
literary master (me? ha...
not yet), among pantheon partying,

but nonetheless birthing
present day profoundly thought provoking,
undoubtedly tirelessly expending
mental energy eventually exhausting
effort in futility understanding,
asper mine stymied
linkedin attention getting
(then just as quickly losing)
registering resignation defeat alluding
to challenge physical prowess daunting

engagement well matched savvy sparring
partner, or possibly life
and death battling
against unwittingly aggressive brutal questing
archenemy, sans toward all living
species wretched nemesis ultimately deciding
mortality tacitly accepted proffering
transient longevity refusing
to compromise, haggle, negotiate,
et cetera casting

deadened demise of victor or villain
all thru civilization starring
as unopposable tour
de force quietly biding
end date, versus indiscriminately snatching
hero, heroine, coward,
et cetera requiring
impossible mission redeeming
ransom while donning
mask of Melpomene

(Tragedy), or trumpeting
Thalia (Comedy), no exit stage door left
only joie de vivre
until last second ticking
unbeknownst unexpected, and uninviting
deathly hallows ringtone alarming
anonymous (oh Henry)
words worth struggling
to hash meaningfulness, viz
finite existence germinating

since birth, yet
terminal realization pressing
with greater frequency when aging,
and deafeningly ear splitting
amplitude bite the bullet clamoring
to tread welcome matt acquiescing
unavoidable phase of dying
devoid of any bargain, but requiring
unconditionally punishingly suffering
silent non binding

resolution, no exemption decrying
unfair contractual obligation, nor unionizing
worth a fig yore of
speech as cosmic arbiter
blithely doth shear - pruning,
grafting without rhyme nor reason meeting
identical fate toward everyone
even posthumous destiny yours truly awaiting,
where soul spirited into the sky
linkedin with cosmic consciousness

humming with universal sound;
'Om,' 'Ohm' or 'Aum'
according to Hinduism and other religions
chiefly of India,
a sacred syllable considered to be
greatest of all mantras, or sacred formulas
called the seed sound (bija),
the original sound from
which all other sounds and worlds come from,
hence 'Om,' 'Ohm' or 'Aum' represents:
God, Brahman, Source, Universal Consciousness.

to slip in something obvious
with more than  thoughts might recognize
exchanged as if from loneliness
where nothing spoken will arise
uneasy with the atmosphere
descendant from a flaming sun
late celebrated praised and feared
as any light not yet outshone
a canvassing of glory land
impaired by blinded witnesses
reveals no greater hidden hand
than lately clawed from ancient seas
encountering the shifting sands
the questioning of all commands