The Last Song Before The Last | by Isaac Alesh Melchizedek | African Poetry

Music,
is smiling in the house of Inspiration;
is sitting on a cushion between this bedroom
& the balcony of imagination;
is feeding the poet — the solitary being — grains of imageries,
words, & sentences like never before;
is beating the heart of lovers —
hum-bum-bum — sings the crazy gong!
is asking the naked girl,
“bae, aren’t you overdressed?”

living ghosts in whispering trees;
& rusting irons in a river of grease.

I

When the dimple is no more
on the check of the composer;
& the stage is sleeping beneath
the moonless night; and the
audience is snoring on different beds,
beside different babes
uncomfortable in their own different ways;
& the night is calm and silent,
like Silent Night on a Christmas day—
a ritual of the modern man on the altar of disguise;
don’t ask me which is my favourite song.

Please, don’t ask such question,
Life is an autograph but only
in the hands of singers and poets:
an Abstraction viewed so far
from ten thousand point of views:
a Glove in Jackson’s, Violence in Shady’s,
& Youthful Playfulness in One Direction;
Did he not tell you? The other Direction
Is Death by drowning.

The Infant cries in strange melodies,
rain harmonizes with the win,
the midwives will sing a lullaby, and backyard
buckets will beat tap-tap beatings of raindrops;
there is terror in music which ears may not hear—
thunderstorms in loudspeakers—
when facing the other Direction.

II

Anger chained me to the chair of The Lunatic—
these people: strange in their white ropes
said, ‘He’s mad,’ with a Foreign Accent;
Anger chained me to the chair of The Lunatic—
But Music set me free!
Made me whistle a solemn song
From the album of Peace,
The Dovey Bird sings — twikki-twikki —
With its loveliest note.
Music set us free & made me

A living ghost in whispering trees;
& a rusting iron in a river of grease.

Dear Countrymen, were we in that Bush alone?

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Image by David Glad via Flickr

About the Author:

Isaac alesh Melchizedek writes from Ibadan. His twitter handle is @IM_alesh