Kolade Ajayi
Queueless Lines
From “A Poet’s Struggles”
I
(Traffic of a Night…)
I AM a passage tonight to the
rhythms of crabs…
I sit buttock-deep on this hearth
to steam the whirlwinds of my eyes…
But lamps are etherized
on the lap-stands of this night,
and it is not the time for wax…
So ants can file-out of trails
rain-drains can meet and kiss into flood
the speed of darkness may rise or rot.
It’s not the night for wax…
II
(Queueless lines…)
ONE SAYS to the other my odour first,
disorder slays the holding halo…
Crested eloquences, calling in no turn
crush the larynx of pen–
lights summate to break
the banks of hell…
And now the feet are blind,
from the filtered punch of these summations
now the feet are blind…
The spill is too enormous to beat,
and ego-gods sit their darknesses
in kernels of light…
I split my throat in search of tuning,
the lines kept at it–
like staggering flies…
