Two Poems
By Deji Adesoye
Friday, August 18, 2019.
Everywhere within Your Uterus
My selfishness towers above all edges, like Mapo Hall
My songs and lore dance round me and myself
I walk before the mirror in one narcissist act
Imagine what I see? The body of me is
Like a roe inside a fish
I look more closely it turns like a tadpole
In the living freshness of April stream
I became a laboratory and the scientist at once
Ah, my body is a natal organism everywhere
Within your uterus
Wherever you carry your body, there too I go
Wherever your spirit leads, right away I follow
You break your body into fragments of stress
I chew the bread of love with umbilical touch
You brew your blood into tonics of affection
I sip life through the straw of your vein
And right where you hatch me I fall into your palms
When I stood to walk, I walk in your hand
I grew and stroll with the moon, in your side
You’re not at the table, jaws boycott their act
The breeze rash when you’re not on the mat
Who says this 'self' isn't bigger than myself
Baby the self is fuller than the song of myself
It is a tiny nut within your mammoth shell.
The Tortoise is the Shell
The tortoise is a living nut within its shell
The tortoise is the nut the tortoise is the shell
The tortoise is the sum of its flesh and shell
The engineer draws the lockdown
He removes his metal hat
And the cyclist completes his trip
And flings his crash helmet
The snail does not learn to use its shell
The snail does not cope with its shell
The snail does not sweat under its shell
The shell is a hindrance to the value of the walnut
But the elegance of the tortoise is his crackled shell
The beauty of the snail is her deep loam bungalow
You are my shell, Seun, I am your shell
I am tortoise, I am the snail
I am the equation of flesh and shell
I am shell, you are flesh
I am the equation of you and me
Deji Adesoye is a Nigerian philosopher, writer and poet. His works have appeared on Bravearts Africa, Kalahari Review, BrittlePaper.com, Ijagun Poetry Journal, the Ann Arbor Review etc. He is the author of Anony Mous, a poetry ebook. Many of his works are also featured on his blogsite www.dejidesoyemi.wordpess.com