Courtesy of JR Korpa, Unsplash

These lessons come to me from dreams.
Dreams, like the fish in the sea
Or the birds in the sky
Cannot be taught
But they can teach us how to dance
When we’re alone.
Mike Stone

When you touch
You are touched by Otherness.
The soft grasses bend to feel your feet
The gentle breezes memorize your face
The clothes hold your nakedness in myriad hands
Whatever you feel feels you.
When you taste
You are tasted by Otherness.
The bittersweet tangerine tastes you in its spray
Your lover’s tongue in your mouth tastes you.
When you smell
You are smelled by Otherness.
When you breathe your lover’s breath
Her air is yours.
These lessons come to me from dreams.
Dreams, like the fish in the sea
Or the birds in the sky
Cannot be taught
But they can teach us how to dance

Taken on a trip in 2016 with World Vision to Sierra Leone. Courtesy of Annie Spratt, Unsplash

I Read a Poem Today

I read a poem today and decided
I must deed it to some lost, lonely
fatherless child… to embrace her

along her stone path, invoke sanity
I want to tell her: don’t sell out your
dearest dreams or buy the social OS

Instead, let the poem play you like a
musician her viola, rewriting lonely
into sapphire solitude, silken sanctity

Let it wash you like the spray of whales
Let it drench your body in the music
of your soul, singing pure prana into

the marrow and margins of your life
Let your shaman soul name your muse,
find yourself posing poetry as power and

discover the amethyst bliss of words
woven from strands of your own DNA
Yes. I read a poem today and decided
I must deed it…

Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, Pieter Bruegel the Elder – 1. Web Gallery of Art 2. The Bridgeman Art Library, Object 3675 / Public Domain

Landscape with the Fall of Icarus

If I were to describe Alàgbà Komi’s Son of Olódùmarè (The Castaway) in one sentence, I would say, “it is an ode to culture, the Yoruba culture.” From the carefully constructed title to the ami that adorns the author’s name, one thing stands out, the author has a mission to “save” his culture. It is not every day that one finds a contemporary Nigerian poet committed to promoting his/her traditional language in their art; no thanks to colonialism.

True to my suspicions, the first “poem” The Great Commission proves that Alàgbà Komi is on a mission to restore the culture in his Son of Olódùmarè (The Castaway). According to the poet persona, he has been charged to “Please lead back to their heritage, your brothers and son!” by Olódùmarè. While admirable, the big question is, does he achieve his goal with the collection?

While the Yoruba culture and…

Busy, busy, busy! Work, work, work! I’ve been designing pretty things after work this week and not going to bed at a decent time, so blogging rather fell by the wayside I’m afraid.

No matter; enjoy this children’s poem I wrote some time ago. I hope you like it. 100% based on true experiences.

Best wishes,
Ashleigh