olympiator

litmus flares from blue to red

but doubt has never been so loud

thoughts devise their novel tests

let them make their revisions

it’s just like moving double-blind

like when learning to ride a bike

balanced by strength and the absence of wind

one removes the stabilisers

and it’s all very well to simply trust

in self-motives, physics, balance

but when winds are calm it’s easy to forget

that the wind does what it wants

there truly is no test of it all

winds can easy change

salient stillness simply conceals

roaring storms around the corner

they’re taking off the scaffolding around my house

large beams clanging protest at their removal

the wind might blow me off my bike

Aseh na wetin dis?

We never get am for Pays

Na stairs

But e dey move

White man don’ bad ohhh

Everything na machine

Why they get for build this tin when

My foot sef still they dey work?

Wonders shall never end

But I sure we go dey fine

Take my hand na may we climb am

Unconscious they perform again

These virtual gesticulations

Walking forward, reverse the very same path

As their eyes are closed quite shut

Perhaps it’s always been this way

Through every haze another grey day

And they still press on

Always to succumb

To trivial fatigue

Unless the grey skies part for a time

And glorious sun makes known

That it’s beaming rays can open eyes

From slumber, perhaps, they rise

And at last they are all free to wake, traverse

Wonder of a brightening dawn

Unbound by gruelling daily chore

Forging virtuosic paths

But the sun will never shine for long

Transient by design

Its departure sees return to sullen grey clime

When a search of sorry skyline

Yields neither sun or moon

Escape to happy warmer clime

Would allay such imposed gloom

Yet not all have such thought-freedom

To pack up, avoid the grey

We appeal, apply, opposing natures

Against emotional overstay

At the embassy for feelings

I say “Nothing to declare”

For such a great unpacking

Is an undertaking I don’t dare

Although the weights we fruitless carry

Won’t show in luggage scans

Still they delay departure to climes so sunny

it’s fighting falling back to sleep

the sunlight steals through curtains

pervades attempts to disappear

escape to slumber thwarted

it’s a wonder we don’t want it

that final neural puff to cease

well we want it and we don’t

at the end of nothing starts something

it’s a parody of thought

for lonesome silence brings a noise

a worrisome opera, a clandestine din

so we’ll seek to avoid it

but boarding trains to quiet lives

won’t stop ourselves from asking

staring silent in the half-moonlight

A bird will sing carefree until

Sights are set on a struggling target

Rising moons will then scurry into retrograde worry

Nervous sun, looking back, shall descend

-

The chorus will lose its halcyon tone

Adopt an anxious arpeggio

As flight paths descend in pursuit of

Sustenance sought from writhing underbrush

-

Does the early bird always catch the worm

Or something else besides?

For the bird is nourished and yet is consumed

With familiar empty pangs

-

Perhaps “predator-prey” is a fallacy

Perhaps birds do not look for food

Searching forest floors for reason

Maybe rivers feel such fleeting joy

As cider’s breath on breeze

Banishing sobering thoughts to languish

Soft hands, entangled feet

-

“All rivers flow to the sea,”he said

I’m not sure if that’s true

But I could be in that estuary,

If I could remember how to swim

-

I think the Thames is my favourite river

So perhaps I’ll burst my banks

Form the inter-molecular forces

My mind’s traversing

Winding warm blue streets,

Thoughts hanging wistful on the washing line

Sun warming garments dry

I’ve always thought the city looked,

Better in August when the leaves

Of trees ceased falling with the early night

And migrating birds freely took flight

But November cold creeps into dreams

And sadness exploits amnesty

Languishing in far-reaches of mind

Ever-present, undetected

But really, it’s an equilibrium

Seasons senescence but emotion’s ever-present

And from the start of each day, until it’s done

There’s a tiger in my room

Prowling dreams in valium fashion

It’s eyes reflect the glows of stars

Because I fear it not

⠀

But still I wake with soft silent screams

As jagged beams of sunlight stream

Specimen of fleeting emotion embedded

Not fear, but wanting rid of it

⠀

And rid of the beast I’d once gotten

Compelled to a brief hiatus

And contented I was with dreamless sleep

Not once for its roar did I hunger

⠀

At least until “tomorrow”

When the emptiness returned

And the mind could not detour, consumed

With wanting to consume

⠀ ⠀ ⠀

So the tiger returns to my room

Within reach, within sight

And I won’t, but I know mine is the power

Life’s gentle agitation

Dessication of a thought

Cumulates into wheeling waves

Folded glimpses worry-wrought

⠀ ⠀

Pretend us into happiness

Glimpse emotion’s fatal gaze

Faces rise as they will turn to face

A smiling fatuous haze

⠀ ⠀

Well versed are we in the worrisome dance

Pained smile rises with painted corner

But it isn’t with grace we maintain the veil

A sliver of truth pokes through

⠀

Not tempting fate’s failing waters

But we’re letting the mirror crack

And I don’t but I want to

It hasn’t been high-octane

Sadness sealing wistful days

Thoughts faithfully degenerate what I

once gleaned from moon’s slow wane

⠀

Perhaps I could even see the moon

Were if not for man’s self-wrought light haze

Only streaking orange sun stands centre stage,

tears it’s way through blue

⠀

And you’d think the pretty skyward sight

Inspiration for oil and canvas

Light dancing on trees could inspire me

While the moon takes its hiatus

⠀

But I dig not for gold, yet look up for the

silver

Not for me sun’s warmth, but the moon’s cold whisper

And the breeze at my back while alighting a train

We want a paint-by-numbers man

Urban lights are fading upwards

Thought vessel’s still traversing seas

Demanding emotion’s safe passage

Just reached the end of a musical track

And silence now moves mountains

Yet still I won’t forward the whimsical tape

Stuck in neural feedback loop

For the very woes of man were mine

Sipping coffee in the silver-grey fascias

I spied them, reflections of complexed worry-veins

Mirrors of my own glacial eyes

Enamoured eternity produces time,

Holds every second in tender embrace

And time spans seas, but the storm’s in me

Saying gently a goodnight

Feeling shock of a second hand

Sells hopes of sailing new found shores

Sees bright hope flame snuffed

The moon is in anguish

Perplexed by gentle errors

There's a triad of troubled stages

And your woes are shaped like stars

Accept unbidden calamity

As the bottomless glass is emptied

The sorrow's somehow wholesome,

Loud city lights hold their tongues

Or perhaps it's all in vain

You'll say "not now", "not here"

"Such an instance could never occur"

But you’re forgetting fate’s faithful edict:

In every town

In every street

In every room

In everyone

I'd forgotten stoic, simple ease

Fast walking in flat shoes

Once shallow inklings of a breeze

Replaced with storms of change

Hues and vapid overtones

Breathe life into stage-world

Take comfort of a comforter

When streets are not yet friends

Await cancelled locomotion

Feel rushes of soft sad screaming air

While flickering eyes avoid contact,

Planets fearing gravitation

So mince your words and eat them

Conceptions falling to the floor

They were never advantageous

Please mind the gap

As the next station is You

Between the train and the platform edge

A chasm has ensued

See we've built great locomotives

Let's take a tour of the mind

Tap the oyster, we're at Consciousness

The end of the line is Truth

We'd be stood on the rolling grey escalators

En Masse, ascending freedom floors

But we've not yet reached the surface

Can't proceed through nature's doors

But we've had the right renewal,

Light of a day when machine was foreign to man

But we've been grey so long we've forgotten the light-

I know, of all things you're a meddler

We're commuting, but try it while you still can't

If thoughts rupture the logic with their good-given power