Read Poetry: RUDIMENTS OF BROKEN MUSIC, by Olabisi Abiodun Akinwale

To write a dirge
Is to burn without a touch of fire
.
A raven perched on my window last night
-it came with a song, named after your brothers
-and with echoes of maiden’s voices from sambisa
– it came with one-tenth of your father’s burnt ashes
-and with the chronicles of a lost boy on the street of Lagos
.
To break into wounded verses
Is to become a man of flesh and water- blood no longer flows in your veins
.
I have seen men with cuts on their tongue
Men, holding their names with blind metaphors
I have seen a mother run from her own blood
To the tent of survival beneath her skin
I have seen girls, living in sad memories
To hold history between their legs
.
We are but rudiments of broken music
We live till we become a poem, filled with emptiness-…