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OBEMATA
Where I live
the night spreads through
the hours,
i stand next to the window
-
the hour hand latches on
to the heels
of sightseers,
shoplifters, drug addicts,
drug dealers snuggling up
in the red phone box -
i can see hood-wearing
boys looking in at the
corner shops,
their faces, their arms,
their faces,
whole arms pressed against
time,
darken against the
double-paned glass.
the hours
grow late,
the night double back from
faces
of young boys waiting on
the quiet boy
they hate, and grope to
the dark back alley, narrower
slimmer than the letter "i".
their nights
teem with pleasure and
pain, the hoods
that hide their faces
hang on iron banisters,
the lifeless body lying somewhere,
their fingers leave no
prints.
is it the
sound of the telephone,
i hear, or
the siren of a blue
flashing police car?
Note to warring lovers
warring lovers -
here are your hearts,
broken,
stained with guilt.
warring lovers,
your hearts are your
doves,
love is the branch -
come with your hearts,
the time to talk is now.
Glossolalia
you ask if the word
is the beginning
or the
beginning
is the word?
if you keep your mouth
shut for a moment
you will see
how my tongue speaks the
word
in other tongues,
in
languages
that spread over another
time.
In his footsteps
at eight, i inherited a
pair of shoes.
the black shoes
my father spent a lifetime
polishing.
the pair didn't fit my
feet.
walking in his footsteps
was a song i sang at
infant school;
and back at home,
i would put my father's
shoes on,
a size too large,
and strut down our living
room.
years later, still trying
out
the shoes, i would clump
down
the neighbourhood
in familiar steps.
Obemata, lawyer and poet,
lives in Farnham Royal, South Buckingham.
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