SHALLY A.

is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in Barcelona partly because in your orange shirt you look like a better happier St. Sebastian partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for yoghurt partly because of the fluorescent orange tulips around the birches partly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people and statuary it is hard to believe when I’m with you that there can be anything as still as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of it in the warm New York 4 o’clock light we are drifting back and forth between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles and the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just paint you suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did them I look at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world except possibly for the Polish Rider oc

I think it was Robert Frost who said, “ A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness .” And then I would like to believe that after awhile it transforms, changes, molds you, together with the words, until there is nothing left but your hands, holding “ emptiness, wholeness; a cave, a cathedral .” (B.H. Fairchild) Yes!  my heart is driving along the roads of poetry Not because of insane love or lovesickness It consoles the depths of my soul Finds me and makes me a little whole It’s keeping my mute brain alive Am learning to thrive Despite the aches and strive My soul is damningly religiously dancing with fire Crafting simple words lets the pouring down my spirit demands The illusion of my future  Doesn’t seem so hard Its beauty expresses my strangest emotions And let’s me believe Frank O’Hara  Is cajoling me to Have a coke with him (link poem here. ) And mesmerized with power  As Alicia keys

The elderly woman seemed frantic as she turned around and asked a million times, “Where is the Chief Brides Maid?” She was the entertainer, MC and comedian of the day – Alaga iduro for my cousin’s introduction ceremony. She hastily picked one of my cousins’ friends and crowned her Chief Brides Maid. Her goal? Lecture and make sure the CBM wasn’t slacking in her duties. This event is our way of saying ‘meet the parents/family’ and like most Nigerian events, it had to be extravagant. With a little trepidation from the Alaga iduro’s biting stare, I ran to my duty post of Chief ‘House’ Maid. It seemed I had a sticker on my forehead saying ‘ask me, and I shall give thee’. Suddenly, I was the assistant caterer. I was also the photographer making sure people took still moments with bride and the groom. I wiped the bride’s face while my own face was oily. I fanned her while I was sweating. I was chosen as a sign of love, for which I am grateful and I certainly do honou

LOVE: Love lasting overflowing vulnerable and enduring. Love huh! It seems time stops when we finally find you. We are not rushing to the unfathomable future; not caring about the silly whinny past. I walk down the street with a new beam. Sunshine clouding my eyes. My smiles shyness is gone, am wide mouthed in love.   HAPPINESS: There are times that I feel like the world is changing me around and that my soul has so little to dance about. I have so many words in my heart and my voice fails to speak out loud. In the stillness of my heart, am praying to find a reason, a will to be madly happy. I just don’t know how to let myself know that everything is for a time, am keep waiting for us to find each other. Huh! Happiness it seems like you are lost and found and I really need this sunlight smile of mine. THE BOOK: My life is like a book. I had no right to choose the cover. It was fearfully designed from up above. It’s an irony though that the pages are blank. I am allowed