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Toluwalope Ogunlesi

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Wars and Rumours

Preamble:
love has folded His sheets of music,
time assembles to distune our talking drums,
songs seal themselves in bunkers of silence,
daylight rushes her still-wet laundry in.

Prophecy:
scarecrows beat fear-full wings in the sky's vast
tombs,
birds freeze into poles of torment, riotously hued,
it's going to rain; it's going to pour,
the clouds whisper it, through kola-blackened teeth

Visions:
in years to come time will
tell it; unfold bunkers of teeth -
grinning teeth, chipped teeth, set in
a silent, still convoy of skinned skulls

Questions:
a canvas citizened by victims,
a canvas mounted on poles of silence
a canvas painted in pencils of (heated) lead
- did the Painter Realise his Vision?

Aftermath:
bunkers of silence drum to empty sheets of music
birds rain, lifeless, like kola-blackened teeth
grinning teeth, once hued, smile wet-laundry smiles
songs assemble, file into vast tombs with skinned
souls.

Page(s) 5

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