Obododimma Oha

recipe

middle east still boiling

middle west half-cooked in vietnamibian

two slices of iraq browned

some cubes of cuba

mix until in a fix , then bring down in democracy

serve killed

any desert as dessert

i know the thirteenth street

and leftover tears, the junction next

to where our hopes are buried

the silences

how they lean against our courage

to voyage on and gather in

has that story not tamed its telling

that every presence travels at the speed of absence

your footsteps counting, still counting

i know where the road reads red

for the toad, chased by afternoon terrors

and beginnings for vigil

A plan within a plan

a plan within the plan
the first plan open
the next plan watchful
the next plan watching the plan of the first plan

the planned plan executing
twice a goal, gallantly
that a mind has gone into it
inventing preventing reinventing

a plan closing up
erasing its footmarks
measuring every thought
that sits on a toil

a plan to plan
before & after

eVENTS

emails, then e-males
that log in
re-wording the talk that walks
slippery borders of being

and she, too, a fee-male
could count the cost of identity laundered & spread
online

the here-now hallucinations, become presence...

perhaps I kept my difference
where gender could not find it
where I right my wryting INKredibly

The call of the Kalahari

The Kalahari is sand, much sand

The Kalahari is heat, great heat

When last the sun took his bath

It was here, that remains stripped & spent

I ask the dunes where they’ve hidden their shadows

And which muscle of rock keeps watch

Over baking extremes

I ask the thorn tree why it waits

To thirst after the throes

I ask the hunting owl if its truth is too true

Like the vastness of a wasteland

The Kalahari owes no oasis

To the traveling season, no handshake

To the returning wind

Only the sand, the heat, the nakedness