After Lindsey Stirling
The shrouded lake cries out again
with a mouthful of peaches and crows,
this time, from a chasm of dearth.
Where is the innocence in the emptiness
desired into wounds –the rose-pink tongue
caroled with bells uncoiled inside the walls
of the mouth? Away from the sorrow
that bends the river and its water, let this newness
become a siren. Let it ripe and flesh like a lightning
in the cloud. Let it harbor its grace
and do whatever it wants with its bloom.
The heart opens and life is beckoned out.
In the blue, a mouth is decorated with a blend
of verd antique, the monstrosity of silence.
Cobwebs around the bones, the teeth misted
by soulless music. Words take off from the planes
of the lips and linger in the air, in the manner
of a caged moon –its light trapped in a transparent
cloak. Reflections everywhere, but its house is haunted
by memories. So the mind sings itself into a bird.
Though its wings lie broken beside it, still it throws
itself against the borders of sound, whittled to the marrow.
The shrouded lake cries out again
with a mouthful of peaches and crows,
this time, from a chasm of dearth.
Where is the innocence in the emptiness
desired into wounds –the rose-pink tongue
caroled with bells uncoiled inside the walls
of the mouth? Away from the sorrow
that bends the river and its water, let this newness
become a siren. Let it ripe and flesh like a lightning
in the cloud. Let it harbor its grace
and do whatever it wants with its bloom.
The heart opens and life is beckoned out.
In the blue, a mouth is decorated with a blend
of verd antique, the monstrosity of silence.
Cobwebs around the bones, the teeth misted
by soulless music. Words take off from the planes
of the lips and linger in the air, in the manner
of a caged moon –its light trapped in a transparent
cloak. Reflections everywhere, but its house is haunted
by memories. So the mind sings itself into a bird.
Though its wings lie broken beside it, still it throws
itself against the borders of sound, whittled to the marrow.
Wale Ayinla is a Nigerian poet, essayist, and editor. He is the author of To Cast a Dream (Jai-Alai Books, 2021), selected by Mahogany Browne for the 2020 Toi Derricotte and Cornelius Eady Chapbook Prize. His works recently appeared on Guernica, South Dakota Review, TriQuarterly, Rhino Poetry, Poet Lore, and elsewhere. He is a staff reader for Adroit Journal. He has a Pushcart Prize nomination and several Best of the Net and Best New Poets Award nominations, & in 2020, he was a finalist for numerous prizes which include the Jack Grapes Poetry Prize. His manuscript, Sea Blues on Water Meridian was a finalist for the inaugural CAAPP Book Prize.