Tuck inside a myth your rent violin:To touch the light, you must believe firstIn the lucid ghost of grief. EleganceOf marvels. Tale away the vibrant fever.The angel of bleeding abides not the clear unseenDay. Abel hymns only dewlight there. TheQuiet trees divine their fused shadowsOver the earth; beneath the shadows, roots—A gorgeous network of thirst. Spring Like a ball.A wild butterfly communesWith the flourishing secrets inside a flamingViolet flower. Arrive peacecountry.Voice be clipped awake. HarvestThe violin in Summer. The mouth, smallHumbling god, tightens to a lute.
Hear a Door
Ernest Jésùyẹmí
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“Hear a Door” from A POCKET OF GENESIS: by Ernest Jésùyẹmí.
Published by Variant Literature on July 7, 2023.
Copyright © 2023 by Ernest Jésùyẹmí.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.
Ernest Jésùyẹmí is the author of A Pocket of Genesis (Variant Lit, 2023). His work has appeared in AGNI, Poetry London, the Times Literary Supplement, the Republic, Mooncalves: An Anthology of Weird Fiction, and elsewhere. He holds a BA in history and international studies and is the poetry editor of EfikoMag.
A Pocket of Genesis concerns the dream of possibility in a time of dryness, and so tilts toward faith.
“In only 29 poems, Ogunyemi [now Jésùyẹmi] is able to first mythologise grief, but then draw the reader into his delicately constructed world of loss. To find, as he describes, the ‘hymn’ in every wound requires careful navigation of what is simultaneously personal, yet shared between us. With an agile ease, Ogunyemi masterfully accomplishes this task to an incredible degree in this chapbook. A Pocket of Genesis carries a challenging yet somber rhythm within it that seizes the reader’s attention in the truest sense. And heralds a talent that brings a different perspective on life, and living, through a kaleidoscopic study in melancholy.”
—Fiyinfoluwa Oladipo, “the better craftsman.”
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