swarmed body blacked wings & Other Poems

Isaac Ouro-Gnao

water father

i surrender my eyes
to a strawberry eclipse
sky hue mismatching purple mutiny
your silver chain
gold tooth
dazzle harmony spotlight
shoulders dipping side to side
ball glued to feet
you weave through body and bark
under cheering fronds
adoration carried by
the ocean’s breath

i dig my feet ankle-deep
by sand slurping coconuts
body shrinking granule
sight blindless
son awed by your dance

you part land into sea
wisdom etched in lines watered
rippling inwards to your solid ground chest
crashing immovable settling gentle
your top half shimmers
hands tendered beckoning
a call
carrying over waves
one-seater chariot

it never reaches.

i crawl forth prone
chasing skipped how to lessons
hands body scraping sand

i want to be like you.

Mango Tree

i thought i knew the face of grief    

hunched bark
drenched from the rains of
mother brother sister relatives
when licks beat stubborn backsides

v neck oozing sap
trapping adventuring hands
budding boisterous ego    

low branch east 
snaking west
mural of oiled hips
fuelled by Ivorian sagacité anthems

moreish goldred tributes
wetting dried tongues
& sand-ridden hands
on sun-bitten afternoons

i searched for you
on my nostalgia addled return
to taste fruit dripping sweet counsel
to hold bark roughwarming

to be greeted
by your sump pit headstone

unearthed sage
how many lives did you nurture
in your cracks?    

swarmed body blacked wings

Moths clog chest
Pulsing larvae homing arteries

Fingers abandon heavy
Watered by grief
Scrolling LED IDs

Have I always doubted
you know you can talk to me?

I lost more than will
Inherited
From seeing tort wear your body

Your eyes scorned omen
spittle fluttered raven

Fists Mother aimed bulled
Her still as fright
Watching abovebelow

I wept Child
Holding you back

& You cursed blood
Withered affection
Spun webbed torment

alone i

Sat under cricket choirs
Echoing leave a message after the tone
After tone after tone

Hands shot to ground
Swarmed body blacked wings
Melting into night

i flew south chasing horizon

Isaac Ouro-Gnao is a Togolose-British poet, freelance journalist and dance artist.