Theorem of the Spring & Other Poems – AbdulSamad Jimoh

Theorem of the Spring

For Habeebah Amoo

time
wears the
  rhythms of
 my   feet,  &
my footfalls thirst
   for     breath     &
  bleed,  i  count  the
silences & the whispers,
   i   swallow   the   rivulet
     in      my      throat,      i  
 voice   the   ledger   of   my
 oddities   into   ash   &   blank,
when   the   air   negotiates   us
into  a  deal — event / undirected /
 observed,    only    the    whirl    &
  the  whiff  make  the  name,  when
 our  threads  grow  limbs,  jutting  out
like   a   rescue   mission   soldiering  a
 supple bridge, dangling between shore &
   tide,     none     of     us     crosses,     but
     the       One      who     gifted     us      the
  breaths, then memory coughs, coughing out
  the spring, hydration threshold, flashing false
 flashback,   not   the   going   span,   but  the
  one outside the clocks with the tale of a boy
  who dreams of river & deposits each drop
 into nothing, then memory coughs, memory
of the living spring, memory of the drop, from
a droplet,  springing  like a door knocking on
the  bodiless  timeline,  then   it   whispers —
dream — recursive pictures, then it echoes —
wish — heuristic longing,  then it choruses —
deluge   to   cascade   to   overflow,   trickle
becomes pour becomes rivulet becomes river,
& my mind  screams into a bleeding shape like
 a  heart,  something  you  are  curious  to eye,
something  you  are — bleeding too, a thick red
river with a map, i pray to God, not to gods, not
  to the standing that whispers behind causes, i
 pray for you… for the day of the spring, for the
day the first drop ignores gravity, for the day you
will unbutton the silences, bless the time my oddities
crawl into syllables, bless the rivers that live to tell in
 return, bless the droplets that survive to name your
world, bless the origin of the spring that bleeds forever.​

Done Than Said

One day, the universe blinks, and the breach returns with the skins of forgotten stars. She forgets her storylines and rewrites herself into a new memory, cradling neither letters nor scars. Every lip seals their union. New heads planted with no build for backward glance, deaf to the catacombs breathing behind them, and tremors of the echoes die in midair before falling and sinking deep into the abyss of the ocean. Expressions crawl into the picture in the form of movements and arrivals, in the form of showing and reality, like doors that yawn without creaking. Lipless faces learn lipless smiles; gestures greet intentions. The choreography of elbows and feet becomes the meaning of the lost keys. The swords of speech melt into nothing. And in the faces of their wielders, they weep like candlewax, hissing apologies to everything and nothing in particular. They curl like burnt leaves, rotten on the bones of the earth. And when the sky changes her mood, her spirits drape her visage, and she unboxes her ribcage. And the waiting spirits explode, a rush of expired times that gathers the memories of thunder. They descend with eyes and hands and fingers forged from melted mirrors, and they scrub out the stains until the earth quaffs every bleed, suturing her gaps into virginity, until the earth forgets what it means to be a tainted soul.

Two Worlds

Your core unbuttoned their frame,
and you sojourned into the void.
You entered a vast landscape living
under a spotless azure.
Your head spun, east to south
to west to north, but every
direction was dead.
No landmarks. No signs.
And you eyed the curve of the earth
running into emptiness.

You wandered through wet sand,
leaving no evidence, like a wraith.
Then the earth sinkholed beneath
your feet, stretching a deep midnight
passageway into your mind.
You strewed into it like a fog, and
the distance struggled forever,
walls marrying behind you,
forgotten voices susurrating
turbulent gibberish, swallowing silence.

You spotted the roots of your fears,
tangled, twisted, coiled,
like black serpents in the dark soil.
Their spectral visages grew before you,
morphing into weird specimens
on twos or fours, grinning, teeth long
and sharp, eyes ravenous.
You wanted to run. You couldn’t.
You were caged in your core.
And you rippled in the dying glow,
and darkness became your companion.

When the darkness blinked,
you dropped into your frame on
a bodily ground with identifications
and meanings and memories.
But the view hastened, transmogrified
and then nothing — for survival was fleeting. 
For every kind, time, wealth smelled of earth.
Like you, they were games of numbers.
Young or old.
Poor or rich.
Lose or win.

Then the sky lost her sight, 
and you appeared lost.
Yet you knew you were within
the two worlds:

1. where your frame was hollow,
2. where everything was frail.

A Body Exile

my ribs vibrated like earthquakes
throbbing to the cacophony of a ruin blast
snaking fissures on their skins
a once-upon-a-time dwelling
abandoned to the mercy of the elements

i slept inside my shell like a stranger
with no aura of heart
in the surrounding walls

my heart was a trunk housing a zillion
of blanks with no colour
every beat reverberating
messages of fade
every breath traveling
towards a border which
i couldn’t cross

i thought my shadow was the evidence
of a connection but he followed me
like a distance
scouting for a whole roof

my shell wasn’t a hearth
but a miscast haven
a gap
the one you could meander through

a long time ago

keys were lodged into the holes
of the doors & they exposed their
mouths for the strangers to burst into 
the room but the house shut in the
middle of nowhere

if this exile had a taste
it must be the salt of my sweat

my body traded meaning with
the rain that robed it with strokes
& with the sunlight
that revealed every secret
that had no veil.

Behind the Piece

If you look behind the piece, you’ll see 
the mess, the errata. Unfinished lines. 
Irrelevant words. Skeleton of plots
expiring too soon, like a plume of smoke.
Papers scarred with peppers, sweats and
tears. My fingerprint smeared all over the
pen deposited beside my manuscript after
bleeding to death. Shadows of my fingers
on the keyboard, typing, deleting, typing.

Before the pieces offer a piece, I’d slept
on my side, like a fallen truck, yearning
for a push, yearning for a return to the feet.
The support I rarely or never got.
Inside my eyes, the dreams of the skies were
the earth beneath my feet. But outside, they
were farther away than my past and my future.

Then fears bathed my core. The doubt.
The rejections. They clung to me, like the hair
dwelling on my skin. They are the journey.
The journey before and after a finished business.

When I look behind the piece, I fall in love
with the scary rhythms. And I merge with
my footprints glued on the course to mastery.

Abdulsamad Jimoh is a writer and lawyer based in Abuja, Nigeria. He is deeply drawn to literature that delves into the complexities and intricacies of human existence. His work has been featured in WSA Magazine, and he is the winner of the TEBEBA School of Writing Challenge 2024. Currently, he is working on his debut novel and a short story collection.

*Image by Jr Korpa on Unsplash