Joseph Oyin Oladipo

Joseph Oyin Oladipo Poems

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Half And Halfer

Tango: the game we play in my dream
Far Away: the reality of your location as I wake
Talkative: with you on the phone I am
Quite and reflective: mesmerised beyond words in your presence

Who but me loves and fears in the same breath?
To know you, a million cowries I will pay
Yet so many questions I dare not ask
Would I normally live in dim lights in order a damsel to please?
Contrarily, somehow with you, to the drum of ‘let it be’, I have danced
Between Manchester and the glades of yorkshire, to be your acquaintance a labour is
The same ball gets down south and becomes child’s play

Eyes wide open, I see
Seeing only is a tent pitched at the mountain base, pray I that at the peak I might dwell
Insight is the name of the prize which with you I so much desire
Tenth or seventh, whatever position the amendment occupies on the serial ladder
I have a dream that surpasses it and every cloud
I dream that layers after layers, the onion’s skin will be peeled
Every wall put down and perfect love enthroned, fear banished to sheol

Spring brought you to me: the orange sky of autumn bears witness to a fact:
That your warmth shades me from the bitter colds of winter
Many are they whose desires are to taste from the Bee’s honey
Favoured is he to whom the Queen gladly grants access to the hive
Suffer no sting bite on my flesh my lady.
I have loved the rose, and now I am exposed,
Florists and bees and butterflies and wee birds
Not a few are the creatures who with this ballerina want to dance.

Let the stars and the moon be my witnesses.
The emissary from my deep places bears a message
Tightly sealed in a parchment crafted by ancient hands:
‘Daily the young lad cries
He shivers, shaken by what he feels
Bent by the load of her love
Dying at what her exit would to his heart do’

Half and half, contrary feelings at war
A sight for tourists to savour
Or incompatible products of Alchemy waiting to explode?
The ancients tell of a certain stable boy who fell in love with the desire of many a knight and princes
Tale tellers smile as they recount the bond that made the princess bid the palace farewell
Making straws her bed and hays her pillow alongside her stable love.
Half: Like the stable lad I feel: in love with the queen in waiting
Halfer: Princess, look within and tell this stable boy that He has not made a wrong choice…

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