WEE WEE WALTZ

There’s no music for this dance
This left to right wiggle waltz hands
Rolling unrolling stretching beyond
Tendons as the urge creeps over
Me like a Tsunami as I sit on
An unsuspecting bus in
The middle of nowhere
There is too much
Base in this heart
Beat my left hand is
Leading my forehead in
A dance of rocking abandon
Butt cheeks are clenched so close
They might as well be clapping
Face twisting into contorted
Grimaces my words have
Been stolen by an urge
That forbids
Laughter
There’s a hand
Hugging my stomach
I think it’s mine can’t hold
Too tight might unlatch the dam
Within and cause the bus to flood
The bus has fallen in love
With speed bumps
And potholes
My muscles are
Stretched to breaking
But the next stop is mine
Little steps move me of the bus
It’s the waltz again there are no lyrics
To this song no rhythm to this skank
This quick quick slow run walk
Pulling me closer home
My zip sees the door
Before my eyes
It is already
Down maybe I’ll
Make it my trousers
Are at my ankles way before
I collapse onto the toilet
I am safe now
It’s over until the next time
I don’t listen when the toilet calls


©2013Tolulola Agbelusi

Home Series (1)

I was honoured to do some take away poetry for the refugee council in July. Some ladies told me they miss the West Midlands where they came from. We spoke for a few minutes and then I had to come with a poem on the spot. This was the end result.

The air is different here. Nothing stifles
silence adorns my neck like a choker
just tight enough to make me breath
in the air like the first time. At the height
of this hill my soul is as high as the top
of the sky, the leaves dance uncontrollably
in a rhythm of their own and I join in
just let their beauty wash over me.

I know a place like this
Where the lilt of the accent
Spins me deeper into my own skin
And the faces are all mine
With generations apart.
When home is a place
Too far away to hold me
I think of Sunday afternoons
Around grandma’s table
Where laughter exchanges lips
Like a relay and bodies double
Over like trees swaying in the wind
As memories are re-established
And sweet tasting food makes its way
to the part of my body where laughter
was just born. Those days are in my heart.
They are air that rejuvenates
when I need to find my way back home.


©2013 ToluAgbelusi

Karma

I was so angry all I could do to stop myself from kicking her was erupt. Kick shoes, keel over and laugh till the sound of my laughter puffed into this ball of tension that she cradled uncomfortably in her arms, weighing her down and extinguishing the light from her face. Apparently my tonneric laughter delivered the blow my hands had been itching to render with the subtlety of an elephant trampling a cat. Her face hastened my realisation that anger laced laughter was roaring away every ounce of self-assurance she had mustered. It was David and Goliath. Little flies harmonising sweetly on a lion’s carcass. Victory without effort.

©Tolulola Agbelusi

Seeming is But a Garment

“My friend, I am not what I seem. Seeming is but a garment I wear – a care-woven garment that protects me from thy questioning…”Kahlil Gibran

Dressed in a pinned smile and enough
Appropriate laughter, I will sit at the meet
Of champions encircling the dinner table
And hope the lamb is succulent enough
To steer the conversation away
From what we have become.

Thirteen years ago, we were strangers
In search of ourselves, builders pulling
Together the foundations of our currency,
At the tail end of teenage bliss. Early
Lectures and intermittent exams
Were the height of our qualms,
We thought we knew stress like
The lines in our palms.

Who knew the storms were coming
Arm in arm to push us out of our
Houses and see who stands.
The jobless years, the tears
And fears, the marriages
That almost were, the friends

Who actually never were, the journeys
That brought us here, to a newly bought
House, where we celebrate progression
From the sum of our pasts. They speak
Of the twenty-years; a wilderness
Of searching and angst, wondering
And wandering into a future they
Planned and I nod like I - am - there

Like my present was planned, they
Speak of the future like an extension
To a loft, as though we all stand on stairs
At the height of top, I think
of a future that escapes
The slums and I bury my thoughts


With a wreath of smiles. How
Do I begin to explain the start
Of angst that the thirties dragged
In with pomp? Should I say it is a storm
That broke down my houses
That my dreams are a pack of wingless
Birds that stay on my back
That a sadness looms over me

Larger than the sun, that it’s rays
Are in compartments behind my breast
That sometimes all the locks break
At once and I feel my sanity
Slip - away, my body becomes
A heavy weight and it has happened

So many times, that I have learnt
There is power in a good song, like
Screaming out loud, it is well
with my soul at the edge of a cliff
can keep me my feet firmly on the ground
I could tell them so much but instead I
Laugh and smile. I don’t want to break, but

My Friends, I am not what I seem. Seeming
Is but a garment I wear – a care- woven
Garment that protects me from questioning
And saves others from the sear
Of a sincere answer.


©Tolulola Agbelusi

Whispers of Spring

Spring is slow but coming
Every morning outside my
Window, a naked stem
Dresses itself with a brand
New bud. It almost looks
Like nothing but it’s there
Just like I know
Redemption is near.


©2013 Tolulola Agbelusi

Thank you to everyone who followed me on the 30/30 journey. I missed about 6 days which was an achievement because I was mad busy in April. I have now retired the 30/30 page so I can do more work on the poems.

Have a lovely May.

A Future of Your Making

One day, someone may visit
Dressed up as assistance.
They may speak of your
Potential as though their
Discovery is your beginning,
Map out your future and praise
Who you will be, squeeze your
Hand and lead you to places
You‘ve never been. Take

In the sights, watch how
The sky’s blue so easily
Blackens, how a sunny spring
Sky can suddenly throw snow
At unsuspecting pavements
How life busies itself with
Changing and staying the same

Be the same. Reclaim your hands
Carry as much of their light
As you need, maintain a thread
of your story through the changes
Embrace their ideas if you need
To but remember; you’re your own
Discovery so draw your own map, lest
Assistance takes over and you never
Find the way back to yourself.


©2013Tolulola Agbelusi

So I'm challenging myself to write 30 poems in 30 days.
See how I get on on the "30 Poems for 30 Days" page above.

My Becoming

Pinned to my mother’s side
Condemned to watch
When too young to cook
Cook when too old to watch
She watches me now


Moving to an anthem of gasps
That strangle the air
As my outstretched hands
Unleash tong like bare
Fingers, hugging the shoulders
Of a boiling pot to safety

With waving hands
And concrete words she
Rescues the air
From a pack of startled women
“My daughter can handle it”
She says.
Something in my mother’s tone

Unclipped my wings.
Was that pride she wore like skin?
The assurance of a teacher who
Laid down the tracks of my becoming
And watched the foundations rise
Beyond her humble classroom

Watching her face
I am 5 again
Tracing the road to 30
Viewing the sites
Differently

5,
Stilted by 4 wooden legs
Pounding laughter from cookie dough
Moulding her face into smiles

10,
Mentally minuting
The water before the rice
The boil before the rise
The wisdom in her eyes
The guests before the husband before myself

15,
Sweeping tears away,
Finding obligation scratched
Onto kitchen floors, reducing
Parental commentary into
Sauce, pounding sibling rivalry
Into yam, understanding nothing

20,
Carving independence
The flower of her words
Finally blossom in a soil of
Experience. In foreign lands
But kitchens always
Call in my mother’s voice.

30,
My kitchen now
Memories buried in every pot
I hold my mother’s eyes
And smile, letting myself
              Fly
On the wings of her pride



©Tolulola Agbelusi

WE ARE (For the Year 11 Girls at Haggeerston School)

This poem is generated from the words and feelings expressed by a group of girls who attended my workshop on 25th January.

Our mothers told us we were beautiful, smart,
brave, passionate; a gift to the world. We wore
her smiles bright. Chasing the dreams she had for
us on chariots of her pride. On the first day of school,
she kissed her words into our cheeks so we would
never forget. But the wind blew them away until we
found worth only in other’s opinions, in boy’s arms
In fabricated personalities, in dumbing down.
Another wind is blowing; a piece of paper
littered with words that will determine our

futures. We smell hints of our mother’s words
and piece together our stories like armour
for battle; discarding the insecurities the world
gave to us. We are not the sum of opinions.
We are beauty in shoulders people bow into,
offering sacrifices of tears as burdens float away.
We are hands that carry and care for a world that
cries for the tenderness of our perfect imperfections.
We are brains manufacturing talent, tomorrow’s leaders.
Wombs unashamed of failings that help us conceive our

true selves. We are bees stinging laughter into bitter
Situations. Forts of secrets that seam your
worlds together. We are anger that sparks
revolutions out of stagnation. Truth that
requires no explanation. We are perfect
futures in construction, slaying negativity in a once
forgotten chariot. We are our mother’s daughters
slowly becoming Women our daughters will be proud
of. We are girls on the brink of womanhood
claiming our rights to succeed.


©ToluAgbelusi 2013