The African night goes robust with
silence and attentiveness.
Darkness, grave, deep and merciless,
hisses remorselessly but soundlessly.
The moon is on a visit to her grandmother
Fireflies on bulrushes give blinking light, like exhausted
Twinkling stars expelled from heaven.
Post-suppertime, belching stomachs recline on
Whims of a slow-travelling night with faithful
Silhouettes walking ahead of stalking shadows.
Orchestral insects keep the night company
Folktales steal into this power of darkness —
A breathing nocturnal art with the pulse of
Communal growth . . .
The town crier is abroad
He needs no other identity but his voice,
A foghorn in the entrenched darkness.
Next is his wooden gong,
An instrument of life.
His voice rides smoothly through the night —
At times with punch, some other times
With the sound of glory . . .
And when there’s gloom,
With the sonorous flow of woe.
She is more than a tourguide
but a warrior within her soul
who is a champion of Bahamian hospitality ambassador of the natural environment
and a pioneer with a spirit
for creativity and innovation
quenching the thirst
of her progressive mindset
where curiosity is her superpower
She is a teacher and a storyteller
who set the standard for visitors
and how to become a true, true Bahamian
through historical landmarks, folktales, cuisine
Rake and Scrape, bush medicine
blueholes and endemic birds
to create an atmosphere
where everyone would recieve
the Bahamian VIP experience
whether they are from Miami,
Puerto Rico, China, or The Netherlands
She is a visionary and servant leader
behind the warrior found within her
ahead of her time
who is very selfless and approachable
always willing to put the necesities
of her team ahead of her own accolades
like a tree feeding Pigeon Plums and Seagrapes
to the White Crowned Pigeons
instilling inspiration in their hearts
to become more than only tourguides
but to become the guardians and stewards
of the authentic Bahamian adventure
for generations to come
Winter’s bite
is in the air tonight
and the moon is risen overhead
casting shadows like the witches have aforesaid,
but old folktales will not warm my bones nor sweetbread
will provide, I’ll make my bed beneath
the stars and scrubby heath,
then shall sleep.
Surely, we walked together...
But just like shadows,
Some cheap ghost climbs in nightly,
Pondering the same.
Were all our lives rich folktales?
Panic knots tighter,
As I must have lost your face—
The one that was mine.
Lithe, light and lovely, Luanna mourned her elf friend’s death
Wearing the flowers he had always loved, increased her grief.
The rest of the fey understood her predicament,
the meadow was empathetic, eager to help, enthusiastic about her.
Her gossamer wings were pearlized, shining in the moonlight
She said a prayer for her buddy, and then the dancing began
Festivities included frolicking, florals, and faerie folktales
Elvin, her friend, would have loved this.
He would have raised a glass and told the best stories
A nymph came by and said “I loved him too”
Then the stories began; not as great as his, but close….
There’s an odd creature on my shoulder
that whispers when my head tilts right.
When I am quiet it gets bolder,
when I’m bolder it gets a fright.
More often than not
it lies when it speaks,
and the almost-truths that it tell
have the most danger to wreak.
You should see how it grins
when I’ve done what it said.
Or how the grin gives way to teeth,
when I’m slow to be led.
Yet not always bad,
it comforts me at times.
It reminds me of happy things
when I’ve committed its crimes.
Night-whispers, like old folktales,
bring dread to my mind.
When it makes even small shadows
into monstrous shades maligned.
This creature on my shoulder,
so odd and so small,
brings me troubles and terror
when its whispers into my ear starts to crawl.
From the unravelled and now exposed mystery
Tales of leafy Nottinghamshire
And the dusty tatty books of it's long history
Comes a tale
You'd think it was just a jest
However, it is a fact and true
With hand upon heart and chest
I am telling you
Way back in time long before Robin Hood
And the Major oak
Was a mere sapling about to bud
A small settlement in a sunny green forest glade
Once lived a tribe
And built their huts
Working the land to survive
Their name
The Snot People.
Named after their chieftain Snotter
And the famous Nottingham was born
The Surrounding encampments
And Hamlets found it so funny
They laughed made fun and teased
''The Snotters''
It was just too hard, to believe
The Snotters
We're op so embarrassed
And how poor Cheuften Snotter must have cried
For his name and his people
Were ridiculed for their true name
Had sadly been denied
So they had no option
But to change their name
From Sottinghamt to Nottingham
And no longer ridiculed
Or had to had to bow their heads In shame
Peter Dome©2024.
Murphy is loving her reading tower of books.
Adventures, biographies, and suggestions to cooks.
Home improvements, that she will never do.
Mysteries, picture books, and Manga too.
folktales, fantasy, fiction and non-fiction galore.
All Murphy can say is, "Please bring me more!"
Confidently, the topaz dusk light fades,
into the charcoal.
and rusty graffiti on the skyline.
The blue hour brings eerie dirges,
in the form of wolf songs and
whippoorwill wing beats,
while the chokeberry sky weeps,
though the shore appears
inviting with its dulcet lilts of bubbly glee,
It ultimately returns vacuous
echoes of midnight wails
and forlorn heartbeats,
Despite this, the Moon Glade
Waves still come,
offering a space for folktales,
birdcalls, and starlit runes.
Written: May 18, 2023
It was our first year
marriage redux-do-over.
I kept seeing this stranger in you.
I kept inquiring of myself
as we walked hand in hand
into yet another 'Red Lobster' restaurant.
Your name is - my name is
we are...
we were a confusion, not blinded too much
by romantic folktales -
some other head over heels story maybe.
Two years apart and both over fifty
time learned to step lighter.
You said I was the best sex you had ever had
no one had ever said that to me before
I felt taller,
the wife before you, bent me at the shoulders
I never did fall out of love with that young Chinese girl,
but now it's a picture of love or just perhaps its frame.
She grew away from that image, the binding vine of her life
slowly strangling us both.
Now there is you
and I am not sure how we came about
what triggered this 'us,'
that first year
of meeting ourselves, guiding each other
back to a place where bodies lost their memories
within unspoken moments.
We have got old, have pardoned ourselves many times over.
Nowadays we hardly ever go to fish restaurants
we cook
we butter sauce. Find new ways
to sample and share.
The summer has thickened,
it has turned the hare into a dervish,
the raccoon to a pantomime villain,
made mice sing in the beaks of owls.
The woods are bare now
trees rattle, grackles cackle,
blue Ice chimes in the deep freeze.
Witches flirt and flit
They have skeleton corsets,
they ride upon racks of lamb.
Their mousy, grey moon petticoats
are tattered by thorns.
By December the land crunches
under tread, the snow creaks
like a an unearthed catacomb.
Reckless children are lost
In the rumors of dark folktales.
The year turns, tinder burns,
lovers remember an inner climate
where limbs blush
when kissed by a kindness
as soft as sunlit rain.
Now and then, and yet again,
clouds circle a bright fanlight
of sky.
Seasons return only to sail
on by.
I am the mother of chaos and beauty,
You can either love or hate me.
I behold the mythology of the Greek gods,
The book of Folktales you been told.
I am your oracle, you seek my guidance,
At night you come to tell me all your dreams and secrets.
I gave you my strength to be strong and bold, like a Taurus bull,
Or cunning and deceiving, using my Scorpion sting.
Some of you are mesmerized by my beauty,
I bring the Virgo out in you, to be complex and still lovely.
As I sail over the seven seas, your curiosity, captured me,
My Pisces personality watches you calmly, wishing we are like Gemini.
But because I am also chaos and not only bring hope,
Libra judges you with her scales,
And when I convicted you,
Sagittarius released his arrow and gave you pain.
During the day I hide like a hermit Crab, away from your eyes,
Not to see how my loneliness feel.
But remember I will always be on your subconscious mind,
Because I am the Constellations, you need me.
One two,
each story has styles that glue
Three four,
no struggle listening to the core
Five six,
tales of awesome mix
Seven eight,
in between, songs interrelate
Nine ten,
no miss will you jot with pen
Eleven twelve, African folktales under the moon awesomely delve
One three,
gather under the tree
Two four,
sit comfortably on the floor
Five seven,
hope to hear from heaven
Six eight,
open your minds as the elders voice dictate
Nine eleven,
not only for fun, do catch up the leaven
Ten twelve,
morals are easily dish out to shelve
© 2020
® Olábòsóyè Wèmímó Oláolúwá
Why slaying the stars
& rigorously binding their light
for listening ears under the mango tree
to frame folktales for midnight song,
make a geysers of yellowstone
carrying fresh fetch palm wine—
put their tongues to taste the juice,
to kiss the faces of roses.
I tell you, they aren't the equation
where xy=0
the shape of a doughnut
set orderly for rituals—
the contents of misery.
for their body won't be yours
to slice an orange
to fill your sac
after greasing their dreams with frost.
Tales and folktales binds
the mind's eye about firmly,
spearheading log of thoughts—
rock of words, after another
into bridges of unified force.
Father the ship on my head
fanning out memories between
the cracks of my torso why
I press myself under the sun
is s t r e t c h I n g to
kiss my toes after etching
a canvass of you in my mind.
If it is true that God restrict all mortals
from touching the personality of immortals
then maybe, I've a prayer
to pour into my memories
from portraying and plucking gloominess
& grief that holds 1000kg of botheration.
#Excelwrites #poeticrhythmn
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