When I look at myself
in the mirror, I see an
18-year-old teen who
grew up too young.
10 years before 18,
I was an 8-year-old
girl living off food
stamps and strangers.
10 years before 8,
my mom was 27
and my brother
was born.
10 years before 27,
my mom was 17
and attending a
tailoring school
her uncle had paid.
10 years before 17,
my mom was 7 and
had her first comm-
union. 6 years later,
she would lose
an arm.
50 years later,
I am 28 years old,
and when I look
in the mirror,
I'm still 18 years.
It's been 10 years
since then,
nothing has changed,
not for the better,
not for the worse.
10 years of continuous
time loop and I stay
stranded in my thoughts.
My brother left,
My sisters are still kids,
my parents needing help,
I stay stranded along
the way.
Has God left me since then?
I wish I knew his thoughts,
I wish I knew his plans,
I wish I knew what comes
after this life if at all
I make it.
Sometimes I wonder
if I followed a different
path back then,
would 10 years ago
made a difference?
We are the fabric of life, not politicians or governments. They are only buttons, snaps, and stitching holding the fabric together. Zippers and velcro control the flow and access to the fabric. We are the ones who repair and care for that fabric. We replace the lost buttons, sew the tears and hem the cuffs. We also decide what goes in the pockets. We can’t allow the fabric to be compromised and burdened with the wrong buttons and tailoring. We must look to each other for guidance to help remove the dirt from the fabric. We must empty the pockets full of lint. We must open the pockets sewn shut. Once the pockets are open they must stay open for all. They must never be a place for lint and perceptions again.
Tailoring path of grass
Jungle and meadow
What the boots hiked for
So many answers
From faith to maid
From stubborn to airborne
From nail to snail
I had gone
I had born
Tailor is not tailoring
Jungle is gone
The boots had won
I'm open for business except Sundays from nine to nine.
I have a 5-Star rating from the BBB because my work is very fine!
I specialize in tailoring garbage bags for we folks who were so named,
By a doddering old geezer in the White House who ought to be ashamed!
You must provide your own 30-gallon bag which usually comes in black;
I'll form fit it and for an extra fee will stencil MAGA in huge letters on the back.
Five bucks is the cost or if a vet or a senior a 5 percent discount I'll advance.
You'll find it very appropriate wear at rallies or any other such circumstance!
Certain yarns with needles knit
Are not strong and likely will split
So please keep in mind
The seamstress is kind
And insists on try-ons for fit
Everything’s been said before;
The goal’s to find a way
To tailor those familiar thoughts
To fit beneath your sway.
You choose a pattern and a swatch
Of fabric that appeals,
Then cut and stitch until, at last,
Your feelings it reveals.
Along the way, you change a word
Or rearrange a phrase,
Then try it on, assessing with
A slightly biased gaze.
When done, you snip the final thread
And put it on display,
Content to know you’ve said exactly
What you meant to say.
Male gnomes are known for their tailoring and sewing skills.
They live in roots of oak and pine trees at the bottom of the hills.
People make appointments and they fashion them into suits.
They dress giants, gargoyles green goblins and galoots.
Female gnomes are known for the entertaining prowess.
How can we explain this? Please forgive but allow us…
They visit each other’s houses and laugh about the dust.
None of them like to cook or clean, their stoves all go to rust.
I want to be a gnome! I said.
My daughters chimed in “yes!”
But a female gnome of course.
Their life would suit us best.
Although she's always attired in exquisite clothing,
Miranda Vasquez dances, but she's not a socialite.
She spends most of her days embroidering dresses
and decorating flowered fans long into the night.
Her finely sown garments would fetch a nice price,
but money is not what brings Miranda great joy.
No. For she gives them away to low-born ladies
who proudly wear her raiment of felt and corduroy.
Her garments are beautiful works of creative art,
similar to grand paintings from a master's brush.
Bright and bold colored fabrics she loves the most,
green, gold, and crimson hues of cheeks in blush.
Miranda is loved by young and old in her village.
A legendary figure she's bound to become in time.
With her dark lashed eyes and dainty red lips,
she's adored for her heart and tailoring, sublime.
A lot of sweat gives us pain.
The forest is likely to rain.
Tropical roundwood hugged in stain.
Fossil hydrocarbon and its contain.
People reject geological abstain.
In small patches, dioramas are aware.
Often, in the remote, we felt the stare.
Small-thicket Cantigi snare.
Small-scale landholders blare.
Gave us a nightmare!
His heeded head hits the hot rock so hard
His arms save himself turns the scary prey
He holds not unto the pain to turn card
Glad of what's been achieved though at delay
Many are gleamed moments of near trial
Tailoring outcome; fear and hope apiece
If he couldn't win her heart; mistrial
For love and peace sake, all mess are treat less
Many are times he was been rejected
And never broke-open the veil of his goal
Stronger is inspiration injected
Unlike most pirates words seen a glycol
Man goes through a lot of tease just to woo
Woman also fear love won't turn dark-blue
© 2020
® Olábòsóyè Wèmímó Oláolúwá
I have stepped
into a shadow.
I am trying it on for size,
taking it in here,
letting it out there,
lifting the hem.
The task complete,
I smooth a crease,
adjust the lamp,
and flick some
leftover darkness
into a corner.
First published in Alba: A Journal of Short Poetry, Issue 35, Winter 2021
Propensity to perfection won’t cease,
Enslaving us to “more and better” mode.
Ruthless ego we strain hard to appease,
Carrying “What Others Think” – quite a load!
Endure all flaws and failures with distress,
Propelled by insecurities within,
Tempt tailoring ourselves, nevertheless,
Inside out of the comfort of our skin.
One only alteration does make sense -
New insight vision and much sharper lens.
January 22, 2021
Contest: All Yours
If I were a poet
I would pour pieces
Of my heart on pages
Paint in crystalline clarity
The anguish of my ancestors
My poems would be embroidery
Tailoring the strives
of this generation
I would write aspiration
on the mountains of mama Liberia
That her children - yet unseen
Can see and maintain our dreams
If I were a poet
I would write the dead to life
How deep can a poem be to cause a resurrection?
I would write poems so deep
Even the earth will use as its axis
I would perform spoken words
That would send you in awe
Because I would play on more words
Than any dictionary ever did
I would take the hand
Of my pen in marriage
And you would call me
Mr. Inkredible
If I were a poet
I would use my writings
To spray the fragrance of principles
As prove that if you keep
standing for yourself
You can become statuesque
If I were a poet
I would write the name of my Motherland
In every anthology I see
So that someone somewhere
Can see the beauty of my lineage
I would use words
To build skyscrapers of optimism
The truth is
I want to become a poet
But
I haven't found the right words yet
Everything has been before
Stars and failures
So, of what good is this repetition
If men are born to die
Why then are men born?
Just to exist?
Or adore Who before creation
Has always been adored?
Oh! yes, this world is useless
Today I am; tomorrow asleep
My wealth, poems and all
What good to my soul would it be?
When willingly I would summit my flesh
To termites beneath.
What will my rest victory over
That in past men haven't achieved?
Tell me the use of this useless world
Oh ye, who have a say.
But remember we get our
paradise in this useless world.
We expect ourselves as good
in this useless world.
The world makes us good
if we desired to be good.
The world help us do what
will pleasure us in paradise
Through many means.
Charity and alms, prayers and faith,
Loves and likes, buying and selling,
Marriage and bearing off-springs,
Assistance and striving for freedom,
Tailoring and fashioning, establishing
and demolishing, and thriving and dying
are all done in this useless world.
A waterfall is neither a moon beam nor is it icing dripping from a big cake. It is wise to build fortresses of ice in skating weather but skiing weather cannot make the deadline so the cross country brigade of brigadoons are in areas unvisited and therefore unexplored by mankind. Cleanliness in a goblet goo and bleached bath bombs can eradicate even the most stale smell of blemished food. But watching a movie on a six mile screen is equivalent to eating banana peel on a motorway in a lay by. Tailoring treating treatments taking talismanic traders talking trees. And a big wide berthed arch on a canal path is exemplary style of an architectural wonder. Xx beanbags xx diagramming diamonds xx stratification z that was the p y q reporting from a snow globe.
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