Guest Blog: Two Poems by Yemi Soneye

Vases in Café

A queue that’s unable to end

at the bridge.

Ending, beginning.

And headline smouldering away from its paper.

Where is everyone going? – girl at my table.

I looked at them again:

The mouths

in the picture on the wall.

Still parted. Into vases

made of glass you can’t see.

Waiting for me. To take my voice.

I should whisper

into desire she said

best, off me, nipples feeling

against candle-splotched dark

to slip through my mouth

set on my tongue. Whisper

look away.

But in this café,

except me who must stay human,

all grows into a flower,

none can leave except as one.

I’ve brought her to be a rose,

to be her desire if she

could be fixed.

O, the vases they’d set her in

if I saved her

or ended this poem

differently.

Her Face Torched So Pure And Fierce

We kissed as if to begin speaking with a tongue.

Time (a year), distance (230 miles approx.)

and sun that burned

each bond

we applied between us

all knocked

down.

Humans,

one of the punishments

is to revenge.

Thus her warmth dipped

into the foil clouds

and fed on now mellow sun

before it would hurry out of the ceiling.

Hard, my soul’s knees longed

to bend and worship

all that’s good.

Yes I, the unholy.

Her face torched so pure

and fierce.

___________

Bio: Yemi Soneye works economics when not writing poetry. More poems by him can be found in Maple Tree Literary Supplement. He is at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife.