Remi Raji

1963 / Ibadan

Dreamtalk (with musical accompaniment: drum, cello or guitar)

I will like to turn you inside out and step into your skin
To be, that sober shadow in the mirror of indifference

Look at me, slowly, behold the irises wherein you hide
Wherein lies the ultrasound of hidden bleeding images

And because you shift, you shift, you shift and shift
I can tell you cringe to see the hypnosis of your own silence

For I am the last tomb of an invisible age of the dead
I am the first to spread the resilience of resurrection

For you I tremble to speak like the restless trombone
I thirst to contain songs like the basket of chants

But you shift, you shift
You shift like the cynical child of an impatient father

You shift because you fear to hear your own mimicry
You shift and run like the extra day in a leap year

I will wait at the dock of your roundtrip pretence
Or like grandfather's ageless stool in the square

I will wait never to abandon you to this deafness
I will like to tell you things you know but never know.

And because ours is a deep-scarred cataract of anguish
I will love you still in this age of hate and cholera

When you reach the crossroads where nothing means
Then you will read the road map on my face

And out of my lips will fall the seductive words of life
Because death is nothing but impossible silence

And out of your lips the first syllables of light
The first theorem of delight, the first desire of forgotten desires

Together we shall surprise the world of the spirit
Together we'll be the envy of the world of the flesh

In your shadow I will see myself and you in mine
And no one mirror will contain the sinews of our image

We will walk a thousand years back, back
To the hills, valleys and the beach of beginnings

You will use my voice to compose new songs
And when I open my mouth, the voice will be yours

In the fresh frenzy in the lyrical light
In the volcano of valiant passion, in these-

We will dream dreams and our dreams will become
The cushion stones of new times, new seeds, new fruits

Our dream, my dream, but where are you in this trance
I will go back to the crossroads I'm sure you're waiting...
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