Whole Fragments by Jumoke Verissimo

Whole Fragments
For Labyrinths

On this deluge of sparseness
have my tendrils split the scales of their twining
far-far, into a distance unforeseen in the mind of mystics.

I have sampled learning from these labyrinths' secret; preserved,
drizzles of musings resisting
the heats of collective amnesia.

What if he had rained more pieces of magic sapphire?
that Okigbo
that heritage of an unborn.

Now I pore into that least of his less
discourses of all those,
I-read-him, I-read-what-looks-like-him,
I-knew-who-knew-him, I-knew-what-read-like-him.

Words of wishes have gathered greatness
into a will to swindle time,
or break wind one that carries its smell into a trillion myth
in memory of a memory that stays a memory

In yearnings I hear Silence

driving ignorance into a compulsion of assumptions
what if
renders itself an anthem, that torments our desires.

I pray and watch for Distances

But Heavensgate is a fiction when our longings are unfulfilled
how can
is the incomprehensiveness we welded a man's worth with.

I wait to break these Limits

If only I could trail this Path of Thunder

Jumoke Verissimo

Jumoke Verissimo is a Nigerian poet and writer. Her first book, I Am Memory, has won some literary awards in Nigeria. Some of her poems are in translation in Italian, Norwegian , French, Japanese, Chinese, and Macedonian. She was born on 26 December, 1979