Dem Say Body No Be Wood

NaPoWriMo, Day 9. Take 2.

dem say body no be wood.
why then do I feel like an Iroko
with dust spurting from termite slashed veins,
struggling to grow myself down this riverbank?

why am i a raft I cannot paddle down, or off,
this frantic napalm stream?

tiredness is heavy
and visits dreams that tie your limbs crude,
that anvil your chest,
that gag you with a moan congealed.

tiredness on a tandem with gravity, both in motley,
mock you there, feverishly gripping lists in hand,
and take those, too,
dancing off, manic beyond reach.

these impish lilliputians
must know
something
about all I’ll get up to
the moment I rise.

©Tolu Oloruntoba
8.29 am, April 10, 2015

Postscript:
Sometimes, life conspires to mess with a daily posting schedule and imposes sleep, instead. It’s been a difficult month for poetry, what with all the demands a day job can impose. I therefore, after posting this a whole 8 hours late, had to double back for another take. It just felt incomplete, somehow. Let’s see what Day 10 holds.