Burning at Fahrenheit 451
A collection of poems reflecting on some of the malfunctions of life and society — from Daniel Joe
Burning at Fahrenheit 451
They’re beating us down
We’re beating each other down
And everything goes up in flames
But they quench it just in time
So the body can still heal,
And once it does
The flames come right back up.
And now, we’re so used to it
It’s become
A thing of real irony
Like metals who say to the ‘smith:
Fire now tastes like Ice water.
There are people who have five billion
And others who don’t even have one
And some are even down ten
(Minus ten, that is)
And before,
The monsoon season
Always felt like refreshing waterfalls
Replenishing our base,
But now,
It feels like a judgemental flood
And sadly for us
There is no Noah to build an arc.
The air seems to SCREAM:
NO! NO! NO!
I’m dying, it says
Dying at the hands
Of all that is unworthy
Of noses,
And so are you.
Make no mistake,
People die
Without leaving all the time.
Some die and exit at once
But others die and just keep walking
Like zombies
And many are dying
More times than all the black cats combined,
And the country is a fire
Burning at fahrenheit 451,
And quite frankly
I see the world in the same light.
And reading a bit of history
You find the whole world
Has no base to stand on.
That scares the shit out of me.
And everything still feels wobbly
Cause the world is hopping
On a pogo stick
Not even fit enough for a child.
It’s willful blindness that keeps
Us afloat.
Women
Sometimes
It’s like they want your soul
It’s like they want your will,
Like they want everything you are
To become an object of the past.
It’s like they want you
Your thoughts
Your being
To revolve around a lie
That even plato could never conjure up.
And it’s not just the women
It’s the men too
They want the women
To look a certain way
Talk a certain way
Move a certain way
And act like Puppets
With wireless connections
Everybody wants to be Michael angelo
And they want their partners
To be pure blocks of ice
And in mere months
It becomes the perfect sculpture
With a soul clubbed into dank submission
Quietly hovering inside
Like the ball in a mouse.
This is what women want!
This is what men want!
It’s on every blog post
And instagram pic
On every YouTube vid
And quora space
And it’s running around in the minds
Of every girl and guy
Walking around
As posters for the desires
of the opposite sex
As if someone liking you
For an idle you put on
Is any better than paying for sex workers.
A Week in the Life Of___
Wake up — No time to eat.
Go to work — All that time your brain goes numb.
Get off, drive home — All the while battling traffic.
At home (eleven P.M.) — Drink beer, watch the news or sometimes a film
Press your phone, then pass out
And repeat
And repeat
Till Sunday.
Then go to church — Sing praises and pray to the God who’s been described but never seen.
Stay for meetings — Cause you’re a man and a dicken. A real godly man.
Finally (six o’clock) — Drive home annoyed and tired. Bones turning to blocks tired.
At home (seven P.M) — Go sleep for more than six hours. The first and only time this week.
But before you doze off — You think of just how much
You’d much rather be anywhere else but here…
But in 5 minutes — You stop yourself
Cause you realize
Your wife is coming in, saying something she’s said a thousand times
And your five year old daughter you’ve barely seen all week
is in her room, resting for school tomorrow.
A good school…
So she can graduate
Get a job
Just like you,
(Well, maybe not like yours)
And then she can be a responsible fragment of society
Just like you.
But you can’t help but think again — About being anywhere else but here
Except maybe prison.
You’ve heard Nigerian prisons
Are like reincarnations of the gulags.
And then — Ctrl + R and repeat
The Girl Called I
Was the butterfly
Who never saw the sun,
The recluse
Who never took solitude,
The painter
Who worked only with dry blades of grass.
She was my unrequited love
Or I was hers, I forget.
Bottom line —
There was an obsession
So great
It pulled mountains down
Caused martyrs to sink even lower
And threw shades
On every esteem
In its wake
And not to put blame
But definitely,
I was her bane
Stringing along
An almost perfect soul
Like string cheese
Across a goat farm
(If goats like cheese)
I knew,
I saw it in her eyes —
She knew
I was a selfish scoundrel
Taking joy from perverted worship
No matter
Where from.
She knew
And still, she gave
Maybe to find her own
Badly knit
And framed
Worship place– No matter where from
But to soothe myself
I asked the question– Which youth doesn’t?
Checking
For messages
From people
We don’t really like
Or likes
From people we don’t really know
Or lustful eyes
From strangers of all kinds.
And even adults are the same–
Only
They’re a little bit more nuanced
Like a Painting of
David Casper
A fellow at the 2023 SprinNG literary fellowship, Daniel Joe is a writer based in Lagos, Nigeria. As well as a Spokenword platform on YouTube, his writings and pieces can be found in a number of literary magazines, including Brittle Paper, The Rising phoenix review and Afritondo. You can see more of his work on his Youtube: A string of words.
