A BOY PLUCKS DESPAIR & SHOWS IT TO GOD

1/2/2023

By Elisha Oluyemi

in moments of darkness, i give mind to a withered flower
and wonder why it was hidden away from
the joy of spring:
the season approaches, the greens are full of longing, but thirst is a box of chocolates.
why did a man pluck a marigold and stash it in a pot?

i see the bleak of night,
how it descends upon us like the sudden rain.
does God bare their teeth and gobble up the innocence of a kid,
or they only snatch up reality like a thick duvet and drape it over him--

is this God's way of making reality dawn on him?
is this their way of enlightening this dust instead of steering him towards the forbidden tree?

i have seen the biggest wonder:
how the darkness of the womb doesn't restrain the blind baby from coming into our world.
the mother growls; the baby finds its path—the blind walking without a stick.

God's creations—full of contrasting conjunctions. all the buts and yets and howevers, broken sentences--
and in Yoruba, shades of but are called ṣugbọn, metaphors for bad luck,
blatant echoes of darkness.

But I've just realised:
in this poem, not all buts lead us down the abyss.
say:
no light at the end of the tunnel, but the beacon may appear when you reach the end… the night is a tunnel—until golden rays line the skies.

Writer's Biography

Elisha Oluyemi won the 2022 Lagos-HCAF Writing Contest (Prose) and came 1st runner-up in both the Shuzia 2021 Short Story Contest (2nd Ed.) and the 2022 Flash Fiction Contest. In addition, he co-edited the PROFWIC Crime Fiction Anthology, Vol 1.

Elisha has his writing published/forthcoming in journals, including Mystery Tribune, Brittle Paper, Entropy, The Hooghly Review, Iris Youth Mag, Hotpot Mag, African Writer, Salamander Ink, Erato, Neurological, Kalahari, Nymphs, Shallow Tales Review, Sledgehammer, Arts Lounge, and elsewhere. He writes in the psychological and literary genres.

25 Comments

Chimezie

1/2/2023 07:49:03 pm

This poem speaks directly to me. Yemi, your mind must be a beautiful place.

Elisha

4/2/2023 09:33:54 pm

Your words are kind. Thank you so much for leaving your thoughts, Chimezie.🥰

Hyebi

2/2/2023 12:18:17 am

아름답게 빛나는 말들~^

2/2/2023 12:10:01 pm

혜비야! 읽어서 코멘트까지 좀 놓아서 고마워라🥰

Naemerem Favour

6/2/2023 02:46:03 pm

There are many ups and down in life, many life interrupting events that make us ask questions. We seek inexistent answers to many questions about life.

Personally, most times I wish life has a manual, a straight and comprehensive one.

In this poem, you let us understand that not all challenges leads to our end, some are made to make us stronger. The future may look bleak/unpromising, but we may find reason(s) to continue at the end of our troubles.

Elisha Oluyemi

27/7/2023 03:53:31 am

Thank you so much, Naemerem. I'm so happy to read this. 🥺❤️

Mercy Emmanuel

7/2/2023 03:48:22 pm

This is beautiful.
You work nicely with words!

Alhassan Musa Maibasira

11/2/2023 08:48:58 am

The Rhetorics were amazing! I love questions like that. And in the end they were all answered by the same poet.
If this isn't the peak of creativity, I wonder what is.
Thank you for this

27/7/2023 01:02:53 pm

Thank you so much, Alhassan. Thank you. 🥺❤️

Peter Rangmak Dajang

11/2/2023 07:52:24 pm

Very beautiful piece. Keep it up.

27/7/2023 01:03:14 pm

Thank you so much, Peter.🥺❤️

Oluwadamilare Akinsole

11/2/2023 09:12:09 pm

How have it come to be this. Men are so strong, even their word is strength. I must say through the dark womb I came into the dark world and yet beautifully I live. Mr. Elisha you have a beautiful diction in expressing your circumference and how still you survive, beautiful. Not all the marker of misfortune 'but' leads down the abyss. In the negativity of man, it realizer is made positive for a good cause.
We all didn't choose to give up, we fight while others hawked their sandals on their turning back home with speed. Mr. Elisha I love everything about your poem 'thirst is a box of chocolate'- though I don't know the meaning, I believe it's of magnitude.

27/7/2023 01:03:53 pm

Your words are kind, Damilare. ❤️
I'm glad to have them.

Favour Jackson

11/2/2023 09:55:47 pm

I had to read it for the second time. The second time, slowly trying to connect each word and lines to the one that was before it. Though I fully understand the situation painted, I can't help but think and feel how this piece corresponds with my life and thoughts
I must say it is a great work

27/7/2023 01:04:17 pm

Thank you for reading and leaving suck nice thoughts, Favour. ❤️

Adesiyan Oluwapelumi

12/2/2023 07:24:50 pm

"A boy plucks despair and shows it to God" is a cathartic piece exploring the throes of existence and the bleakness of reality.

With evocative language, Elisha highlights the pathetic and despairing totality of life and seeks to illumine this darkness. He calls us to share in his depressing melancholy for the dystopic world he inhabits. In an analogical reference to Ron Padgett's poem" How to be Perfect", he holds despair at arm's length as though a glass ball and adds it to his glass collection. This is to say, there are more things to despair about than to hope on. Elisha tells us to gloom with him in the opening lines of this piece.

The first stanza, written from an abyss of depression reflects on the gothic scene of despair using similarly gothic metaphors such as a "withered flower hidden from the joy of spring" and "the stashing of marigold in a pot. “As Abdulmueed Balogun once said in his poem, "IT IS HOPE THAT KEEPS THE FLAME OF DREAMS DANCING", Elisha antagonizes this declaration and says it is despair that blows the candles of dreams.

In the second stanza, Elisha inquires if the draping of the duvet of the night's bleakness is God's way of making reality dawn on him. He asks again if this is their way of enlightening him instead of steering him towards the forbidden tree? Elisha ask does God gifts us with tough times just to see us savor in our aching searches for happiness or deliverances from hardship.

In the fourth and fifth stanzas, Elisha invites us to the biggest wonder he has beheld: and with a crackle of speculative verses, he reflects on the dreary scenery of the world again, revealing to us how God's creations are always full of conjugations: a parallelism between fortune and misfortune; joy and sadness; loss and birth.

In the concluding stanza, like a mathematician screaming eureka at the sudden arrival of a solution to a trying question, Elisha learns anew a valuable lesson on hope: how no light at the end of the tunnel doesn't mean the beacon might not appear when you reach the end. Elisha offers to us this knowledge saying after the night there will always be morning. After the struggles, there will always be victory. He urges us to stay steadfast in faith, our tomorrow will be luminous like golden rays lining the skies.

27/7/2023 01:05:52 pm

Pelumi!!! It really hurts me that I didn't see this review until today.🥺 I deeply appreciate your time taken to write me a feedback as great as this.

I'm awed. Really. Thank you so much.❤️🥺

Aharanwa Blessing Chidinma

13/2/2023 04:22:52 am

Elijah is good with creating Beautiful mental pictures.
He talks of drought, famine and at the same time gives rain to their transformation.

His choice of metaphors and the hope he creates at the End gives a clearer picture that, we should be hopeful: "the beacon may appear when you reach the end… the night is a tunnel—until golden rays line the skies."

27/7/2023 01:06:46 pm

Aw, thank you so much, Aharanwa.🥰

Felix

13/2/2023 08:47:00 am

This is a moving and thought-provoking piece of writing that touches on universal themes of life, death, and renewal. It is full of vivid imagery and thought-provoking questions, inviting the reader to consider their perspectives on the world.

The poem is an exploration of the dichotomy between light and dark, and how the two exist in conjunction with one another. Elisha's mention of the withered flower, the descending night, and the blind baby serve to reinforce the idea of cyclical change and renewal. Elisha's first muses on a withered flower, pondering why it was hidden from the joy of spring. Then he delves into the darkness of the night, asking whether God is responsible for taking away innocence or merely covering reality. He thereafter marveled at the blind baby, who is not hindered by the darkness of the womb and finds its way into the world and subsequently expresses his realization that not all "buts" lead to the abyss, and that the night is merely a tunnel until the golden rays of the sun appear.

Elisha did all I have mentioned above very well, weaving his words carefully and intelligently; however, I think he could develop the themes and images further, and perhaps clarify his stance on the role of God in the world. In all, it is an excellent piece and I enjoyed reading it - I am sure anyone would.

27/7/2023 01:07:21 pm

Beautiful words you have for me, Felix. I love them. Thank you so much for this!🥺🤗

Abubakar Maimuna Esther

13/2/2023 10:47:22 pm

I must say, the comments have all given a wonderful interpretation of this work. Kudos to Elisha Oluyemi! I see he writes in hangul too! 안녕👋🏿
The mention of 'sugbon' made me nostalgic. I remembered my high school language class teacher, it was either she uses 'sugbon' or 'amo' with a deep throated accent when reading our literature pick for that term. Wonderful times!

However, two lines made this piece 'it' for me.
The first is; the greens are full of longing but thirst is a box of chocolate. This shows the true despair!
Why should one seek for what shouldn't be lost?

The second is found in the fourth stanza. I took/understand that stanza literally! It's indeed one of the biggest wonder!
I love the title of this well cooked piece, its fitting!
Keep doing well Elisha.

27/7/2023 01:08:10 pm

Hiyaa, Maimuna!

Thank you so much for this, really! 읽어 코멘트를 남겨서 감사합니다!🥰

Ugochukwu Anadị

18/2/2023 04:38:13 am

“in this poem, not all buts lead us down the abyss.”

The two lines above presents a summary of the message Elisha wishes to pass in this poem. It marks a turning point in the poem of despair, a point where hope comes to the hopeless, where ‘but,’ the twists and turns we encounter in life that comes with long spells of sad news after a very brief spell of good news can come with a long spell of good news too.

The poem charts despair but not for the fun of it. It chronicles despair not for the sake of despair but as a stargazer in constant outlook for that sliver line of silver lining in the black clouds and this Elisha does so beautifully well. One can only but love this poem (and this is ‘but’ as a positive conjunction 😊)

27/7/2023 01:09:19 pm

Gawd! I'm so glad to read this from you Ugochukwu. Really, thank you for writing this for me.🥺❤️❤️

A BOY PLUCKS DESPAIR & SHOWS IT TO GOD

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Copyright @SprinNG

A BOY PLUCKS DESPAIR & SHOWS IT TO GOD

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Copyright @SprinNG​

Copyright @SprinNG