POLITICAL Poem: my non-negotiation for the figure of speech by Adebola Adenle

Last week, there was a choice between
choices
figures of speech.
To clock it in, something in
the wind yesterday said “we”

NO SETTLEMENT, NO DUST

and it meant the favorite fruits
and the friends
running away
and it meant trust in us
and trust in love
and trust that we’re
dutiful, and radical
lovers, something
other, sweeter too.

NO SETTLEMENT, NO DUST

The word we is a plus but, “they” has become a favorite word,
Like a container of fruit but
“They” means cool it
so they means
you were meant to die like “they” means
i dont care anymore like directness is seven
spoons, and seven
knives and seven
forks and seven
plates and seven
chairs at the table
seven seats, but the we is
twenty-eight eyes
twenty-eight hands
twenty-eight legs (a broken femur makes twenty-six “good” ones)
twenty-eight whistles of ears
twenty-eight martyrs (counting every day)
twenty-eight tents
Twenty-eights that grow into the hundreds, of thousands of we

NO SETTLEMENT, NO DUST

with no place to sit at the table,
several spoons for the hungriest of mouths
NO. SETTLEMENT, NO DUST
I didn’t know a figure of speech was also a choice
that means

NO SETTLEMENT, NO DUST

sheep and the feeding rooms
still means you can’t see
In the hospital rooms of workers,
the sweat of life, and sweatshops that never wait to die.
The body is too much gold resonating that sting
of corporate love.

Of an inertia to be used, to be
beaten, to be
cheated, to be
lied to, to be
wrong, to be
taken advantage of, to be
away from old worlds
without the land of hope

to be destitute among the vulture
without protection, alone and unloved
i can’t stomach the guts of the end
which enlists the vulture, alone.

Still that figure of speech, is my final chance to ignore
the evil, then the downtrodden, to ignore on
till i can taste the iron, and all the magma, perseverating on the lips
that lie and breed wildfire
spit and salute
that fund,
that bind,
that grime
that trill of this time on earth
the trick of the light.

What is in a figure of speech, is the space
some
we did not want to hear
“they”
suffer us, at the table,
no?