Note to a Bojeski
By Nkosi Nkululeko
“I remember how I died. It was so simple!” – The late Thomas James [Bojeski]
The shallow end of a river yearns for rain. That much I know. Stilled, with echo’s shrapnel, the water chisels its name beneath its quivering lip. Have you thought to lament for its jagged blue coating, for the body that wishes to vanish in a river thick with aqueous paint? Revel in its filling or quell the music of waves for your final sleep. To reel in the pulse that halts upon the hook, to drown in a false air is the most poetic phase of dying, much like an epic poem, the extended metaphor waiting in its own shadow. I know you are quick to release, to relinquish, to let go. The swift brush of your pen fades easily without ink’s fluency; it is much like the unfinished make-up that blurs the face. It is Lady’s Night at the nearest bar and you remain in men’s clothing in a room, damp with reverberating voices, much like a choir, much like a choir, much like a choir, much like a 45 vinyl repeating its last chorus, much like a .45 caliber that never means to repeat itself. The blood, your skull shelters, swells past the brow, through the crest of the nape. You must’ve owned a mirror to witness this elegant method of fading but for the poem’s sake, let’s say the open mouth of the gun was clearer to see through.
Nkosi Nkululeko, poet and musician, hailing from Harlem, NY, was a member of 2014’s Urban Word NYC Slam Team (Brave New Voices) and 2015’s Urbana-NYC Slam Team (National Poetry Slam), 2015 nominee for the American Voices Award, a Callaloo Fellow and has been published in journals including TheThePoetry, Rose Red Review, No Token. He is anthologized in great weather for MEDIA’s, Before Passing. Nkosi can be reached at: musicmannkosi@gmail.com.
Wonderful.