I plan my work well,

you're welcome, I embrace you --


with arms wide open.

open door, open page

hello, poetry.
i’ve been writing
in the quiet corners of my life
on napkins, in notebooks,
sometimes just in my head
before sleep takes it all away.

i’m not here to impress.
i’m here to belong.
to share something real,
even if it’s a little broken,
even if it’s just
a breath
that made it to paper.

i read you,
and it feels like home
i haven’t entered yet.

if there’s room for one more voice
in your wild, honest garden
i’m here.
i’m ready.

just say yes.

You're welcome, Bob!

5: warm welcome, a kind beginning begun
___________________________________

it is a bit of a shock, the world of words
more often swallows & surrounds you up  between walls of impenetrable silence

you actually read me, heard me, even
fed me!  they taught me/us to diagram
our sentences into its component parts,
like a car going to an auto body shop,

***, my car needed a muffler but instead
I was given a new horn, and I’m in an empty
Walmart parking lot, unsurrounded,
and leaning on the horn, making
a fireworks celebration of one sound,
and your
warm welcome,  kind welcome,
to a visitor to this new planet,
astonishes & astounds, for it
seems we speak the sane/same
language, how can this be???

Is smiling a word on this planet?

Years away
A pen put down

A dream lost
A friend forgotten

Now I find them
And lift them up

Life ongoing
World spirling

Love returning
Like rewriting

Hello old friend
And welcome home

I would've loved to meet her.
The sweetness you spoke in her honor.
A gentle breeze in a month of freezes.
Electric, connective, explorative.

I would love to meet the next.
The sweetest of peas.
Only bluest when being overly fruitful.

Reflections of trekking tower of the familial tree.
Expectations of expecting in introspect.

Forgive me for being greedy, wanting to be involved in your life.
Forgive me for involving my love.

I shall let the resting rest, the ones that need rest to get rested, and give my mind and soul a rest.



Ifeanyichuku Okoro © 2023