tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-47689644056447639142024-03-08T10:23:34.774-08:00Ulo Mkpe OkigboObododimma Ohahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12343801060254012161noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4768964405644763914.post-50758948725999180022017-10-03T12:22:00.000-07:002017-11-26T04:29:10.989-08:00DARK VISITATION, a knell.<br />
<br />
by<br />
<br />
Obododimma Oha<br />
<br />
<br />
Dark visitation, the spare hand of Thanatos,<br />
Have you come for the last battle?<br />
And hiding under those slippery words<br />
Minted by ages of subterfuge?<br />
<br />
Go back with those smells of disaster and all<br />
That make the land shiver<br />
And the devil jealous<br />
<br />
Go with your garlic, water melons and carrots,<br />
Who needs a blood-soaked unity?<br />
Or patriotism that learns target shooting<br />
With my kinsfolk? Go with your eternal hatred<br />
That pretends affection, and nation that sprouts <br />
Only from one devil’s skull<br />
<br />
Go with your bleeding yams and perilous beef<br />
Your truckloads of mischief make hunger much preferred<br />
Go with your burdens of hate<br />
Through the highways of hypocrisy<br />
<br />
A nation in the light has seen darkness!<br />
Hopes to move from darkness to darkness.<br />
Has cursed itself with the greatest curse.<br />
<br />
Go with every sabo next door<br />
To bury you with their patronage and praise-songs<br />
Surely, the last night cometh soon, the last knight too<br />
<i>All riding steadily on the backs of anger</i>.<br />
<br />
<br />
October 3, 2017.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Obododimma Ohahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12343801060254012161noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4768964405644763914.post-3955592436044296962017-09-17T04:55:00.000-07:002017-09-17T05:00:05.692-07:00A Rainstorm of Curses(for every invader)<br />
<br />
by<br />
<br />
Obododimma Oha<br />
<br />
<br />
Roused, the power to curse again<br />
On beholding these many dead!<br />
Gather around, ancient guardians!<br />
Time again when you lift your <i>ọfọ</i><br />
And let it descend heavily upon the earth!<br />
<br />
Come, rainstorm of curses,<br />
In strokes and flows and twists,<br />
Come, it is time.<br />
<br />
Gather around, Great Elements,<br />
Roll up your rage into a ball of fire<br />
And drop it <br />
In the homestead of the sender and the messenger! <br />
<br />
Come, the riotous breath!<br />
Lock up the doors and windows<br />
Of those lungs that inhaled life to end life.<br />
<br />
May those unrepentant thieves<br />
Who steal from <i>Chukwu’s</i> eternal project<br />
Meet the <i>ọkụ-mgbeehi</i>!<br />
May it follow them home<br />
And harvest their welcome!<br />
<br />
<i>Nwa-nwa pụta ụwa, ọ lọkwuru!</i><br />
<br />
May miseries suddenly descend <br />
The devastating misery on <i>Eke-Ukwu</i>!<br />
The dumbfounding misery on <i>Orie-Nta</i>!<br />
The climax of miseries on <i>Afọ</i>!<br />
The finishing blow on <i>Nkwọ</i>!<br />
<br />
<br />
Obododimma Ohahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12343801060254012161noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4768964405644763914.post-81995982413672677082012-10-20T10:29:00.000-07:002012-10-20T10:34:03.586-07:00Nigeria, at Crisis O'clock<br />
<br />
At last<br />
We go our separate ways<br />
The marriage that never was.<br />
<br />
Time was<br />
When we thought our stories were<br />
Different chapters of one book<br />
<br />
Has the tribal demon not woken up <br />
Where hypocrisy slumbered? <br />
Book people against the Book,<br />
Thinkers against Thought<br />
At crisis o'clock<br />
<br />
At last <br />
We return to the darkest past<br />
To beat tribal drums<br />
In praise of ignorance<br />
<br />
The country, never a good book<br />
Where form is wedded to content<br />
Only conceived ironies <br />
<br />
At last <br />
We return to the same sad beginning<br />
The Lugard mistake<br />
<br />
-- Obododimma Oha<br />
Obododimma Ohahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12343801060254012161noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4768964405644763914.post-12059999590261349782012-10-20T10:19:00.001-07:002017-04-08T02:20:44.010-07:00Firing from the HipsThere were poets in the army<br />
Who chose to fight a war<br />
Within the war, poets who penned the pain,<br />
Poets who fired their words against war<br />
<br />
"Fire your guns, not your poems!"<br />
Screamed a red-faced commander,<br />
"Make every bullet count, you dogs!"<br />
<br />
And soldier-poets made<br />
Their metaphors show<br />
The shocking wounds, the battered men<br />
The headless bodies running to nowhere,<br />
The scream of blood against the trembling earth<br />
<br />
Those tropes hoped to change the troops,<br />
Hoped to pick the fragments of life<br />
And stitch up the wounded land.<br />
<br />
<br />
-- Obododimma Oha.<br />
Obododimma Ohahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12343801060254012161noreply@blogger.com0