Michael Ogbu

             ~1~

I CAN’T BREATHE (June 6, 2020)

Caramel is my flavouring body tone

Craggy, the suiting frame of bone

A body, built to a total haughtiness

The brood, a suppressed calmness

Yet, I Can’t Breathe

Born to the frailties of a severe horror

A life cramped to a mere burrow

Creeping in and out of life sorrows

My survival, a cliff too narrow

That’s why I Can’t Breathe

One step I take to make the ends meet

Several others, taken to meet my end

One day is to the serendipity of a grimy blue collar

The next, I’m subjugated to a grubby orange coverall

This is the reason, I Can’t Breathe

Today, my body is finally pinned stiff

Pinned under the cupidity of his rapacious strip

His studded knee to my neck, crushing my feeble furrows

I could only beg for a sniff of air to borrow

Oh Momma! I Can’t Breathe

The last I saw were men on a blue

They watched in a glare as my eyes turned blue

A life in one stare, snuffed out in a rush of defeat

My life, shredded like that note of a counterfeit

It’s done, I Can’t Breathe

(Rest in Peace, GEORGE FLOYD

WE WILL BE HERE TO BREATHE FOR YOU)

     ~2~

THE BLACK GIANT TREE (Aug 28, 2020)

Towering, it stands, ever green and endearing

At a spot, least frosty, yet the most fertile

Its trunk, a thick turgidity, very imposing

A bark as scarred, seeming rigidity, a shy hostile

This’ more than just a black giant tree

The branches spread beyond the bordering seas

The roots sprawl out, too many for a count 

Entangled on the surface, very bare and vulnerable

Unable to launch deep, just a tad of firmness

Sitting idly, weary of a hidden greatness

A great habitat to the crows, where they perch

A transit home to the Pica-pica, though they chirp

They pester the flourishing petals in one quick peck

Obliterating the yields to a shrivelled chaff

Yet, it sprouts best; for the birds’ long beaks

The biggish body bows lazily to a flimsy blow

The pelvis palpitates, pulling with an easy push

The fruits fall softly, only for the rodent’s savoury

The leaves, a lavish banquet for the locust loot

A perfect oasis, giving succour at no symbiosis

A day has come, the whirlwind to happen

In a whoosh-rush, erosions would wash the fortunes

The tree is stripped, the seeds unleavened

A season of sort, when push comes to shove

Then the black giant tree may dare to thrust deep its roots.

        ~3~

FIFTY YEARS AFTER THREE (Sept. 9, 2020)

First was the fight in a red pool

Where the sun rose with bleeding wools

The field flowed with blood in large pools

Three years in a battle by the two bulls

The war ended in words: “no Vs”

Then, a victor emerged as a vector

The vanquished began to vanish

An end; a beginning of a new war

Another fifty to a fight in the theatres

A sordid stage for hounding actors

Their warfare; a squalid mind of guerrilla

The weakling’s; a mere mouthed arsenal

A bull is masterful in strategies

A warfront he’s moved backstage

The new war’s his plot in murky stages

A war with no end, unwrapped in horrendous phases

     ~4~

MAN OF BRICKS (Sept 17, 2021)

Like the brick, he came fragile from a doting mould

In many layers of oomph; many fortunes in hope to behold

First of his ilk, a frame of joy to hold

A man of bricks, laid of impenetrable folds.

At parturition, he was baked in multifarious frailties

The cloud rained death and the wind blew turbulence on his tenderness

A sun was virulent, his lactation it seared to an immutable desiccation

The man, yet lived; forging his own form to an inestimable brick.

In his life he made the finest of bricks

His life and family he moulded to a solid wall of bricks

In love, truth, strength, and passion like the walls of a cohesive brick.

A man of honour; the very fine maker of the greatest bricks

   ~5~

THE MARKET DAY (Dec 4, 2022)

Hmmmm…

Once in four market days,

Some wily merchants would debouch in their milli-multitude,

A gust of dust would their skittish feet raise,

Whoosh! It hurtles down our minds, titillating us to a lasting lassitude.

This’ how we know the real market day,

The lone-pick from a forlorn quadruple,

When a crooked conviviality cocoons our bleak market air,

And every vendor displays his wares in sprawling multiples.

The merchants choose to come only on this cluttered day,

With a brown nose in wraps of brown notes,

And a tad of ingratiating grains, to palliate our persistent pains,

Such is a concocted merchandise, contrived to self-aggrandize.

On the day…

We would see their tongues spinning like the spine of a riveting roller coaster,

Words without splatters, flowing like a perennial river,

Their brazen buoyancy sweeping through our ravenous senses,

Yet, all are inanities, knitted like a yarn of unassailable yearnings.

Today, is again, the said market day,

The day the seller and the buyer would lock eyes in one guise,

And each would dare to ask: “what do I gain from this bargain?”

As the trade is a treaty for a “vote” to be bought and sold.

The rest are some three lethargic days,

The days the merchants would abdicate, disgorging our dear marketplace,

And we left to revile, and enchant our woes in wailing ways,

Knowing, we’ve sold not only our priceless votes, but our souls as mere wares.

      ~6~

WHEN WE VOTE (Jan 25, 2023)

When we vote,

We smith a steel of immortal hope,

And forge a fortress in fortification of our feeble faiths,

That our works, though weary, may live and not suffer unto death,

Yeah! We float or sink, nay, we found the foundations of our communal fate.

When we vote,

We not only cast a ballot out,

But our seeds, deep to sprout,

In hope they’d find fertility from the soil in which they’ve felled,

By this, we do our part and hope it counts,

Beating out our chests and squaring our shoulders even if we failed.

When we vote,

We may have sent forth a dove,

Right from the cleavage of our sister-rivers, Benue and Niger,

With a soothing song, abreast and beyond our borders,

Or we could be igniting a furnace of furry, from the toes of Tinapa,

To burst and burn us all the way to the soul of Sambisa.

When we vote

We either pronounce or denounce

That Peter is better, since we are free to verify,

Or that Atiku is the man who has come to unify,

Or, that BAT is strong, young, and rife to insist on emilokan like a birth-right.

When we vote,

Many things we must put to note:

Our strife comes with no identity,

It does not even matter the side of the Niger you choose to call your entity,

‘Cos, hunger no dey hold brief for Amosun against Amadi or Aminu,

E no dey even check the day you dey take pray for your next bread,

Whether na Sunday, abi na for Friday.

So, we need to bear in mind:

Insecurity has learned to swim across our ethnic lines,

Back and forth like Michael – son of the Phelps;

Our economy is a hot buffet of bountiful breakfast,

Yet, it’s served stale like dregs from a spurned fest.

Oh! We need to know,

Our PVC is the only recipe bowl,

Whence our civil cake is baked for the years unborn.

We need to know,

It’s not only our duty to vote,

But our right,

Yes! To vote right is to make things right.

                      ~7~

A GATHERING IN SOCIALAND (Aug 25, 2020)

Here’s where we’ve gathered

In one hollow space; wandering

Everyone is bickering, I’m wondering

Maybe, a few are listening

Ranting; some heads in the quarters

Sticking out from the gutters

Stinking, many mouths in vituperation;

Such is the gist told mainly in the east

Castles they’ve gathered to build

No space found anymore in the air,

But in this land, a social blink of virtual

A phony thought, adorned like a cloak

Many have said: “I’m only here to slay”

Instant; not a gram worth of a queen

No doubt, the body is a glistening sword

Slaying, the prey watches unguarded

Some look in the hands to seek what’s up

They don’t rush, not for a second stitch in time

They’d dance to the sounds of a chirpy tik-tok

A twerk in tweets, even as onlookers titter

Your face in the book, no ounce of learning

Sassy with a snap, a chat round the clock

In stern choice, I’d rather see You in the Tube

A visit with my kit, no chance you’d like’e

In prime pride, you may think you’ve killed it

Guns, only in the mind, not a single shot

A slumbered bet, if you dare shoot your shot

A target on a shadow of your own fading clout

Everyone in the space is getting mad, Ooh!

A ragtag of deviants, mercenaries of Marley

No Naira, not even a broken half of a Kobo

A breed as found only among the aliens

Hush! A fat puppy was seen, once in riches

Next, everyone heels as much as underdogs

The whistle’s blown, a raid by watchdogs

Life isn’t balanced, every kennel is in inches

As you can see, the matter we still (dey) settle

This once, we don’t even have the video

Here they haggle, but (na) them (dey) rush us

We’re ever woke, ready to ‘pepper’ them – gang

Savage! Don’t be harsh with that tag

Every status is part of the untold story

Mr. Messenger, make haste with the broadcast

We’ve gathered in witness, Social weds Media.