Obododimma Oha


Why I Can’t Rejoice When a Bad Guy Dies
(A Tribute to Adedibully)

Because I can’t no more deal him
A blow, no, not even the wrong look, to annoy him
He goes, and I have lost
The chance to roast his ass

A bad guy may soil my talk
Then spill my wine
Just when I need him
To show me how to pour a better draught
To drink him down

He escapes twice when he dies
So I like him alive
Beside my boiling temper

I need the baddest guy ganging around
To claim my sainthood
Otherwise I’m just his evidence
That he’s too good to die


Housing a Curious Glance


the houses watch how the rambling streets tell their myths
the curious glance at running meanings
last things that hold nothing
in our crowded imagi/nations

Carrying all Your Meanings in One Casket

What is the softness in the software,
When you can’t even touch it?
And how hard the hardware
That prefers to play fragile?

How does a mouse become so tame & wise
That it follows a sec from page to page
Tying the text together instead of biting through
And spilling the meanings, to find its fun?

Which curse is upon the cursor
That makes it blink
Even when it has no eyes?

You ask me to open another window
But where are the blinds,
And where is the doorway?
Why make me enter through the window
When I’m not a thief?

Now you say I’ve reached the site
But where is here, if here is nowhere?
And if this is your home
Where are the seats
And where is kola nut?

You ask me to download
When there’s no load, no weight
And no alabarus* waiting
To carry someone’s suffering on their shoulders

So here’s the meaning, all the meaning
Placed in one casket
A little error soon
And it’s buried nowhere….


* Alabaru is the Yoruba word for porter. The alabarus normally hang around those shopping in Nigerian open markets, hoping that the shoppers will invite them to carry their purchases.



Obododimma Oha teaches in the Department of English, University of Ibadan, Nigeria. His poems have been published in Shadowtrain, Agenda, Postcolonial Text, African Writing Online, Sentinel Poetry Online, and many literary anthologies.

 
 
 
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