Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Not an easy read, but I love it all the same

Sometimes our morality is just misguided...
GODLY PEOPLE
by Tosin Otitoju

Ten thousand years and
we have not changed.
Our idioms -
Climbing a mountain,
Reaching for the sky,
Family in the firmaments, ...
Recycled matter, we
kneel, we bow, we quake.

Ten thousand years and
we still yearn for a splash
of warm blood against our face;
we want to be told
who is chosen for slaughter;
we yearn for pain laughter event;
we to whom nothing ever happens
want something to happen as

we have not changed
in our lust for excitement.
Festivals get boring without
drunken excess.
We prefer our parties brimming
with gossip and fashion.
We yearn for convulsion,
and uncommon theater.
Man dies without passion.
Rules bind the pash...
rules free the pash too,
at the appointed times.

Our idioms
have not changed:
A priest fertilizes a virgin...
the land is dark, humus-rich...
pregnant with tubers,
and aglow with fruits.
A question:
if one priest bows, and another
embraces him,
what fertility is there?

Climbing a mountain
to ponder the impending suffering
when a hired priest
wastes the seeds,
leaving the waiting female earth
scorned and certainly furious...
The word from above,
at the mountaintop,
is this:
Give the people what they want.

Reaching for the sky
on a ladder of vocation:
we have bellies to feed,
and priests to direct the directors above.
The priest must put his seed
in a fertile hole,
to teach the animators
to stave off famine.

Family in the firmaments,
where bellies are ever full,
understands our prayer
for daily bread.
The word to us is politically strategic:
Spill the blood of the lazy priests;
give the people a party.

Recycled matter, we
make excellent humus soil,
bringing forth fruit,
fragrant when the sun smiles,
numerous when the rain showers fall
flirtatiously and tease
out food for citizen
families. Numerous, we

kneel, we bow, we quake.
When they above frown,
we sacrifice.
Sometimes even before they frown,
we present a small kola.
Two corpses lay on the lakeshore
in view of hooting accusers.
The party was one-in-town,
yet the famine was severe.

3 comments:

t said...

Notes:
This was published months ago in itch (as I mentioned here)

Naijatreks said...

Nice and thought-provoking, keep it up Otitoju.

-Fola

t said...

Thank you.