By: Daniel Ajayi
Blessed are the new born like us who were told
Men who wear hair grey will rule until time winds up
—
I had a milk tooth hidden in my embryonic slit
behold a man sit on the throne
and when my teeth grew like a man with broader shoulders.
It was the same man with a divergent body who sits. I could see his hair fairer than a dove. Villagers share a tradition from his ruin/reign of eternity.
mother said he is a god. Cursed be to the god who eats
the fat of the grounds, let the head of the man who does not
let my mothers fatten in her city be hung for the undressed sky
and the birds loot his body. Blessed be today and forever.
—
Blessed are the watchmen in my country gathering income like Olókun
To be a policeman in the country, first, possess a flat tummy and when you are one, grow a potbelly.
Second, law permits you to speak no evil and on the first day of duty start by weaving deceit into your motherland.
Because we wear white and black/because we stay under the brutal sun/we become brutal/’the government hasn’t paid us’ is now an anthem at the police college/we look the innocent with the eyes of a vulture/rifle on the head/ and siphon from their suffered pennies.
Blessed be the policeman who beats my father wrongly and spits on a child who was just lost. Hell is your breathing home.
Blessed is a country where my late grandmother died without seeing the ray from the man-made light
Grandmother did not covet the land abroad
Her beliefs are angels and witches live in the country
Maybe the answer is staring at us
Why electricity can never be ours
Blessed is the old woman who believed
Until our witches are slaughtered
We have no cause to live in the shines of light
—
Blessed is the youthful strength of Nigeria
Making a sea turbulent and the wind whirl
Becoming dropouts from an institution to
Becoming a rage of evolution
Do you know youth don’t have to work like papa and mama to put food on the table. All you need is a laptop, herbalist,
and your time.
Blessed are the Yahoo boys/girls; even death knows them by name.
Daniel Ajayi is a Nigerian poet and writer. He is a fellow of SprinNG Writing Fellowship 2020. A graduate of Human Resource Management, Daniel probes truth, nature and humanity and is currently with a team that reviews for The Blue Nib. He writes from his courtyard in Lagos. When not writing, he is an internet researcher, a teacher and spends time with married couples.
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