THE IRONIC WHISPERER by Adewumi Olumide Benedict

Sometimes I wonder

How life can slander

The things that drench us in pride,

Turning them into waste

Like the wet intestine

Of a rotten timber that still has its root

Stuck in the soil.

Beside the posing ground,

Where the cries of “Passport!” clickers

Fuddled the air as one approached Oduduwa hall,

There, I met my memory’s memo.

The statue,

Giant, huge and raised a bit above the ground

Hawked by a flat platform,

Backed by a single-coloured chameleon.

Round its waist were joints of chain, married into another.

A Staff; tattooed with a face

Is crowned by a hen,

A hen whose legs are mythical creators.

Beads on its neck

Beads on its legs

A crown on its head,

And nakedness footwore its feet.

Under the shady wings of ancient Oduduwa hall,

It stood as years passed it by.

But this was the effigy of one called the far-off thing,

Allotted a space under a concreate shade and prestige.

And every night, when power does not cough, white light shines.

Before it, was another,

Though smaller in size and little

In sight,

Placed in a garland

Of a historical land

Its Agbada was a waterfall,

Pouring as it statically fell from the air.

It was raised above the ground

By a flat ceramic platform.

On its face was a round eyed spectacle

And on his head was its historical emblem,

A round shaped cap.

Two right-handed fingers of it

Thrust the eye of the wind

And in its stony shoes, it stood with time,

Side by side,

Under every weather that passed it by.

But this was the effigy of the one called the brilliant Yoruba warlord,

Allotted a stunning palace of flower

And placed under the sun

To be playmated with the wind and the rain

And every night, when power coughs and uncoughs,

Darkness becomes its cover cloth.

Perhaps life lives unlike life should live.

Perhaps, really unlike life should live.