Balanced Diet Poem by Osisami Michael

At the very second that lapsed
My stay in the womb,
The cot, the odour of safe delivery
The medicines' puffs in the atmosphere here and there
These lasses in white garments
And my mother in one of the mats for labourers
With half-pair of the breast stuck to my mouth,
"The breast is good for child's brain"


The wind of time has blown childhood to the past
And water my figure grow in the wilful grips of this world


Cassava flour with okra laced with palm oil without meat
Gracious to the ancients
For been fed without meat
Eating one might at this age might turn one to a thief,
If not harmed!


Peers around killed the hens
I struggled to steal their eggs in the backyard-
While the chicks roam
Both on the dunghill and
The deep forest
"I was balanced"


If I could stay myself...
Which I did
But the day of the future freedom
Seems stale now!
The strifes,
Cutting through phases of struggle
Dejected, but could tell
I afforded flour

I can remember at same age as those chicks
Been served with bread and watery tea
All gods within the four walls called me
Leap at the sacrifice placed for the devil at the T-junction
Gracious, I eat much of it now

Bread with bean cake
Bread with stew
Bread with stale butter
Bread and Zobo

My friends now lock the bars
And eat to stupor!
A season of class that
Separates us from being
Made by difference
By opportunity
Levels to levels
Shoulder huger than the other
And wealth dispersed in dispersal


My father told me same story,
Of stale glory
One night of grief

Momma taught same story
For she couldn't afford the necklace used by our neighbor few years back.
The tendency of not being extra-extravagant!



May thunder snatch whoever steal
My Destiny from drinking schnapps like that of my neighbors!