tega Oghenechovwen

tega Oghenechovwen Poems

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Trying To Re-Member A Renegade

You who were once like a rainbow over our
Hills, rivers, and all our land,
In your young days
We remember how even under the rain
You mounted up your will
And flew the patched kite of Africa
That had survived the partitioning wind of 1884

We remember that Africa was the song you hummed
On the streets, in the libraries
Over your meals, on the trees
On your straw bed, even from your dreams

Yes! We still remember you
Cutting the lyrics of Africa into your mud-brown skin resplendent like the eggshell of a native fowl

Yes! We remember you
Pestering the whole village to call you ‘Nekiritude',
An alcoholic word you had picked up from the tangled tongue of a drunkard
Who only got high so he could gather momentum
To tell our village all that was true

But now,
To you Africa has become an underpants that spikes your buttocks
−A skin you wish to exchange
For the borrowed paleness of an oyibo man!
Her border has become a hurdle you fast and pray to somersault over
So you could land in Lampedusa
And be welcomed by the open arms of deportation.

With the desperate feet of a deviant
Your dream has drifted the wrong way
−Backwards and in search of the Middle Passage
It shackles you with hollow promises
And televisions you with all that the loss of self worth can buy;
It ropes itself round the waist of Europe,
It chauffeurs every car
In Asia and America;
In a uniform with your I.D emblazoned on it,
Your dream washes the dishes, the laundries,
The toilets and the floors of the West.

,
That drunkard also remembers you too
He sends his message −lucky for you− in a straight tongue:
He says one does not build an airport in the air!
He says your dream is inane and totally a mess!

We join him
With our mouths now reeking of his gin
To call your dream home!

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