What it means To Carry the Grief of a Country in one’s Body—Omodero David Oghenekaro

Let us begin with a nation unto whom freedom was gifted
            & the woe of the pontificators
who thought we would become nothing     like them…
 
I met two men today
             One staunch-faced with the beard of an Israelite,
The other, a man of little sorrow, who argued he was already dead as a citizen of the country,
 
wrestled him out of the bank premise to the dust,
              Together, they paid homage to their future selves
 
Scrambling in rough strokes & a thousand footprints,
              their jagged wills on dust; blood trails bearing witness 
 
To the disaster that would befall them when the bearded man would
              traction the dead man to the mouth of a chimera that would be the expressway
 
just because of the misery of my country.
                 So we sadly realize a country that is, in itself, a helpless prey as well as the ravenous
 
predator suctioning blood into its bowels
All to the glory of corruption. 
 
The men in my country are men whose arms
                   Have weathered all kinds of jobs; palms thick & callused,
but still looking for purpose. 
 
Here most deaths are performed, no longer as a tribute to old age,
               But as the last resort[an act of 
submission] to remedying a Body that has borne suffering  like tribal marks  all the days of its being.
 
Sometimes I look at my father’s Body in all of its fullness—
          The folds of flesh on his paunchy stomach, his eyes,
A relentless fore-teller.    Tongue, the revolt of a hen bereaved of its chicks
 
I try placing this large mass of worry on the weighing scale of my country
           & I discover, sadly, it weighed nothing in the end.
 
 
 About the Author 
 Omodero David Oghenekaro is a Seventeen-year-old Nigerian Writer and poet who hails from Delta State. He’s currently an undergraduate student of Biomedical Technology at University of Port harcourt. He admires Poetry that cuts deep into the senses regardless of theme. He’s been published in Nantygreens and Pride magazine Nigeria. He tweets@OmoderoDavidOghenekaro