Ogaga Ifowodo is a lawyer, a poet, columnist and rights activist. He has previously published three prize-winning books of poetry: Homeland and Other Poems, Madiba, and The Oil Lamp. He holds and MFA and a PhD from Cornell and taught writing at Texas State University. He is the author of A Good Mourning, shortlisted for the 2017 NLNG Prize for Literature
A good mourning
(for M.K.O. Abiola)
Had he kept to gathering
firewood, scouring the forests
of Abeokuta for dead branches
To keep the pot boiling
In an old woman’s kitchen
He might be alive today
Had he kept to boardrooms
once a star led him out of the haunted
bush, content to measure his power
by the banks that begged for his millions
by his vast estates across continents,
he might be alive today
revelling with women bewitched
by his magical purse, a heart
that could love a thousand at once
and be loved harderin return.
how much more might his fortune
have grown, longer the queue
of men to bow and beg
favours! but he longed
for more than money can buy,
what markets promise
but never stock, bought
only with the devil’s coin.
his faith in money
had moved mountains
From the steep roads of his youth,
would plant him atop the rock
where is friend waited with the crown.
A good morning it was: homes
Emptied into the streets
to break a spell, cut
the soldiers’ strings that played
for eight years the maddening
music of their nightmares.
A good morning it was: they queued
under the sun burning with the heat
of their resolve. Ballots counted,
the streets sang the winner’s name
and they thought the course was broken…
never reckoning with the spell-master
weighing thirty pieces of silver and a crown
How magnificent was their rage_ a splendrous
thing before it paled with the sun at dusk!
They chained him to the rock it cracked,
made a bed for him, spewing
lava on his guards caught gambling.
He would not sell the crown
bought with blood and sweat,
bought with ballots worth more
than his riches and the world’s gold.
How muted was their rage at first –
When, still chained to the rock,
they slew his wife! Mocked
daily by their guns, uniforms…..