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ODIA OFEIMUN ⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯ Sermon of the King Hornsman Teacher don teach me nonsense: to look and laugh And perambulate till trouble comes like ‘expensive shit’ Spattering our Sunday best and riling the skin like yellow fever – see why blackman dey suffer! ‘swamped’ in dirty sweat that peppers vision Teacher don teach me to stumble and fret, as style And to bow, no, to prostrate to the latest minion, VIP of the block , to whom we make rankiya dade we salaam and shuffer and shmile in Jungle City toasting overcrowded molues, overcrowded prisons We go on wheels headed for the boil of the lagoon, Where tribes and moieties lose self in a stalemate of jobless lives itching to correct alleys of fear through broken speed-limits and nighttime markets where policemen collect toll for the Most High Boss Still, war-mongers of the old colony, we pinch Snuff and pennies and farthings from last hurrahs At crossroads where the Unknown Soldier hits high © Of Minstrelsy and Masks: The Legacy of Ezenwa–Ohaeto in Nigerian Writing, ed. Christine Matzke, Aderemi Raji–Oyelade & Geoffrey V. Davis (Matatu 33; Amsterdam & New York NY: Editions Rodopi, 2006). Sermon of the King Hornsman 31 in gory settlement of burnt roofs and roasted lives, breaking bitter in unseeing looting and laughing We look and laugh: what lives we live, stepping up to scratch the backs of other men as we thirst away for pure water wey e no get enemy. And, talking enemies, how redress nightmares fulfilled beyond glorious dawns after prophecies found in the mouth of the news vendor What a teacher the news vendor! such a foul mouth full of bad news that other people’s lives dictate breaking bones with words that have no encore as we sing No agreement today no agreement tomorrow and dream the World upside down in order to stand up Yes! we ask to be slapped for cash in canned laughter forever willing to bow to thugs in office, masquerades who dole out the justice of the gutter and the dustbin knowing that we fear for our mothers, fathers, children – a holy river of excuses to keep the skin unscratched A high tide of dark greed maiming hands that rise for healers of the earth in truth and freedom’s city of yabis dazed, who cares, by the smoky mother of all cannabis we wallow in muck and prostrate to Areas Fathers – strutting birds with torn feathers – who run our alleys So we ask, how many must carry our mothers’ coffins for heads of state to dine on, to alter algebras of power and army arrangements celebrating stolen presidencies? How many must walk six feet down the last mandate For heaven to turn from interim agendas to eternal dance? We look and laugh: still a whited race of shit carriers – and who says this dark skin that dresses us so well Is not bark-brave enough to rough storms and thrive And to ask the unanswerable, to civilize zombies Who make apes obey at checkpoints to liberate booty We, we stand to make palaver, we make shakara big We whom tragedies overtake as we make comedy .

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