“Deprecation On The Dying Year Of ‘07″

  

  

  

I

Leap  away

I say

Atop your hateful dying horse

As the wrapping hours

Weaken your voracious force

  

II

As with all your brothers

and the embers

Of their fiery Decembers ;

Your fire soon fast

Would stop to last

III

So place

On your sinister face

All the smiles

Your lips can make

In spite of anguished reviles

From hearts you victimize

  

IV

Let your sadistic mirth bellow

Let not your conniving hands mellow

(They refuse to slow

Though dulled by the weight of age)

For when the clock chimes twelve

And folds this December thirty-first

You must in death, bite the dust

  

V

Amidst the chilly haze of the harmattan

Atop your equally old ferry-man

Before galloping out of visible light

Pause and catch a sight

Of some mementoes of your time

  

VI

Charlie Enuebuka, Afam Uzor

Mrs. Adeniyi, Mrs.Okafor;

Your gestation bears their deaths

You come with the grime reaper

You are sorrow’s harbinger

  

VII

Your hosts tenderly

Attend to your pregnancy

They share your laughter

They are oblivious of the dagger

In the pocket of your Jalabiya

  

  

VIII

Eyeless to the mates

that walk on your heels all the whiles

Your sardonic smiles at their smiles

You know they are fools

Thus soon you let your plans loose

  

IX

You wrench the dagger from a heart

Its shimmering is dulled with blood ;

Just after sight’s return

Just before rigor mortis cakes a loved one to clay,

And makes the tears blot the sunshine from the day

  

X

Leap away

I say

With your sticky scarlet hands !

Do I hear some ululation?

Is this one of celebration ? 

  

XI

Ashor Ofu ; new year!

It has come amid the hoorays of the children

And approving nods of the old men

The women chase the fowls

The Okolobias slaughter the cows

We shall name him beautiful, peaceful

We shall sing of his good tidings

We shall roll out the udu,

Beat rhythms on the ekwe

And tap melodies on the Ogene   

  

XII

But come all yea ;

Children of the “Igbos

Who live by the roadside” ;

First gather

Presently in the groves of Oboshi and Atakpo

The ancestral deities of Ibusa

Here Dibia Nsofor will decipher

And Diokpa Nwaezeapu will assure

That this one comes with no dagger

And that ill wind fans not his pregnancy

About the Author

Born in Nigeria in the year 1981; Samantha Iwowo read English and Literature at the University of Benin, Nigeria. She is presently schooling at the Thames Valley University London,for a masters degree in Corporate Communications. Aside composing poems, she writes narratives and has just finished working on her first novel.

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