PART OF THE BEAT
Only you can kill yourself,
hiding your game in the shelf
living a life of lie.
Too many fellows live
but can’t survive
You must go anyway
but don’t go away
Place your feet on the ground
while you’re still around
Just doodle it
you can take the hit
Don’t fret the heat
it’s part of the beat.
____
Here I was, talking to myself, as I moved up and down the scaffold.
Omidan (Damsel)
Artist: Moyo Okediji
Title: Two Friends and a Bird
Medium: Terracotta
Date: 2010
Artist: Pelumi Ponmile
Title: Portrait of Moyo Okediji
Medium: Collage
Date: 2018
LOOKING BACK
I
Exile, however sweet,
for home makes the heart yearn.
Àjò kìí dùn
kónílé gbàgbé ilé.
I colored the Yoruba proverb above for emphasis.
Why?
Because everybody living in Nigeria is a hero.
It is often akin to being a kamikaze pilot in WWII.
They just survived the #EndSars uprising.
WEAPONIZING MEAT What is at stake in Nigeria is much more than the crisis of the…
The idea of ILẸ̀ Ọ̀GẸ́RẸ́ AFỌKỌ́ YẸRÍ must be difficult for those who interpret reality from the binary western tradition of male/female, living/dead, organic/synthetic, plant/animal, tall/short, high/low, liquid/solid, left/right and right/wrong or past/present.
This is one of the paintings I just discovered in my garage.
The painting celebrates Robert Hayden’s poem, “Middle Passage.”
It is a really long poem.
The painting focuses on this excerpt:
“That Crew and Captain lusted with the comeliest
of the savage girls kept naked in the cabins;
that there was one they called The Guinea Rose
and they cast lots and fought to lie with her: ”
The character across the floor of the ship being whipped to consent is the lady called Guinea Rose in the poem.