Portrait of Moyo Okediji
Artist: Pelumi Ponmile
Title: Portrait of Moyo Okediji
Medium: Collage
Date: 2018
Special gratitude to Mr. Ponmile for this invaluable gift. I love you.
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Artist: Pelumi Ponmile
Title: Portrait of Moyo Okediji
Medium: Collage
Date: 2018
Special gratitude to Mr. Ponmile for this invaluable gift. I love you.
Olodumare laughed when the Nigerian contingents
Stood up to present their case
before the throne of the Most High.
Olodumare said, “Active and passive
are equal and opposite
to effect the law of balance.
In the beginning
I created the most talented people
In a landscape mischievously named Nigeria.
Writing at the coffee shop.
Don’t wait for euphoria before you write, paint, play.
Euphoria lives only in your heart
Your heart gets broken and hurts
But it can handle it
Could Black life matter,
without Black thoughts
and values mattering?
The indigenous African traditions
cannot breathe:
invasive viral forces
have placed their morbid knees
on the throats of indigenous African philosophy,
science, pedagogy, technology,
TO MY GRANDDAUGHTER ON GRANDPAS DAY
I landed a fish last summer.
It begged me to catch and release.
I said I was hungry
It said better to hunger than kill
“We are all fishes”, it reminded me,
“angling in a lake of love.”
I saw the same fish this summer
Who owns your body?
Would you be shocked to learn
you don’t own your body?
Ten things, I hate to tell you,
claim ownership of your body
The first owner of your body
is your name.
Rivers of Life
Folks are flowing waters:
We fail to connect upstream,
Downstream we shall meet
Those you shun today,