REALITY SHAPED
Interested in some of my published works?
Follow Me
The Proposal
(To the colonial master)
Oga, will you marry me,
and take me home?
I can be your second
even third or fourth wife
You look so handsome
and I giggle
O: THE ORIGIN OF LIFE
To pronounce this sound,
turn your lips into a circle.
Then push the air
through your lips,
gently,
then forcefully.
The sound comes out in a continuous flow
until you are out of breath:
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
That is the sound
THE BAIT
To trap a chicken,
a few grains of corn.
to trap a dog
just a bone
to trap the antelope
okra is enough
To trap a cobra
the egg of a chicken
This is the first Akodi orisa that I constructed in 2011 in Ondo.
I had no trouble whatsoever from anybody when I built the studio-museum there.
I am therefore surprised that the one in Ile Ife, just finished in 2018, has attracted so much attention.
Photo: still in solitary confinement at home.
I’m not taking the vaccine.
Not yet.
Waiting to see what happens.
The lack of sunlight is depleting the melanin shield of my skin.
But I take Vitamin D supplements to compensate for a lack of access to sunlight.
Last night I was looking for my pet elephant and discovered it was hiding inside my beard.
That’s fake news.
Good fake news.
Moyo Okediji
Title: The Butterfly Thinks Himself A Bird
Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Date 2021
Size: 24″ x 30″
The title is an important line in playwright Ola Rotimi’s masterpiece, THE GODS ARE NOT TO BLAME.
Rotimi took the line from a Yoruba proverb, “Labalábá fira rẹ̀ wẹ́ye, kò le ṣìṣe ẹyẹ.” ̛It means, “The butterfly compares itself to the bird, but is unable to perform like a bird.”