Odiodi Poem by Humphrey Bryant

Odiodi!
That's what they call you
I've heard that name before
I've never known you
I heard it bore holes on a lion's fore.

Beyond the chains and pains of tribulation
That encircled us like a massive conflagration
You wiped our tears and restored our dimples
With a single amulet,
Holding our smiles like a wallet
Now in chariot of grains and rains of jubilation
That inflicted us like a massive infection
You wiped our hair and restored our pimples
With a foreign pamphlet,
Weighing our sweat on a roulette.

Thinking first a little thought
You submitted to their belittle taught.

You now call our primordial gods
Equivocal and extinct
Crawling on tarred roads where fine wheels rolled
Forgetting you once danced when their heels rolled
You parade our masquerades
For auction
For your mesh purse -
To rummage in strange lands
Perverting their function

You've abandoned your chewing stick
That decked your mouth with golden teeth
And now use brush made with fine stick
Littering your mouth with silver teeth
You've sewn your ear from our cultural bebop
Dancing to their absurd hip-hop

Lend me your eyes; so I may weep
For mine had crinkled from your whip
You've tried to shred off the black cloth sewn to your bone
And lift their accent in high tone

Odiodi!
The ample eyes developed from a bony socket
The tree may sway to the enticing wind
It will definitely return to its root -
When your flesh wither
Your bone will seek refuge in our soil.