by KREATIVE DIADEM | Dec 11, 2015 | NIGERIAN POEMS, POEMS
The Àkùko gàgàrà bears her gossips from town to town
Gossips of me being nothing but a greedy clown
The rat at home tells it to the farm rat and to the squirrel
Even the Irúnmolè informs the ancestors of our quarrel
This woman that I married was once sweet and delightful
Her hourglass figure and fair face that looked so beautiful
But now, the roar of a lion is nothing compared to her intimidating tone
Chai! Mama Déró’s words are quick and sharp — cutting into my very bone
The talking drum of Àrèmo murmurs something about my manhood
My own friends and relatives are afraid to visit me in the neighbourhood
They are not even sure if I am the true son of my Father, the great warrior of Ìjèbú land.
My God! I wonder if my manhood is still intact.
Mama Dero
Mama Déró is a terror to all — to the Chiefs and even to the Elders.
She once tried to poison me but the Lord was my Shepherd
The old women shake their heads at me when they see me pass
I live under the tyranny of a woman called Bashòrun Gaa
Kai! I married trouble. Perhaps I was under a spell
Perhaps she was an angel of Lucipher from the pit of hell
Her fair skin that glowed in the dark hid her true colours
I actually thought she was a woman with learned cultures
Aso-òpá mewa, fifty gorodom of epo-pupa
Forty-two tubers of yam and two cows, she asked for her son’s birthday
Haba! Kílódé? Is it a sacrifice to appease the gods?!
Where does she want me to get the money from?!
In fact I wonder if Déró is truly my son or a bastard
O jìgbìjìgbìjìgbì! I cannot even send my own son on an errand.
“Don’t kill him for me,” she says, “Go and get it yourself.”
Egbàmí kè! Can’t I send my own son on an errand?
Oh! I should have known Mama Déró was not a saint
I should have known when she cursed the deaf man that lives down the street
I should have known when she agreed to marry me against her Father’s wish.
Little did I know her father was only trying to warn me that his daughter is a witch.
O wretched man that I am! Who shall save me from the tyranny of Mama Déró?
P.S. Symbolic characters: Mama Dero represents the Government, the wailer represents the people of Osun state, and Dero depicts the economy of the state.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
OLUTAYO JOY OWOJUYIGBE is a 500L medical student of the University College Hospital, Ibadan. She believes in immortality via writing and loves to write about mysteries. She is currently working on her first novel.
by KREATIVE DIADEM | Nov 17, 2015 | SHORT STORIES
THE MURDER (A SERIAL STORY)
Episode 1
There was blood everywhere— thick frank blood! How can anyone have this much blood? She gasped and quickly wiped her fingerprints off the pistol with the green shawl he had bought her for Christmas.
Mark wasn’t breathing, he wasn’t moving either, he looked really dead. She bent over him and felt for his carotid pulse but he had no pulse. Are you kidding me? It was just one bullet shot, it couldn’t possibly have hit him that hard, could it? Okay, maybe it could. She had shot him right in the head and the bullet had gone through his glabella all the way to the occiput— a clean breakthrough. Fortunately, the bullet hadn’t split his skull open. What would he need an intact skull for anyway? He was as dead as John F. Kennedy.
Caramel grabbed her tote bag and hurried out of the apartment. She thought of calling 911 but it seemed like a bad idea. When she got downstairs, she waved down a taxi and hopped in. “Malta Washington Street!” The Hispanic driver peeped at her through the rear-view mirror as though it was apparent that she had just killed a man, and she panicked. “Now!” she yelled at the man and he drove off.
When she got home, she went straight into the bathroom and washed the blood stains off her face but the blood stain was stuck on her jean jacket and she couldn’t get it off. She pulled off the jacket and hid it in the leather box underneath her bed.
She sat at the kitchen counter and poured herself a drink. She couldn’t stop thinking about it. She had really wanted to kill Mark but not with a gun, perhaps with a slow poison. She wanted him to suffer like she did, she wanted him to pay for all the years he had stolen from her, she wanted revenge and she had it, but she couldn’t believe she had killed a man with a gun.
Maybe he wasn’t dead, maybe someone would find him in his apartment before it is too late. But Mark was dead and there was no doubt whatsoever about that, she only wished she hadn’t killed him.
She turned on the TV in the living room and flipped through the channels, there was no news about a recent murder of a man named Mark Stone. She picked up her mobile phone to call her lawyer and then she hit an epiphany. No one needs to find out about Mark’s murder, no one needs to know that she killed him.
She sprang from the couch and went to get her tote bag from the bedroom. The gun, where was it? She hadn’t seen it since she got back home. She searched her tote bag for it but it wasn’t there. She panicked again. The gun was missing.
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TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK….
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
OLUTAYO JOY OWOJUYIGBE is a 500L medical student of the University College Hospital, Ibadan. She believes in immortality via writing and loves to write about mysteries. She is currently working on her first novel.
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