Victor Osemeka | Talks of War

Talks of War

A man and woman sit talking in low tones,
the sound of their voice is the colour of blood.
Ears tingle with each syllable uttered. For the first time
we understand the grammatical terms ọsọ, ọgwụ, ọnwu,
realize how a house you planted flowers and painted oil on canvas
can become your mausoleum and burial ground.
The shyness in our hearts is erased by the frankness in their voice.
We quake as they rationalize: now that So and So have been hanged
and now that Him and Her have been lynched,
what proof does a people need? Their decision:
impala must flee if they hope to escape the lion.
We begin to pack. We learn how to unhang pictures from walls
by mere looking, pull degrees from drawers without touching them,
stuff interiors of boxes with the fear circulating in our veins.
We form a human chain, its head lies in the parlour, tail
at the motor park. We leave nothing but a sliver of our souls
and a shadow of our selves. Neighbours watch
with whom we fought and laughed. They do not
help, do not ask what troubles neighbours.
Their eyes are firebrands, tongues icebergs:
draw close and you will burn, touch them and you will freeze.
We are not Jews, ark and covenant we have none and
neighbours do not shower neighbours with gifts. Neighbours
shrug as we negotiate streets crowded with bodies.
This is the meaning of love your neighbour and bless your enemy.
This is the reason for the colours in a country’s flag.
This is why a knife cuts a throat and the audience call it sport.
This is why a tribe must survive, revive, return to a place
where neighbours watch while neighbours are slaughtered.
Why, like Jesus, we must say see my palm, touch my side.
I live. Runaways live. Refugees live while surprise
flashes on faces, disbelief on curves of faces.

—–

Burden

We sit on stumps and fallen logs, brothers, but not identicals.
The difference shows in the broadness of his shoulders and the
shortness of my fingers. Papa has said Alloy
is the lion that will rule the pride of this family.
We talk, not with tongues but with the
drone of branches and the hum of trees.
The silence is itself a bird that sings in Latin and Swahili.
Now it begins to speak, to clarify the tension that has
ruled our space for the past few weeks.
It tells me I must stay, mama needs my voice which can
calm thunder, control earthquakes. To Alloy it urges go,
there is glory beckoning from the field. To us it says
today I plant a rapier between you two so your thoughts
never meet. The silence dies, trees resume humming.
We look at each other. We know what we must do.
Without a word Alloy gets up, gives brother a nod
and walks off, affecting a gait that suggests
do not tell. Lie if you must but do not tell.
I turn, head back into the house, knowing from now on I
must endure one burden: if he returns
there will be no need for a handshake — the hand
may well have been eaten by fire. If he does not I
will have to look away each time a bugle sounds,
each time a vulture caws. Plus bear the pain
of having to tell a mother that her favourite
is somewhere among the stars, teleguiding our destinies.
As for papa, he will have to have a
substitute lion shipped from abroad.
And he will have to deny the difference.

—–

Witness Box

We swarm, locusts into the hamlet, land
on cocoyam, okra, cassava — every blade green and growing,
gobble fruits and vegetables, masticate roots and tubers,
by which I mean shoot one and all. A wall falls,
window flies, floor erupts in purple fire. The
sun hides, takes cover behind a barbed wire fence.
A red odour clouds our nostrils. We marvel at the compliance,
the acquiescence one can force by pointing a mechanical
length of steel. We crowd into the roomlets…
There is always a wife or daughter, sprinkling sadness over a body.
We pull her by her hair, splay her on the carpetless floor,
baptize her in the name of the hymen, and of the blood, and of the unholy
screams, laugh, tell each other there is nothing more stimulating than
stolen love. Ugly ones we shoot, beautiful ones we bruise.
Break barns, confiscate food, water, calabashes of palm wine,
dance while drums of victory vibrate the roofs and surrounding hills.
Scratch a match, watch it land, a vulture on the crooked branch of the thatch.
By now we have learned the usefulness of caution,
how to shut tight a door after one has exited a house.
Satisfied we swivel round, forward march to another hamlet.
Another roomlet…

—–

Part of Me

Part of me still lives,
buried in the red soil of Abagana

Several times a day when I wash, cook or scrub
I pause and wonder:
what would she look like,
should she walk across the compound now?
Tall, hazel eyes, supple limbs,
like her mother?
Short, like Juachi who wrestled
and threw a man?
Thin, like a stick
when it falls from a tree,
raked by cold and the sulphuric sun?
Or fat, like the elephant in my dream
though multitudes and crowds
cry to God for water and bread?
Would she hold high a head of braids,
and glide with arrogant long strides,
like her father when he swaggers from the hunt,
swinging a gun that has shot
no more than a hare or guinea fowl?
Maybe her nails will curve
with manicure and cortex,
or bend like mine from cracking nuts.
Perhaps her breasts would point,
green like the hills at Unubi.
Perchance her skin would glow,
lips split with a million suns,
elbows bend,
hips sway,
tantalizing and soft and draw
a crowd of suitors
who beat moth wings
in their rush to find
the fountain of love

My friends say I soliloquize
and I stare with gazelle unblinking eyes

I know I see bodies as they stumble
between compound walls,
stiff, supple, black and smeared with blood,
white and shorn of flesh while others
walk with heads clasped in severed hands

I see her too —
my twin and facsimile,
she visits and we sit on the porch,
gossip, tell tales, laugh till evening falls
and passers wonder how many are we
and when she rises to go I tell her wait,
stay one more minute, month, year
while she declines, drags us with her,
insists I must accompany her,
past corn and cassava,
past oil and coconut palms,
past headstones and sarcophagus,
past soil and sky
to where her kind must go,
to where my kind must not.

—–

Poetry © Victor Osemeka
Image: ChatGPT remixed