Poetry
Jumoke Verissimo
The Raped
(for the Niger-Delta, Nigeria)
This discharge, is it oil or blood?
or conscience pricking vulvas
into piles of mangrove guilt
This discharge
consuming hymens of virgin skies;
enraging, flaring splintered hopes
This discharge
of a fluid-less pen—
is: oil or blood?
Releasing hate into sacred vulvas
ruffian thrusts, striping virgins;
leaving seeds of strife on promising wombs.
Is it oil or blood that strained the foetus
from the womb? The aborticide of
oracular births whose cords have no umbilical signs?
These days,
aged vulvas live in fear of perverts,
weakened birthing thighs seek for change,
from violent thrusts on impotent will.
Vulvas of our land have many-name contagions;
the fear of unreached orgasm trails them
Their smelly private lack confidentiality
they are a meal-time discourse.
This once-virgin thighs, now over-raped
plead for menopause…
Why does ambition in the South-South go South-South?
Is it because they are in the South
The vulva is always looking south
now it can't stop its promises from heading south
going down and getting downed
Desires
go South-South
anger goes South-South
thoughts drift South-South:
a renewal of contemplation
ponderings — is it this oil or blood
that makes all desires head South-South?
Our deformed skills and tired anger
molests dominant wills,
time it speaks against the call of the oracle.
Why is MOSOP* - soppy?
Is it this oil: this blood
that has leeched its peak?
what is MEND^ - mending?
Is it this oil: this blood
that has bleached its own?
Is it the plea to head South-South
to meet patriots of better times only
Those leeches
those boil companies,
those diseased, whose partner—
ship, steers our blood to riot
those who steered our Boro*, Wiwa^ to no return.
Those woes
who sucked our rivers dry.
See what we have become
children from the same vulva….
see what we have become
see marsh, see river
standing apart - aloof
the river shies from the marsh
like they share no watery relations
It's time this oil will be their blood
and turn against them
The sword disregards the smith in battle
this blood will oil their joy to ache.
This oil will be their blood
this blood is oil.
Those Rapist
this birth will turn against them.
If you rig a condom to prevent procreation
we shall burst its tip and still make babies
Rapist,
if you do not copulate for affection
you must reciprocate past affection
This oil is blood
this oil
this blood
will flow as it should flow
This vulva must drip fresh blood
The menopausal shall ovulate
it shall menstruate —
not clotted blood - blackened shame
sign of early aging and destitution
This meddle of affairs on arrears
this oil
this blood
this what?
this confusion of signs and times….
This discharge of rot
that persists
This seething anger has spilled over
on our farms of hope
in our streams of strength
That untimely thrust into underage vulvas
our shortened virginity has lost ancestral affinity
there is no posterity in our famished thigh
In your sinfulness
our raped vulva pleads for menopause
our oversexed vulva begs for a sex—
change, against the violent thrust on our impotent will.
* MOSOP: Movement for the survival of Ogoni People
^ MEND: Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger-Delta
*Boro: Nigerian, Niger-Delta activist.
^wiwa: Ken Saro-Wiwa, Nigerian, Niger-Delta activist and leader of MOSOP, hanged by General Sani Abacha in 1995 with eight other activists.
Jumoke Verissimo
Quick Navigation
Frontpage l Previous Page l Next Page
Last updated on 01/10/07 Site copyright Sentinel Poetry Movement. Magazine design & layout by Nnorom Azuonye.
Creative writing & graphics © 2007 The writers and artists. All rights reserved.