~ Kitche Magak
We buried my mother, Ogodo Wene, this afternoon,
She was murdered two weeks ago.
Some say Ogodo rode the storm with steel for veins,
A sovereign forged in wailing fire
Her voice, a blade, her eyes, a crownless throne,
That she walked through whispers, ruthlessly efficient.
Others say Wene weeped where no one else could see,
A butterfly fluttering under the weight of mindless expectations.
She held the dusk within her silken hands,
A stoic matriarch painting sorrow into possibilities.
Some insist that Ogodo shattered lives with a smile,
The tyrant’s ink writing her every step
Each syllable a groan, each groan, a harrowing tale
A true queen of ash in armor.
Others insist that Wene kissed the thief and the leper,
Breathed light into their hunger and their grief.
The bread she broke never named charity,
Yet every outcast felt the heavens heave with joy.
Some maintain that Ogodo’s laughter killed a thousand dreams,
That poets bled her name in crooked stanzas.
Her court, blood and roses, law and dusk
An enigma that ruled in savage silence.
Others maintain that Wene sang the wounded back to health,
And dared to dance with dearth, famine and plague.
Her lullabies wore scars, not soft cradle laces and wools
Peace grew tall beneath her battleface.
Some aver that Ogodo knelt before no earthly flame,
Carved in stone countless victims, even kith and kin
Her justice, swift thunder-wrapped in fire and brimstone,
A tale infinitely cold and ruthless.
Others aver that Wene housed the stars behind her gaze,
And scorched the moon with envious praise,
An amazon whose leash was made of sprite,
That led the lost through numerous treacherous dark nights.
Some profess that Ogodo’s name meant murderous ruin,
A siren’s dirge, a storm without a face,
A glowing banner scorching hope and fueling fury
In primitive ferocity of hell’s first hymn.
Others profess that Wene danced on marble of bones
Compelled power to kneel in total surrender.
Drank the lies, then spat them into order,
A goddess grafted onto mortal flaw.
Some conclude Ogodo’s hands were the teeth of a rabid dog
That crashed dreams into endless lament songs,
Reigned in rhyme and wrath and flame,
Her throne a windowless blood-soaked dungeon.
Others conclude that Wene’s legend,
Was stitched with contradiction’s thread
Built high enough to see the tears of a frowning world,
A paradox that baffles history.
Me …
I am still in a monologue with the deadening pain
Of a tragic loose of a doting mother.
