can't think of a title, the post has exhausted me already...

Ok this is going to be a real post. Afrobabe has gone at me for my latest post of poetry. She made it seem like my attempts at reforming the world through children’s poetry was appalling. Worse she hissed at me. A very emphatic hiss, which came as a separate comment. Now, I’m really distraught with this turn of events. So I determined in my heart to do the unthinkable:

I’ll put up TWO POSTS in ONE MONTH!

Besides this, I’m going to make this post as boring and lack lustre as possible. Primarily this is to spite Afrobabe (sebi she wants to read something? She go read tire today) I’m going to detail my very unexciting recent life and new career I have taken up – banking. Yep, I’m in a bank now. Left the law firm a while ago. If I’m to tell the whole truth, since the year began I’ve gone through two banking institutons. A third offered me a job some weeks ago and even though it’s a much better place than where I am now, I can’t afford the reputation I’m getting. It’s a bit difficult explaining to my neighbours and friends my most current place of employ.

Sample telephone conversation

friend: how’s ur law firm?

Ozaveshe: er..left a while ago

Friend: u’re unemployed? eyah sorry o…

Ozaveshe: no, no. not unemployed. I work in Bank Z now…

Friend: ah! BIG BOI! U be my man! Anyway, talk to u soon.

A week later

Friend: Ozaveshe! Ozaveshe!! Call me back now! I no get credit

Ozaveshe: ok. (I call back)

Ozaveshe: how far?

Friend: my man! How u dey now?

Ozaveshe: good. Whats up?

Friend: I dey find ur branch. I no see am o! u sure say u dey H street? I don dey bike the whole VI and I gast see u bcos na u go help me pay the okada man. I no get kish for hand…

Ozaveshe: I’m no longer in Bank Z. I’m now in Bank S. my bank is on the same street

Friend: u don move commot? Na wa for u o. U dey dodge me abi wetin?

You can imagine how perplexed my former colleagues were when they saw me walking around with a rival bank’s pin on my lapel. The explanations I’ve had to do…

So that was it. I decided to stay put in this place and try to forge the beginnings of a respectable career from here. Unfortunately I’ve been placed in a department that didn’t take into consideration my legal background and outstanding ability at shuffling paperwork. My duties consist of, but are definitely not limited to doling out cash to paying tellers and primarily making certain the account books balance on a daily basis. That has proved quite a challenge for me, especially as nothing in my life ahs ever really balanced – my own personal accounts, my diet…

Inevitably overages and shortages have been showing up. Its taken all my arithmetic skills to keep the entire bank from crumbling since employing me. I’m beginning to think I may be more of a liability than an asset (you can notice my familiarity with accounting lingo. I’ve actually gotten some knowledge)

And then my colleagues are all of the Yoruba stock and insist on their language, and oddly French, as the lingua franca. This move has chased away all non-yoruba and French speaking customers. The French is gotten from the members of the Congolese community in the area who are some of our most valued customers. Yeah, and the French is spoken with an Ibadan accent and limited to phrases like “good morning” and “where is the money?” Nonetheless, in order to fit in I have assiduously learned these phrases and use them in dealing with customers. One walked in yesterday about the end of business hours. He had a large hairy jaw and was wearing a green t-shirt that read CONGO!

Congo: I vuld like tu, how they say it? Open ah account

Ozaveshe: good morning (in French obviously, but with that Yoruba accent I can’t quite get the spelling)

Congo (his eyes lighting up with pure joy): oh! Tu est francais? Excellente, fantastique!

Ozaveshe: now look here bro, don’t get all excited…

Congo (he’s almost jumping up and down now, looking a lot like king kong): Oui! Oui!

My manager comes in: who’s making all that noise? (said in Yoruba as well, obviously)

Congo, spinning round in concentric circles. I’m getting dizzy watching him): Oui! Oui!

Ozaveshe: we ke? No be me and you abeg…

Honestly, how the mighty have fallen. The great Ozaveshe has been exposed to many indignities such as having to converse in the vernacular with people of dubious immigration status. And that’s not the worst. There are those other boys. The ones with flashy cars and teeth. The ones with deep tribal marks running along the sides of their faces who walk into the bank their ID Cards reading names like JOHN JAMES. Or PAUL JAMES. Or when they want to be imaginative JAMES JOHN.


And then there the girls. Or I mean there no girls. No pretty young things in my branch. Maybe they all shipped them to another part of the country or something, but they’re definitely not where I am. there are some who are young and they are some who are things, but none is pretty. The pretty ones are older and out of my reach. I noticed one thing last week during a branch meeting winking at me. I cringed involuntarily. She seemed encouraged by this, probably thinking I was jolted by desire, and she added a smile to her revolting display. To think of it, she bore a startling resemblance to CONGO! ; dull eyes and disgustingly hirsute (I could see thick sweaty tufts of hair coming out from the top of her blouse) I had to hide behind a colleague the rest of the meeting and for the entire day at the office, pretend to be engrossed in a Credit Proposal Memorandum.

I guess with this, its somewhat easier to understand why I havent posted in a while. I've been having a rough time dealing with the realities of my life. It was out of this desperate living conditions I decided to do something for children so any of them in grim situations like mine would get hope and inspiration the way I have gotten hope. Hence my poetry.





P.S Just before I posted this I saw fantasyqueen's comment urging her idoma sister on in her assault against me. I'm sparing you both this time for old times sake. BUT if this repeats itself again, then its going to get really hot and messy in here...

My latest Project

Doing a compilation of poetry for kids ( I love kids a lot and hope they have a lot to learn from these) Its not just poetry but a collection of modern nursery rhymes and Life's truisms. Well thought out and written to guide a child from infancy to adulthood.

Here they are:

All work and no play
make Jack a man before his day
The opposite is just as wild
Poor Jack will always be a child

Mary had a little lamb
her father shot it dead
She still takes it to school each day
Between two bits of bread

Jack and Jill
Went up the hil
To fetch a pail of water
I don't know what they did up there
but they came back with a daughter

Early to rise
Early to bed
Makes a man healthy
But socially dead

Old Mrs Hubbard
Went to the cupboard
To get her poor dog some bread
But when she got there
the cupboard was bare
so the dog ate Mrs Hubbard instead.

In the search for Joy (which is futile)
Man finds a mate and walks down the aisle
to repeat that famous curse:
"we'll stay together, for better, for worse"

When I was a child
I spake as a child
Argumentative, obtuse and wild
But when I grew older
I gave up childish ways
And this has haunted me
The rest of my days.