I Did the Dummy of ThisDay
(For Nduka Obaigbena at 50)
I did the dummy of ThisDay,
A copy turned cradle,
A deed of second service
For a swashbuckling vendor of visions
Who envisioned a mush of colour
To massage posh leaders
And the cognate company
They keep with corporate ego.
For a song the poet delivers
An image of root and gravity,
Armed with the story
Of a leader with the common touch
To gather latent talent
At the crossroads of ascent
Before the maze of revelation
Of sucklings as ancestors.
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– (c) Uzor Maxim Uzoatu
The God of Poetry, i hail thee with the ‘dummy’ you have done for ThisDay’ in verse! We all celebrate with Nduka Obaigbena @ 50 and ThisDay! For a man who dines with ‘posh’ leaders like Bill Clinton, you could perhaps rightly describe him as ‘swashbuckling’. But i hope your majesty’s wit with words has not played a dummy on me on this day because ‘massage’ in the first stanza arouses a feeling of sarcasm when juxtaposed with the overall eulogy in the poem! Senator Ihenyen is the author of Colourless Rainbow: Poetry of My Childhood (forthcoming, Coast2Coast).