The Baboon on the Swing by Funso Aiyejina

Because the night is dark with no stars in sight

The baboon boasts he’s clad in the finest velvet

Forgetful of dawn – the epilogue to nightmare

Our charm to dispel the hold of evil nights

Invocation to affirm that no matter its flare

A lie will always remain a lie, destined

Like a false masquerade, to be unmasked.

Not really; history does not repeat itself.

Men do

And are thus repeated on history’s shelf

Like Onitobi of the skimpy loin-cloth

Champion wrestler in the riddle who

Wrestled his challengers to death

And dared harmattan to a final duel.

Now, who amongst us needs to be reminded

That one who throws such affronts at the wind

No matter the magnitude of his past miracles

No matter the number of stars on his epaulets

Such a man must come away from such a contest

Badly bruised, lock-jawed, needing treatment?

No, history does not repeat itself. Men do.

If therefore, the clay-god craves a dance of shame

Persistent in his demand for extended prime time

In the rain; oblige him, turn on the spotlights.

If the baboon insists, in spite of honest protests

Let him swing low and high, secure in his might.

Let him swing sweet chariot amongst the branches

There is a dry one lurking within the green foliage.

Remember the bullock who craved a round-trip aboard?

Didn’t he return as corn-beef, cured and packaged

Funso Aiyejina

Funso Aiyejina (born in 1949 in Ososo, Edo State) is a Nigerian academic, poet and playwright. He graduated from the University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife where he lectured. He also lectured at the University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago and at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri.