The Dialogue by Funso Aiyejina

Perched on his balcony of pleasure,

beside a range of gifts,

the King asked the Poet

who stood below to pay homage:

“How are my people faring

on this beautiful day?”

The Poet stretched his ostrich neck

and readied the traditional trick

of “We thank our God and our King by whose twin grace

our heads still sit on our necks…”

but the lie choked his weaverbird throat,

and instead he answered:

“Your Highness, your people are too hungry

to see the beauty of any day;

things are getting worse by the day

as we wait for the better days

which you promised this time last season,

the same promise we’ve always heard

from the echo of every voice

that has ever occupied that throne

upon which you sit”

Livid, like a seven-baralled thunder

the King withdrew with his gifts

and the Poet starved with the people.

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.