May 25, 2025

by JOHN EBUTE

A SHRINK’S SHREWD ANSWER

(After Elisha Oluyemi’s Another Beauty of Darkness)

my patient saunters into my office, a mischievous grin plastered 

on his rock of a face & asks– why has God given us a narrow 

throat if not to make slitting it very easy. 

i look up, see the darkness nibbling off every bright colour from 

his eyes & reach into my heart in a desperate search for light.

[Search Entry #1]:>>

              did God not create the mouth to be a bigger opening than

               the nostrils?

[Search Entry #2]:>>

             did He not also create the anus to be wider than the phallic

              orifice?

[Search Entry #3]:>>

              does that mean He prefers the mouth to the nostrils & does

              that make the anus more important than the phallus?

[Result #1]:>>

               the mouth is a portal threading into the stomach & the 

               nostrils into the lungs. 

[Result #2]:>>

                the anus is an exit that butterflies solid things & the phallic 

.               orifice liquid things. 

[Advanced Result #0]:>>

                      the body’s anatomy is in sync with its physiology. that is to

                       say, everything has a purpose & the purpose determines its

                       features. 

[Analyzing Collected Results; Drawing Conclusion]:>>

                      i bring out light, sweetened with the wisdom of my findings & 

                      reply my patient– the throat is a passage, & like the way to a 

                      king’s private chambers, it cannot be widely open so that we do not

                      swallow something too big for our system to handle. 

[Implication]:>>

                      my patient explodes in a cackle & says to me– you’ve indeed 

                      sojourned with the sages. then he pulls out some pills from his

                      pocket, throws them into a nearby bin & whispers into my ears–

                      the sages are right, then. When there is life, there is hope. 

*

WORDS WREATHED INTO A EULOGY FOR THE DESERT

You’ve learned to stomach the arrogant aloofness of 

the rain without breaking into fragments. 

  Show me your magic formula so I too can keep my sanity

when the darts of supposed friends make indentations on

my supple back. 

The savanna calls the sun a charming angel, but for

you, the glowing smile gives way to a vicious glare &

the next you know, a dragon is breathing raw flames on

your bare body. 

    I wish, like you, I can steal the flames of my enemies &

morph into a phoenix.                    

Your counterparts sashay in colourful attires of green, but

you’re comfortable in the sparse vegetation sprouting from

your soil. 

    Teach me the art of contentment & gratitude for the

  little I have. 

They’ve made “barrenness” your sobriquet, but to your

denigrators you show the half-full side of the glass– you

shelter one-sixth of Mother Earth’s population. 

     Oh, that I’d learn to be my first cheerleader. 

You asked for flowers, you were given sand instead. Still

you built dunes from them. Now men, from all the corners

of the earth, visit your shrine to offer eulogies at the feet of

your aesthetic glory.

      Kiss me with the ability to not grumble but 

maximize my resources, however inadequate they may seem.