OJA ALE (Night Market) -BY BADA YUSUFF AMOO

At Oja Ale
The stars, the dew, the moon
Transfix into the world of darkness
To give life to those that sleep at night.
Their ghostly voices, calling customers of silence
To purchase from them, their aged dreams
The sharpness of the falling dews
Interrupting the dialogues of lone traders, wiggling 
Their solo hymns, without a musical instrument

At Oja Ale
The market of misty walls and pavements
They place their dreams on their feet and hawk
With their hands on the earth, their heads at the centre
Some are animal likes, with perpetual tails like satyr
That form coniferous lines at the centre of the crowd
Strangers experience the multiple metamorphoses
That makes the heads float in the waiting cloud
They are not evils; they are the other side of life

Bewaji,
My betrothed woman, daughter of the Gods
Will you accompany me to Oja Ale?
To explore the pleasures of dark miseries
To visit these great traders the Gods mentioned in their verse
To meet men of crescent horns and women
Whose nipples are giant than their breasts
We will hang somewhere in the air, no harm shall befall us
Like the reflection of a child, standing by the pond
Let's go buy fish that has wings

Bewaji,
Meet me at Oja Ale and let's make love
Under the shadows of the sleeping leaves
And undress ourselves like sculpture of Ancient Ife
Dew shall spread its warmth on our visual hearth
To bid a new life from the Gods and the travelled spirits
Come, before the dawn descend from seven heavens
Sometimes, I feel the mourning of your heart
Like sighs of a thousand ripples

Bewaji,
Follow me to Oja-Ale with your croesus charms
I have only learnt the linguistic lines of Gods’ verse
And you, daughter of the Gods, my betrothed woman
After all, if the child air pollution is not savoring enough,
His mother’s own could aid it savour well
The Gods may seem to be your burden without giving you
A new life, which will shoot the gun after us
But they are the comforter of our dreams
I plead you in the name of love and the Gods that bind us
Let us trade at Oja-Ale, since Oja-Osan did not favour us


*OJA Osan refers to day market. 

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