OHAformattedJULY2008


 
PORTAL Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies, vol. 5, no. 2, July 2008. 
ISSN: 1449-2490 
http://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/ojs/index.php/portal 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
Mutiple Strokes 
 
Obododimma Oha, University of Ibadan 

 

 



Oha                Multiple Strokes 

 
PORTAL, vol. 5, no. 2, July 2008.  2 

I 
 

Tell me, will New York always remain new? 
With its streets leading to Abraham Lincoln 
And its grocery stores selling original Paris 

Behind an Irish Steinbeck? 
 

By the way, where have they hidden 
The jazz stories of Manhattan 

With all this rap and hip-hop and sagging pants? 
 

II 
 

Is it the crook that is crooked 
Or crooked that is like a crook? 

Why do they say politicians & drug barons launder stained money overseas 
When the laundryman cannot find a single dollar 
When he searches and searches the breast pocket 

Before eyeing the washing machine? 
 

III 
What the hell is wrong with English 

That it con/fuses the world with its words & meanest meanings? 
Do boxers put their opponents in boxes, 

Or in a state where their brains 
Cannot whisper to their wishes? 

Why call a game a fight 
When you have a PhD in English 

And a necktie to hang all the errors gathering in your throat? 
 

IV 
 

Ok, if prayer is the act 
What do I call the person who prays? 

Where will the prayer warriors sharpen their spears, 
If what we have done is the same as what we have failed to do? 

And must that big-time preacher 
Always say A-men when he ministers to women? 

 
V 
 

And why are English teachers not always from England? 
That multicultural classroom thinks too much 

About the difference between where you are and what you are, 
Little wonder all the grammar books in this class smell of pizza and Nigerian suya. 

 
When I spell a word, am I also under a spell? 

What the hell 
Is wrong with English 

That it says I shouldn’t call a spade a spoon 
When they use the spade to feed the yawning earth at death o’clock? 

 
 
 
 



Oha                Multiple Strokes 

 
PORTAL, vol. 5, no. 2, July 2008.  3 

VI 
 

A live ammo does not live, it is only 
Few vowels away from your slip of tongue 

That’s why my thanks sound like tanks 
Conversing at the border between Georgia & Russia 

 
When they exchange prisoners 

Let them also exchange vodka & the patience 
To read what their guns cannot write well 

 
VII 

 
And since a poem, they say, is not finished, 

Why shouldn’t I abandon this one 
When I’ve already run out of ideas?