Page 27 of Collected Poems

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of the bull, his everlasting

prince, his giver-in-abundance

of heavenly cattle ticks.

Lazarus

/> We know the breathtaking

joy of his sisters when the word

spread: He is risen! But a

man who has lived a full life

will have others to

reckon with beside his

sisters. Certainly that keen-eyed

assistant who has moved up

to his table at the office, for

him resurrection is an awful

embarrassment…. The luckless

people of Ogbaku knew its

terrors that day the twin-headed

evil strode their highway. It

could not have been easy

picking up again the blood-spattered

clubs they had cast away; or to

turn from the battered body

of the barrister lying beside his

battered limousine to finish off

their own man, stirring now suddenly

in wide-eyed resurrection…. How well

they understood, those grim-faced

villagers wielding their crimson

weapons once more, how well

they understood that at the hour

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