From “Kobe as Ogun, Yoruba God of Work”
in which kobe seeks a mentor to train him
Praying for a fiery muse, he was
answered by the clang of hammers
on the tang of an axe, ringing soft
before resounding like relentless war
sirens. Round his head like the ticker
at the bottom of the television, it rang.
Then, in the midst of the sonorous chiming—
a whisper: You called? You called?
You called? You called? He called and
the voice that answered—deep, cracked
with heat—said: Listen. Ball. Sweat. Ogun,
awakened from ancestral slumber, with
each breath, blistered the boys’ blood.
Ogun spoke, and limbs, helpless, obeyed.
ogun’s account of the apprenticeship’s beginning
There was a time when I, stretched across
the globe, held sway over each ring of steel
against steel, thudding flesh against flesh,
combat-spilt blood, palm wine offerings, to me.
A time boys, prying at manhood’s door, sought
my succor. That time was past, until he came,
his bearing bold, familiarity in his gait, palm-
gripped ball, extension of his body. Like my axe,
tongs. And, I refused him. Told him to take his
cowhide sphere and learn to drum, seek Sango
and learn to shepherd. Still, each day he arrived
at my door: in strange lands, in rain, sneer
surrounded. I took pity on him and let him in.
My only rule: work.
Behind Sango’s eyelids he ran. In the pantheon’s
dreaming he saw visions. On the spine of night he
lifted weight, and drilled stroke after stroke, blow
after pivot after fake until flawless. Honed until
sharper than the crescent moon’s sickle, before
being broken and begun again, pushed to
failure. Each time, steam-like, rising again.
in which kobe scores sixty-one points at madison square garden
Ant-men swarmed him and with a swift shift of
his weight, he found space enough to see and swish!
Double-teams tried to trick and trap him in corners
only to see him scowl, shimmy, and score over hands
outstretched. As minutes passed, points stacked and
their desperation grew. Had they known the heat of
the fire that drove him, the coals that stoked him, mad
hammer ringing in his veins, maybe they would have
behaved differently, his name’s echo rising until
it shook the arena. Ko-Be!
Notes:
This poem is part of the folio “Freed Verse: A Reckoning of Black British Poets.” Read the rest of the folio in the September 2025 issue.
Source: Poetry (September 2025)