Our dreams fizzled out Like the fragrance of cheap perfume Trapped in the exhaust smoke of a molue bus. I watched to see tear stains Mess up your immaculate make-up. I thought I’d see a few handkerchiefs ruined By a confusing smudge Of eye-liner, nose-drip, lip-stick, and Mary Kay But your marble beauty could not … Continue reading Album Of The Past: Track Four
I intended this to be a sonnet Another feather on your bonnet But it turns out something less, maybe more A peek past my eyes into my heart’s core I wish I could assault you with my words The way your beauty assaults my thoughts I wish you would let me see what lies … Continue reading NOT ANOTHER FEATHER (For Tinu)
When we became a mistake We could have sent a search party To help find all we had lost Or misplaced on our way here Perhaps We could have taken stock of our luggage And found sustenance In our meager leftovers Perhaps But we sat and sulked Like abnormal twins, Seeking different diets … Continue reading The Album Of The Past: Track 2
We stood confounded by the hillocks The little raised earth of corruption Our vanguard shifting from foot to foot Enjoying the pleasurable itch Of the “scratch-my-back-I-scratch-your- back” philosophy The hillocks have grown into mountains Mountains and mountains that bewilder We have acquired more international titles: Terrorists… kidnappers… Land ruled by lunatic laws And … Continue reading The Message Of Jonah
I came before you, riddling sphinx With my wisdom-filled but thirsty skull You had thrown me tokens from afar It was time to fulfil your promises! I will not write you a love song But my perplexities at staring at you– The warmth of your green-speckled presence The serenade that fertilized my thoughts … Continue reading ANOTHER MAGUS ( For CSS Agbara)
I cleaned out my shelf today And chanced upon you A dusty memory, faded, and moth-eaten, Ah, the foolishness of those days The drunkenness and the foolishness of those days When we laughed the laughter of palm wine And thought the world was ours to take When you swore that only death Would take … Continue reading Album Of The Past: Track 1
My belly itches today for laughter And my thoughts alight on you, softly Seeking to gather those curios I forgot the last time I visited When like a bad mannered child, I ate your sumptuous meal, Wiped my buttocks and walked away without a backward glance But that glance was merely postponed That glance now … Continue reading Belated Applause For Rijau
My mouth is not a politician that it should lie Nor the son of one that it should brag These words are not those you find in the newspapers No, they are cannot be bought for a hundred and twenty naira They are not the words of your preacher begging you to pay your tithe … Continue reading Beautiful Distraction ( For Tinu)
It is enough that in the absence of the cats, the rats have made an abode of our home. How do we begin to console ourselves when even the cats now scurry around with rodent-mouths rendering useless all that is dear in our home?
NIGHT’S ANGEL ( for Vickie Alozie) Treble cuffs round my heart She loses me in the maze Of her chord webs. Herald of my morning She conducts the symphony of my dreams Leaving the stars in her wake. Spellbinder! Conjurer! Binding me to her teeming legion Of bewitched day-dreaming disciples. And she sits there, … Continue reading NIGHT’S ANGEL ( for Vickie Alozie)
He needed the money badly. No, badly was an understatement. He needed the money so…He couldn’t even find the words. How badly could you need something that could save the life of your only son? N500, 000 is what the doctor told him to bring. Half a million naira! He and his wife had been … Continue reading The Antelope
My sweat has pedigree It replays the rhythm Of countless now-dead feet That have trod with love, this brown soil Do not think my tears nameless They bear surnames longer and older Than the sorrows which now provoke them
When our smiles begin to make our faces
Fold up like an accordion of wrinkles,
When the teeth in our mouths barely number up
To the years we have left under the sun,
When our loins and womb have yielded
And have long ceased to yield,
A palm of eight lines Like this elegant tree to the wind, I swing to the music that you bring. Let the fronds of my affection Fan the embers of your passion.