Dreams
This is what dreams are made of:
sepia scenery,
action creeps in.
My Id is playwright.
Dreams shuttle like red carpets
flying over memories,
tall spires & giant Town Hall clocks
stuck in time.
Sometimes I shut my eyes
to the world’s misery
for a sleep-snack,
bask in the immediacy
of Morpheus’s short embrace.
Sleep trysts in molue held
by thrust & rust. Lagos is
a jest of a city
sleep-walking by the marina.
Paulina
of the sultry waters.
Her ambience was Bvlgari Aqua Cool.
Her love was chaos,
had me chasing stolen dreams
with two left shoes.
I will wake to tell my tale,
I will wake.
Sunday Afternoons
Sunday afternoons were for white rice & fried stew.
Plaiting and unplaiting hair with wooden combs,
rubbing pomade between hair partings,
tucked in the crustacean embrace of mum’s thighs,
writhing.
Seeing but not watching LTV’s lousy adverts
till NEPA strikes again
& hand fans replace ceiling rotors.
Dad’s friend mulling over a big bottle of Satz,
pulling gently at his wisps of beard;
his lips telling tired stories
about small fries,
in small towns,
living out their little lives.
I Know what Lagos Does to Dreams
Lagos undresses them slowly like a nubile
without blemish.
Lagos clambers by like a crab
with stuttering footsteps.
Lagos wriggles past—
entropy in motion.
This city is audacious without remorse.
It will leave you spent, hoarse
from frightening memories.
Lagos of lurid things.
Lagos of finery.
A palimpsest hurriedly rewritten.
Owambe punctuated by one-chances,
a shakedown from a hustle drum,
of syncopated Pentecostal rhythms.
This vigil won’t part red seas or the lagoon,
this chorus of hallelujahs won’t saunter
beyond eaves.
This offering of pittance,
this basket of blood & sweat & tears,
threadbare & tax-free.
& heaven is an uptown Lagos residence—
Lekki, disyllabic, sitting in the ocean’s mouth,
daring, suicidal.
