New Poems

RAINY REVELATIONS

The sun’s gloss
Upon our city
Hides her flaws
Leaving its beauty
Without due company
Before an audience
Observing an entity
Halved by the seasons
In summer
The street glitters
under darting sunrays
Even our sun-baked highways
ignore pity
for the sun’s beauty
But when the rain comes
anxious moms
make mud-splashing runs
to save their young ones
Even drivers learn to sail
as driving skills alone fail.
Cup-shaped drainages
fill to bursts
Talk of sewages
and dream of the worst
Loads of filth turned in
pose and toss
on new rivers running
across streets and closes
So our maps lie
but we know why.











A TRUE REBRAND
Like a tongue
Deprived of the teeth’s company
It lay sprawled
Like it could do no wrong
It wore a smile serene
And a demeanour so sane
That made me doubt
If indeed I had reached it
But I had
And pleasantly invincible
Were its struggling millions
Its surging unapproved kiosks
Its maddening buses
And shifty hands stealing purses
Also happily lost
Was its love for confusion
So like an old man
Tired of his wicked ways
Oshodi watched with disinterest
My daring regal strides
That once drew its ire
Oshodi lay passive
Divorced from its devious spirit
That hitherto fed me fear
Seasoned with courage
and bravery spiced with caution
That old Oshodi
Also taught me to rejoice
every single day I
walked past it
without being pinched
by its ever untraceable claws.










THEIR CRIES, THEIR LIES
When filled with bread
In their homestead
They send us mails
To invoke our wails
Wherein they assume
That our lot is doom
One doom report
Lures financial support
To self-appointed experts
Who dished out false alerts
Collecting aids on our behalf
And magnanimously give us half
Our senses are not too weak
To perceive their trick
But we’ll make things right
Rather than fight
We will search for that will
To correct our many an ill
We have a vision
To back our rebuilding mission
The past may be unpalatable
The present just endurable
But things will get better
In a future not too far
We refuse to be discouraged
By preying nations who have aged
And now spread mails of doom
To nations where they seek room
For their chauvinist ego
That just wont let go.

JUST BEFORE THE TURN

As Nigerians and Africans, we are currently at a bend in the journey of our nation and by extension our individual lives. The current wave blowing across the length and breadth of the nation and even beyond the shores of this continent bears only one burden, that of change. From motivational writers like Myles Munroe and Fela Durotoye to frontline pastors like Pastor Matthew Ashimolowo and Pastor Chris Okotie without leaving out leaders like Presidents John Atta Mills of Ghana and Barack Obama of the USA, the grand essence of their messages revolve around the imminent change in the fortunes of Nigeria, Africa and indeed the whole world. It has been repeatedly and convincingly reiterated that from Africa will arise men(and women) who will change the fortunes of the world and an acceptable example of that is the recent change in the political calculations of the most powerful country in the world, the United States of America where a charismatic black man of African descent rose from the shackles of relative oblivion and overcame the daunting odds of racial discrimination to rise to the exalted position of the dignified occupant of the hallowed White House, the greatest power house in the world. This might sound inspiring but there is definitely more to come.
The kind of change being anticipated for the Nigerian nation and the African continent is an obviously visible and powerful turnaround in the conduct of things orchestrated by seasoned professionals with righteous and godly minds. What is expected is a new situation where faces will wear smiles and not frowns; mouths will belch after filling meals and not wail of hunger; hands will work happily and not substitute idleness with wrecking havoc; pockets will swell with plenty and not flatten out in lack; industries will daily hire more to boost production and not pack up due to rising costs; facilities will work and hearts will not fail but jump up for joy.
The scenario painted might be fantastic to some but might even be an understatement to some who already got their minds fired up for the expected change. Whichever way, it is undeniably clear that Nigerians nay Africans are tired of living with the many disheartening issues they daily cope with. They are fed up with the potholes-ridden and impassable highways that daily constitute a life-threatening menace. They are equally fed up with the comatose health system where misdiagnosis, lack of equipment, inefficiency, mismanagement among other ills act as bloodthirsty agents daily conspiring to dispatch them to their untimely deaths. They are fed up with unpaid salaries and monetisation fees while their smooth-talking leaders feed fat and stash surfeit amounts in abetting counties. Promises of potable water have caressed their ears ad nauseam and no longer appeal to them. They no longer find sweetness in the company of the constantly absent power supply. They are no more comfortable with crowded classrooms and overflowing sewages. They are tired, fed up and tired of these and many more. However, they are not just tired like docile souls being treated to an ad hominem speech but from within, they earnestly desire something different from what they have always experienced. They want new experiences and also want to tell new stories.
To be continued…