NAIJA BLOG

 An Ode to the Dying Rose 🌹 The saddest thing is a dying rose.  its beautiful petals  disintegrate with  every careful touch.  The pleasure of its fragrance lingers on, like an escatic thought buried among the catacombs of dreams.  Beautiful rose, once a thing of delight now a sorrowful sight.  This is my ode to  the dying rose with falling petals ebbing away. 

 You have the names you have the names that make you turn  your noses at this lower mortals The ones without names Your names are steeped in blood and theft. Names on Boleavards, names on history books  that tell of blood and gore of starving babies, and killing men You have the names that are cursed  by the prayers of the wretched the ailing child the dying mum,  the desperate man the emannciated albino from the Biafran files as you lay roasting, you cursed seeds float like chaff without substance with drugged subtance  unable to find rest from their famous names 

I saw them as I sat in a bus She sat in front of me, While he stood outside Whispering sweet nothingness  They were immersed in their world Of love smile and laughter  The two lovers She was  a blue hijab And has a round full face that looked kind   I saw her hand was full of rashes and I wondered if she was sick Her lover did not seem to mind, her lesioned hand as he waited for the bus to be full and when it was, he turned to wave, then I saw the shrunken hand which had been hidden from sight  I wonder to this day what befell  The imperfect couple and their perfect love  

  I remember how I stood tall in your presence You told me them, I was the fairest, and showed my beauty in my bloom Then I laughed at you and wished for you, ignoring your whisper to enjoy the moment, Now I come before you, beaten by age, And by nature, there is no defiance in this search, it is assurance I seek and a quest for the remnant of my fleeing youth Mirror, Mirror, my daily remainder of mortality 

 Outside, angelic voices  sing in harmony, calling for "Jesus to Come unto Thee"" Melodious and peaceful. juxapostioning the reality around. Beauty in chaos Without. a fan hums and cold June breeze laden with Kanuri incense and oud wafts by, followed by sounds of a carpenter tinkering, sparrows complaining  Within Freud, his hysterical patients, and stories of their troubed minds , lie like an unending maze across my screen This is Sunday at Home 

  And they all perished and Became memories of the past Halima, the lover of whitemen, I passed you as a child of eight,  on the street with one of your lovers, one of your victims. He stood, balding and sandy-haired and bespectacled, arms akimbo, listening as you denied your status on the street, wanting to believe the lies you swore were the truth, knowing in despair, that the truth was dark and brooding  and fatal. Those days, the deaths were swift, and horrific, The faces that stared back were emaciated, and desperate, The death had robbed them all dignity of dying and the dignity of living It wasted them in the wards, eyes that couldn’t hide Minds that could not fathom the depth of their sorrows, Memories painful, dreams cut short. They died to our horror and in their trauma and in our trauma, modern day pariahs, twenty-first century outcasts, we were all victims of the horror that swept furiously. It was a complete death, of the s...

  Baba Iyashi Patron saint of the hungry school girls What force of nature made you to be kind to a girl so forsaken? the little, lost, scrawny and forsaken girl who was perpetually hungry Baba Iyashi,  the Damaturu cobbler, silent and kind who sat mustached amidst the kitchen halls what made you care, in a world where evil is the currency Baba Iyashi, between my bouts of peace and despair, I dream of repaying you and  driving through the streets of Damaturu and walking through those school halls that conquered me to thank you and reward you for those years In my mind, I believe I will meet you there, cobbler with your white thread between your lips focused intently on your chore and show you my gratitude     

 We lay nestled between your mountanious mounds the June morning is dreamy, foggy and rainy lulling us to satied safety and manufactured peace From my gilded cage I peek and see signs of life,  below me fly a formation of herons, above them  fly a group of blackbirds, chirping  at the rain I hear the violent sound of the generator cuddled to a hum by the sound proof-glass I see below me a clean tarmac and a well cut lawn the painstaking submissions of the hordes of the invisble, who tiptoe around us like ghosts, catering to our needs for order,  masters of  hiding the chaos. Across my indentured castle I see the high-rise buildings that look snootily below, at the seamless passage of life, life passes, cars pass,  each with tales   sorrows, fears, victories, lies,  tears,  transiting to life, transiting to death, Abuja, the land of more, the land of less,  A valley of contradictions of hopes and despair,  of life and death...

 Today is a day of creating To look at the clouds above and wonder where the birds hide their young amidst the falling rain, to worry about lost friends  and daydream about forgotten memories.  To ponder about repairing broken things,  To wonder about mortality Today is a day to live and not a day to exist. .. Ehi. June, 6,2024. Written while existing

 One day, many years ago when my face was unlined and mind unburdened I met a man who had married above him and his lovely wife who was in love with him but i knew love was not enough to secure him from the sniggers of his friends  who laughed with him and at him I knew he was dying  to get away from our knowing eyes and  out of our gossipy smiles His head was bowed and eyes lay  low like an eunuched slave,  defeated by the judgement of strangers and  by the judgement of himself and burdened by  love  he was a declawed  and detoothed feline 

 You were picked, ripe and ready for harvest virle and strong blood clean You were a tool, useful for your part useless for  everything else you would die so they could live the distinguished and the rich But you would strike like a snake you little being who didnt deserve to live you would destroy a man  who had lived in privildged discordance before you had been birthed you little one would destoy one who had many  things but couldnt  have life who bought the houses so that people would die in dirty hospitals, drinking dirty water whose familiy was picturesqe on the glossy tabloids which children in Cambridge, Eton and Harvard Who wanted from you what he could never give Little barrow pusher, little phone seller, with a future as dark as a moonless sky who grew up on the streets drinking water from a plastic wrap eating food from typhoid plates dreaming of a life that could not promised David, you would have sold your kidney so they could live David you  ...

  In the midst of my sorrows I cried to God to add to me blessing I felt I deserved but God was busy crying  for the dead Sammy Teucsh Blond, green eyed adorable boy  who took his life at ten  God was wailing for the dead babies that are slaughtered in Zamfara and Gusau and the dead that will be killed in the killing fields of Oturkpo God was staring tenderly the child with Down syndrome destined to live of a life of turmoil and grief of the child with no hands and no feet rolling on the beach God was busy comforting the sad and too busy to answer my need for more  

 One a sunny morning was the day you died alone on the street while the crowd gawked and snapped to their delight we took you to save you in the back seat of the car i wondered why no one saved you  they snapped and gawked as you lay fallen on the street there you were forty-something neatly dressed, with black tights a bagco bag rolled up you were going to shop and the crowd gawkedand snapped so we drove to save you Maitama General would not save you No bed they said, while you lay dying in the car the good samaritan told me how his mother had died and he saw her, a vain woman, strewn on the floor the young doctor was in tears so young and so new, life would teach you that life was cheap the police commended us for saving you nameless one the morgue keeper was another god who denied entry to body of the dead your family came in tears tried to pay for my help On the day you died, i wore green and  drove you to rest. Rest in Peace, Nameless one  

 There I was, sick son in hand,  visiting the hospital the faces there were all bowed as if hiding I played with the little child and the cross-eyed baby and talked to the mother about ways to remedy the sight I saw the prancing man, who didn't care and tall giant with beautiful eyes there sat quietly a buxom lady on the wooden seats it was  our turn then I knew from the card that was carried by the couple in front  a card as long as an examination sheet the couple, a mustached man and his wife entwined in eternity and in drugs then I knew  the hidden faces the guarded eyes the wandering stares that looked as I walked and talked nonchalantly the prancing man I knew 

 God loves his poets and artists and he speaks to them through whispers at the dead of the night through sudden bursts of epiphany Through a lingering thought that will not die through the lingering dream that will not fly away God loves his poets and artists because like him, they create replicate life, replicate dreams God loves his poets and artists through them, dreams are born through them, lives are lived Through them, eternity is found God loves his poets and artists that is why we must cherish this gift

 I see it in your eyes you will be the death of me you the hand that begs of me, will be the hand that kills me your eyes, the rove and wonder for more despising the little I give you, wanting the more I have. Restless wandering thief the heart of a murderer you steal as I give angry that I have your skills I need your presence I dont. You of the hand that begs, the hand that steals 

 I will not win this battle for it is the battle of tongues against deeds the battle of envy against intentions the battle of the naive against the master of trickery I cannot play this game so I must grapple with  poisonous words  strewn against the dark corridors lies that execute without judgment spread by those well-versed in the game the game convoluted deception seeped in charismatic tones and devilish  smiles,  played by the maestro of deception the jury meets in the darkness of offices and cafeterias to plot and destroy as I strive ....to live, to fight, to win this futile battle

 One day, many rainy seasons ago I beheld a sight that depicted the harmony  of nature and man, now forgotten  amidst the quest for success and horrors of defeat between life's angst and life's rest I saw a Fula boy lying on the white sand banks of a peaceful lake across the lake, some cows stood munching some fresh green grass while  the Fula boy played his flute a harmonious sound that flirted in the wind  sedating the cows who munched contentedly comforting my soul with  its healing sounds

  I see the death in the eyes of the children The thousand yards stare in the women In the empty markets And defeated shopkeepers I see the lost look in the eyes in the gaunt  Trekkers with threadbare shirts And battered soles And dying souls This is a defeated place Voices are lost in the multitude of sounds Cries boomerang like the rabble of weak and old Empty echoes We receive the boot of the clones For cries And bullets for our concerns The democracy of the armed,  Demarcated between dark-tinted land cruisers and ammoed goons Who speed past the dying nation We lay our necks for the armed fulas like goats  And Our ailments treated by quacks We die unsung by the minute This is our fate in this dying nation

 Through this journey I have learnt to look at the eyes  to know the story to look beneath the tale to find  the meaning to make every child smile because they never forget kindness or sorrow to leave something for someone  no matter how small

 Nothing is really ours the beauty, the wealth, the youth,  the life Nothing is really ours

 His eyes weren't there  When he talked about his journey through Agadez,  They were distant and full of memories Of the dying men and thirsty throats His eyes were far when he talked about Libya and the journey through the sea I saw him seated on the faulty boat that capsized in the middle of the sea.  His eyes became bright, the uncombed wiry igbo man of utako,  Selling his Okrika When he talked about the dolphins who came to save them,  How they jumped gracefully And sent signals to the border guards And I fell in love with dolphins that day Seeing them as he saw them Graceful and emphatic  Saviours of men He came back and would go again I said to him You have been saved so many times Why go back and tempt fate He shook his head and couldn't explain And I saw the wanderlust set like a dark cloud. The journey was his path Someday I think of the thin wiry man And wonder if the sun and sand of Agadez, got him If Libya or ISIS got him If the sea got him...

 What if she was the brightest girl That ever lived And she had the cure for cancer Or the code that would make Elon go crazy What if she would have been the brightest lawyer Or the deepest writer Whose thoughts could change humanity What if she birthed the one who would change the world Or would have been an astronaut What if she wasn't a young child of ten Leg  amputated Eyes bleeding with lost hope Looking for stipends Looking for something What is she wasn't sad and depressed Ten year old and fated for sorrow Ten year old girl child amputee Sitting on the market floor Begging  What if she wasn't burdened by The lustfull gaze of the pedophiles The indifference of strangers The helpless of parents The despair of poverty What if? 

 When you realise that The dark eyed child, dying in an earthquake The child and waiting  vulture The dying man carried by his children The children burning on infernos Or matcheted by the Fulanis All wailed and cried When you realise That the orphans going to bed hungry Or going to bed raped And having the lost helpless look in their eyes All looked to heaven and wailed When you realise That cries of pain And the sisypean loop of tragedy and success Never end You know that in the end, the truly pure are  The truly forsaken

 We meet in dreams Across the chasm of the unspoken There our eyes meet Our hands touch And our hearts say what they wish to say We love in dreams with our silent words Our healing touch  Our defiant hearts that draw us close Amidst several waters In dreams we are safe To say and to stare To love and to hope We meet in dreams  Because reality is strange And places  us in the prisons of our hands

 I never knew of hugs or bosoms of comfort I never felt your hands caressing my strong kinky hair But I knew of your words Unkind and cruel that haunted me like a ghost I knew I was ugly and was not much I knew I would find the home in chaos with screams and pain in my eyes and in my soul I knew I never had a home so I would search forever for one Mother Dearest now you try to hug me when we meet but I never knew how it felt to hug you and I cannot do that now Now you wish to laugh and talk with me but mother your words and your deeds belie your nonsense chatter you are the pain that seeks the multitude in my destruction like the two-faced Janus  I can never trust I sought you when I came of age away and safe from your rage to find out why But you would not tell me why a girl  could not find safety in her mother's arms when I sought your face from the turbulent storms, you laughed in delight for you thought  my end was near Now you hobble in age and you pray  fo...

I hide myself now From prying eyes and talking lips Hearts that have brought me sorrows Souls that have brought me no respite You weary me, friend finders Lover seekers I have no answers for your eternal quest Your minds are stagnated in the loop of want and desire Your thoughts dwell on the mortal And weary me I shield myself from you as I search within For questions and the answers and hopes and dreams And await epiphany Years have been lost In your furtive eyes Your hollow speech Your descent into mortality Your cheap desires I shield myself from you

 Aunty Jummai's house in GRA Was heaven to me It smelled of vanilla cake Frostind and fried flour dough You could be sure of cold kunun zaki And a thousand and one delights It held a trove of treasures, where we read And read and played and ate Aunty Jummai's house in GRA was one of delightful memories that brings to me a smile on my face and the fragrance of childhood to my nose. 

 They were the prize they said But I saw as a child How they discarded those they unwanted Pretty Toyin with her permed hair Crying over the aged bachelor in her boys quarter Beautiful Maryam The newscaster who was a corper Who had her things thrown out in the streets of Bolori They were the prize they said And held the power over tears And happiness Over self Leaving a string of sorrow and sadness Of pursuit and conquer Of lust and desire The prize of chaos

 There  we fell In the midst of their drama The desperate one  And the mischievous one Despair in her eyes Mischief and despair in his eyes We were the threats she screamed at him Pleading for love He laughed like one stuck  In a Sisyphean loop of infinite games We weren't ready for that We were there for the Mr. Biggs burgers And not the Shakeperean tragedy But I learnt from that day, Never to plead for love

 You could not wait To devour me,  Mr. Death Come and meet me At the hotel you said You drooled and drooled And I looked like a fool I lied and say yes I would see you and you smiled And waited but not for me For your death I saw your death Staring at me through the walls Of your temporary kingdom Aghast I said... I knew this man, met him once.  Pray, what killed him To which someone replied "Woman na im kill am" I prayed and thanked heaven for sparing Me from a painful death Or a painful life.

  I gave it to you,  Raw and red, broken and torn For it was so hard to find someone who  Liked chess And talked books You laughed at it Mocked at it "I was sowing where I didn't reap"   I waited for you To see beyond the glare of the eyes And the words that spoke vile and bile But you were the words  And you were the bile And you were bile So I took it back, broken and torn And soothed it up with the balm of words and deeds and the breeze of life And I forgot your words And your eyes And I loved and I sowed what I reaped Adieu bitter one,  Life is mine as well

 She won Even in her loss she won So you remain stuck In an undefeatable battle For a heart that will never be yours  You measure your success with her tears You compete with one who no longer plays the game He is lost because she was  His heart.  When she left, he died When you left, he lived She won, even in her defeat and shame She won

    There he presides over an assembly of fools who drink his every word, the gullible naïve. The charlatan is as smart as a fox and as sly as a snake who feeds on emotions like a vampire to twist and turn all within his reach.   What a lovely god he has become at the height of his power, he made the Force shake at the edge of his power, they shake not at their knees but in their teeth waiting for the time to end his reign.   The truth is a rejected mistress and amidst the lies the mistress shows up from time to time and the charlatan drowns her in a torrent of words she remains a figure behind the noise and the discerning see the  dead boys who still seek justice the missing child of a disabled mother the missing funds donated to the poor the defiant mother and  cantankerous daughter   Mister, lady truth sits behind you heavily like a mist in the cloud waiting to pour She will not be killed or destroyed ...

 They were from another era with their failing faces and morbid bodies so we ignored them because they had nothing to tell us that would interest us The old were monsters we detested and avoided and they wanted us because our eyes held something they had lost they wanted our thin waists, our courageous   smiles our defiant eyes that did not beg them or want them But we chose a few of the old  the ones we liked that were not stained by life the ones who taught us the ones who looked good  the rest we avoided  the ones that sat heavily in their government chairs hiding government files the ones who sat in restaurants lonely and waiting the ones who moved silently waiting for those long gone the ones who tried to revive the lost years Now we move heavily  and we have have the same wistfulness in our eyes now our eyes are sad and searching  reaching out for an identity in the eyes of the young now our voices and silent and forgotten now we are avoided...

 Bring back those days of old Indian music and indian films  where we sat poor and hunched at the mercy of the houses that would host us while we watched  Bollywood movies where we would walk for miles and our smiles were easy unbothered about the future and lived in the moments Bring back those days when we were not cautious  of words being twisted and eyes being hostile and we would run for miles because we could  and we never bothered about being loved  or unloved about aging and failing of wealth and demands Those days when we were truly happy and free 

 The scent  of rain is the scent of water and sand The thunder rumbles gently at a distance  Satiated and content A quiet breeze blows, tickling my black plum tree and it sways back in amorous delight The conflux of time and chance brings me here,  A product of 400 generations of lust or love Listening to my seeds squabble over video games and make-up Outside rain and wind beckon the changing season

 A  wonderful people, a wonderful breed tall and strong like the tall iroko tree Igbos, the choice slaves, like the Mandinka tribe a testment of perfection of mind and matter  Igbos the excellent, who have fought and won as slaves and masters fought and won as servants and rulers you have been blessed by the goddess of fortunes but tainted by the demon of tragedy  Your blood is found in Virginia, named Igbo Land Your blood breaks the barrier of  generations Paul Robeson, T.D Jakes, Tyler the Creator, Blair Underwood, Jidenna testify of your greatness 

 Where are those people I left in the past have they become memories, existing only in the realm of thought, abstract figures  full of life, blood and guile living The house in Ikeja, the policemen who guarded it the tilers in Lagos The widow in Port Harcourt The waitresses  in Ghana The taxi man who took me to the park the bike men in Seme the policemen in Togo The border guards in Abijan the driver in Ireland the shopman in Dubai the kind shop guy in Malaysia our paths crossed once in eternity, I remain a hallucination,  you remain etched in my thoughts  immortalised by my words 

 There was a little girl who stayed hidden behind the Pegout tyres Hidden behind our judgmental stares we whispered and muttered  our eyes round in awe  and sought to see the apparition  that was a pregnant girl Oh little girl, how bitter were the tears you shed  beneath the unhappy rooms in a home full of shame and recriminations  how you tried to hide your being  from our prying judgemental eyes Oh little sad girl, I hope Fortune gave you the comfort denied you once

Short, stocky Kebbi You who trawl the car wash stands and endeared  yourself to us Kebbi, you saw me through so many troubling times, the parker of my car.   Your family  always on your mind Kebbi you who journyed the roads to my house and who was subject  to my moodswings.   I was always going through a lot Kebbi to hear you died horrendously tied like a hog and smashed Like a roach. Oh Kebbi, I forgot you too soon Forgive me 

 Only few know the depth of power a writer holds through the writer's words, names are revived Lives long gone and forgotten are resurrected  Oh Zora, you tell me of your Howard crush, who sat through your illness of the upper-class lady who married a geologist of the defeat of your father and the shrew who was your stepmother  Shaw, you show me a world of Nicholas and Rainas Dante, you teach me about Di Rimmi, Vigne and Monte Feltro Wiwa, you talk to me about the Magistrate, arbitar of injustice Oh Writer, you telepathic one  who speak to our thoughts and create our visons who immortalizes men and myth  and are divinely blessed to sustain immortality 

 I mHostile eyesust walk tommorow to the place of judgment and my execution words that I phrase have been judged before I speak Eyes that are hostile await my presence I must lay my case to eyes that have judged and tongues that have wagged and have proven me guilty before I speak I must wak these steps to prove my life to live and not not take the death blows handed in my stride

 Memories are painful thoughts are circular words of the past become premonition of the future and what  feared I became two terrors stand guarding the doors of my dreams ensuring its futility, and my  heart broken, and discarded by the ones whose eyes were soft no tears, no need hunched over in pain, eyes closed into clasped hands no way out. Oh God, I am without the guile that makes the evil survive I hoped in you to repay me the years of my faith Silent God with its heavy laws,  what are laws without justice for my broken soul?

 Broken and beaten Fears have become life that swallow and destroy till there are no thoughts but fear and its spawn which keep me in its eternal grasp I cry to heaven for some respite and try to find the reason for this plight but I have atoned for the sins in my youth my hands are t pure oh what it would be to live and see and not slink and think and hope and slink  a loop of transmuting and dying not seeing life as it passes but hoping that life stops and heals before its next punch

  How you waited for the day where you could see the sun rising across the Bight of Benin oh Cudjoe the fear and dread of the fateful day, where the women of Dahomey captured and sole you wrenching you from your source remained a torment till your death. Oh Cudjoe, your life was spent in limbo in a place you did not understand in life, you did not wish to have everything was in expectation of going home. You wore the clothes that were not yours you bore a name that was not yours   Cudjoe, in death, you were reunited  and your mother would call you olu...and you would run with your three brothers and two sisters to feel your mother's warmth.   

 Creator or Destroyer, Ideation, Escapism, or Repression? Imagination, Malevolent or Benovolent  You  destroy whom you  or create what you destroy, Stuck between the vortex of your clutch Amidst the Sisyphean trudge towards creation or immobility Imagination, my foe, my friend

 God why have you fated me for pain the pain of the abandoned the pain of the unrequited  the pain of thee rejected and ostracised the pain of the grieving the pain of the anguish Oh God why do you demand love in a heart and has been colored with grief why do you seek adoration in eyes that have seen so much why do you demand enthusiasm from a heart that has been sick God why do you demand so much  from a life that has been given pain? not ingratitude to seek solace from you iTs not sinful to question the action from the written it's not wrong to ask why from the silent sky and  curl and know there will never be answers  I don't sin knowing you will be silent I don't believe knowing you take what you take and leave e that hope is foolish, cynicism is real. Silent God, every watching in judgment for this sick heart to turn. you flood me with memories of blessings I cry in pain ever sure of your silence... I see your justice sometimes and your injustice all the ti...

 Oh age..  you tamer of mind cutter of wit destroyer of dreams how did you catch me in your grasp I, the butterfly so sure so sound now full of pauses  and words unsaid, fear and terror Age, you weaken the bones you weaken the spirit and the soul is left vacuum of dreams and denial

You know me but you dont, i am the butterfly that flutters and rests on your cheek, then fades away when you seek. I am the loyal friend, the sweetest heart, the raging bull whose tongue is a sharp tool. Ying and Yang, darkness and light, cosmic flow of illusion, constant check of reality. Conformity my demise, stagnation my death the chameleon, mustang, or the zebra, ever-changing,never tamed. what mask will I wear? Will my mood fall heavy today and will I spin heavy , a dark cloud, causing chaos like a tornado Will I be the bright sky, chirping bird, easy laugh? My soul the unending battleground, between good and evil,Gemini yes,bipolar, maybe My despair inspires, my euphoria enlightens, i am who i am, straight talking, slick tongued, brutal, kind, fleet footed messenger of mercury

  You who lived too much, Unrestrained by life's pleasures  So you sought and sought the dragon's tail Belle and Beauty, so they stood bowed in awe.   Entrapped in your laughter, Helpless in desire You were destroyer and builder No one could compete with your beauty and charm, humour and zest You were adored by all.   You were the party that never ended, long after everyone had gone home Beauty expires, looks fades You did not realise when the winds changed You strode into middle age, unstable and untamed  Unable to change, rejecting those who loved you for the thrill of the chase.   You were the flame that destroyed all close to it So we learned to stay far, from where we would not be razed. Oh VV who could not know when to stop the pursuit of pleasure. Dying alone, oh what a tragic fate  

 Underneath the wide streets and stone-coated roofs lies a nation watered in blood. Beneath the terminal leaders clawing into the soft folds of power, lies a gluttonous lust to destroy the body and soul. O numerous dead, slaughtered in Kano, Asaba, Benue your voices still cry to the archangels, Michael, Rapheal, Ariel,  why the silence. Killers who roamed free in the dawn of their youth now are forcefully humbled by the pain of age you too will fade away or will be destroyed by the cries of the souls who haunt your empty souls.

 I remember the house at West End  that harboured me in my teenage years close to the Hospital, farther down Video Mars Where the effeminate  guy would look at us with joy because our eyes were pure and where he would look at us in despair when he saw that we now knew WEST END  Where we could only dream of the time we would get the perms at the Black and White Supermarket and the buses would drive from Baga Road to Costain next to us was the Chadian Embassy with the Chadian with the saddest crush  and the trees with the sweetest guavas. I remember walking down to Video Mars renting the latest Blockbusters and Bala would drop by, and we would talk about Chase and other books Books were the escape from the dreariness of the mundane  I remember the house at West End with its white gates and falling leaves A past I detested,  A past I long for

 Crush, Friend, soulmate who loved me deeply thn, when I was a belle, now as I age I look back and wonder what the world would have been  You who was always conscious  full of sadness, full of love who  held on, fo years on years you who lost your faith in God fo the sadness you got. Forgive me, I always felt unworthy and I needed to grow from the shadow of the past which was filled of pain, class wars, and torment  to grow I look back sometimes and hope you found the peace I failed to give.

 Jack Boy, valiant and courageous, they said Immaculately towing the line talking the talk and walking the walk Jack Boy who fought for the horror we live in and we will die in. The feminicide, and patricide, the horror of the mob who bay for blood every eve,  the knowledge of permanent hostility of the backward and irate destined to engulf all in its deathly grasp Jack who stood tall and brave on the backs of children ravaged by Beriberi, Kwashiorkor and Marasmus children staked by vultures waiting to gouge out their little yes All is fair in war ...they said, impeccably  Jack Boy, articulately watching hordes perishing under you  Now you thrive in silence, the silence of the fool the silence of the quilt It's another bloody day in the land of your birth I await you cry in agony in the dawn of the massacre but you remain stoic as you lick the fruits of your judgment

We build monuments to ourselves in tombs and castles, in power and domination in the routine and the preternatural through science and in fiction, through our breed and our kin or by immortalizing words on the sand of time Monuments for those who come behind impatient to learn how we lived or learn from what we saw  ready to build monuments for themselves 

 Fate is cruel to dogs who disintegrate before our eyes Jezza, of the soulful eyes and wagging tail agreeable and human I feel your love so deep and so pure but was too busy living too busy doing too busy thinking too busy existing  to reciprocate Now your days are few  and guilt overwhelms  Jezza dying before me,  broken teeth, and falling  hair my tawny basenji breed who diminishes daily before my eyes 

  Marble floors,shiny mall Young black men in love with fat white women, in love with old white women little girls tiny waists oozing sex,selling sex old fat men, bulging tummies oozing cash, spending cash bored bland faces like ebony masks watchful eyes wagging tongues, everyone is here, showing off, eating junk in plastic cups showing off jaded knowing all, feeling stuffed. falling deep. thousand yard stare

Pulchra Terra.   Magnificent and beautiful   You were cursed with your seeds Who go in circles generations from generations entrenched in greed and destruction. We die like chicken decapitated, are burnt like decaying wood no one remembers us, no one fights for us. We all are dispensable.   Sixty years of ruling and we have killed ourselves more than colonist ever has Oh Nigeria, will it be a curse to raise my seeds amongst your twisted seeds?  

 To the dreadful Mrs. D, thin-faced, bespectacled  calamity handing down an injustice to the despondent Wiwa where are you now, at sixty, hobbled and aging  do you sleep and dream of comfort or peace or is your mind tormented by a plethora of evil that bedeviled your career did Nemesis cut you short like the abomination you are, or did God in his knowledge grant you a life of luxury and peace you denied others; To the dreadful Mrs D,  a product of the Nigerian corruption that has festered and mutated into something unfeasible the deadened conscience of the heartless medics the injustice of the Justices the nonchalance of the police the brute force of the Lekki shooters The Nigerian has metamorphosed into something worse than evil and I dread to age in a society of the soulless where living is negotiated Oh Mrs D, who feathered her nest, and destroyed the tree you are part of the evil that has born fruit  and destroys everyone its shadow falls upon

 There is no man as great as the writer who speaks for generations  to generations whose voice is immortalized and whose thoughts are concretised oh writer, unaware of your greatness you are destined for immortality designed to shape the thoughts of men and nations prepped to stir the passions that lay dormant within souls and guide the lost and fallen woe is he that does not heed your clarion call he is blind and deaf,  guided by primal passions Oh Homer, Virgil, Faust, Shaw, Soyinka, Conrad, Emecheta, Nwapa you awakened a zest for the intricacies of the mind that nothing else could

 We who feel too much watch the eyes and read the signs   of the words we who feel too much know that words are mirrors and eyes ae windows to  the soul that is hidden we who feel too much know too much of the thoughts you think and the actions you take in a day, month, or year we who feel too much are cursed the knowledge of knowing of the pain of losing before finding 

 You who have no thoughts and wander like the lost but are  full of manufactured knowledge have no power \you chant the latest chants enraged by the latest cause robots of the system stupid and in mass Your arguments are hollow and the same like a rabid dog circling its tail you are used by the few and are discarded to be used  again you who have no thoughts have no life

 So we dillydally around these games we both have played as the winners and losers the thrill has ended now all is left is the clawing hands of despair the blank stare of  boredom of dread of sadness and the mourning of loss we know the words are empty and respoken we know when the chaser becomes the belle and the belle the stalker the dynamics change oh little sad one, no matter what you say or  how hard you try  you are like Sisyphus trudging up the hill pick up your broken heart and heal till you are ready for another game