incessant downpour
outdoor is gloomy and moist
sunshine is cocooned
A paranoid dwarf
A paranoid dwarf
Working at a Lagos wharf
Does fear his ending up in a fridge
By crossing a suspension bridge
Offering a picture of a farm’s ridge
And doesn’t a dime care
That the other workers he does scare
Before now not hurt on a single hair
Walking the bridge as a pair
Soon, everyone is annoyed
About dealing with a paranoid
In courage plainly void
And to make an impact buoyed
Now everybody knows This Mister
Enough to loudly whisper
That not every dwarf
Barefacedly acting the rough
Is necessarily tough.
Across the ocean
Across the sea
I live in Lagos
the city to be
Where business activities has become something of a frenzy
And her economy is a thing of envy
I come from Lagos
The Old slave colony
but now it is a free state because God has destroyed all her enemies
I live in Lagos
Once a real estate of Queen Victoria
But now it is a land of fun and hysteria
With the British Colonial past lingering on
Lagos is the land of coconuts and burning sun
I come from Lagos
with no flowers and trees
and you will be lucky to see a single bumbee bee
But now we have glass houses and many a tower
And hundreds of automobiles that speed of by the hour
And that is the Lagos I see
I live in Lagos
Precious paradise close to the Atlantic
With a view that makes travelers so romantic
But with a teeming population
which seems dramatic
the heat of Lagos is getting traumatic
I love it when you laugh and smile,
At the same time, in my
delight I get sad.
Because I wish I could be the only
man while other men are animals
Àdùk?´, you're so beautiful
with those marks.
Don't be bothered about the city girls,
you got tribal marks not devil marks.
When you laugh I see a rihanna,
When you now decide to keep it
low I see a Michele Obama.
Àdùk?´ Onídìrí, follow me to the city,
I'll open a fashion hub for you
at the riverside of lekki.
?ni bíi ?kàn mi, please help
patch my broken ribs.
Àdùk?´ èmi ?w?n
When we've a daughter, we'll
name her Ar?`wà èkó (Lagos)
With your hands on her hair,
beautifulness will be a course
in the university.
Àdùk?´, dùk?´,
Shake those beads on your waist
for me and let's dance to Àpàlà
like sány?`rì ?`k?là.
Poet
Olajire Damilola Muyideen
(SmilingPen)
Instagram | @smiling_pen
Copyright Owner
Olajire Damilola Muyideen
The streets of Lagos
Snort odours of variant origins
Whilst watching their breath claw its way
Into the breathing hole of man
The feet of Lagos
Speedily catapulting legs forward
Dance to the howling of cars
On these burdened streets
Thrashing and striking chords mercilessly
The cacophonous orchestra of man and Danfo
Creates a vortex of peaceful chaos
On these weary yet wary streets
With legs dangling in the waters
And sitting on the edge of a phenomenon,
The nature of man it wields
Half beautiful, half grotesque
ISALE EKO (LAGOS)
A rooster of discrete tongues
Culture, tradition
Where,
Zillion specters resonate
Quantum croak.
Cock crow,
Erupts whirl, barge at Alaba
Descry of sea of soul cases
Kibbling in, out as Emmet over nectar,
As husky ell of murk drench dawning,
Eviscerate NEPA's spasmodic spitfire
To stupor, obloquy.
The hindmost geezer nestling,
Drenched in diaphoresis of animation of dog days
Eludes unforgiving hail of bug blitz,
Hallowed howl of ole! ole!
Arched in his decrepit nest
Deploys a taper
Until,
Sunup deflowers night jaded sockets
As,
Resonance of one more Naira
To breast billion mark
Percase, perforce, precipitating
The epogee in mores
Rummages his cranium:
Top dog never capitulates
Vanquish countermands blossom
In kernel of hovel, wreck, quagmire
From mainlands of Iddo,
Bog of Badagry
To Favela of Ijora, Ilasamaja
Colonize the cocoon
Which,
Burgeoned Whiz Kid, Davido and Nollywood
Confuting phantasm
That,
Golden fleece
Is muted in the jaws of no man's land.
A colossus who never unwinds
No arrears in innuendos
Paris is your headrest
Rio de Janeiro your ottoman!
Early to rise
late to lay,
business minded people
who barely slay;
best of friends with traffic
who make their day.
Clicking show glasses of Ghana bons
with schoolers ready to buy;
Athletic traffic sellers who could
catch up a bus at 120
A metropolis
coloured with yellow molue and danfo buses
whose drivers are as audacious as the day;
chain smokers with throaty voices
impatient with co-commuters
when they cry "Mile2 Mile2!"
Energetic touts with special anthem
"owo mi da?"
Grubby fighters in yellow
ready to engage any fellow.
Happy market women in their sizes
buying and selling in faded wrappers
in loud cries of "langbe jinó o"
and hilarious children replying "I get belle o!"
Impatient road users in their dusty trekker shoes,
almost bumping into one-way bikers
who would often holler "oloriburuku oshi!"
Loud jaiye jaiye gbedu
with dragging notes
from roadside DJs
who are live for the party
and on Saturdays for the couples
A city with anaconda queues at banks
with sweaty odours from co-standers.
Konfam Okokomaiko pikin
#CeeJay
#BusyPenPoetry
People Hustling for MONEY
Like bee that want to produce HONEY...
Lagos city is not FUNNY
but some people are CUNNY
No one want to go ASTRAY
Like the poor hawking on a TRAY
Everyone Hunting for POSSESION
In this period of RECESSION
Everyone seems so BUSY
Like the area of Mushin that's so LOUSY
Lagos city looks like a JUNGLE
And its only met for people who want to STRUGGLE
A City of unbelievable RICHES
Full of trees and tusks, fruits and FISHES
Garnishing the earth with surplus FOOD
Blessed by God with gracious GOOD....
A mad woman with shattered
hair, bridled with great fulfilled
ego and pride among all women.
A troubled soul in the midst of
Pestful heterogenous mouths.
Hanging here and there are her
beauties spreading like an Eagle's
wings in a flight to perfection.
Up and down are template of
confused children lost in horror.
The street is strict and stressed
every walls occupied by hustlers
every street, a ghotto of bustlers
Lagos laughs large locomotively
yet, the street is stoning every commoner.
Sweat on the street closes many nose
Hurrying legs and hands write before the sun
Hopes fall like pack of cards
every eyes busy and troubled with its
own problems and circumstances.
Lagos,
a naked woman who needs no clothes
but jumps here and there like a teenager
on a new shoe parading the street to be seen
her breast milk is made for every mouth to suck.
This is Lagos our mother
soiled with floating slums and stalls crammed
full of all races and tribes.
Many have stolen her virginity yet,
She never suffer them to ruin.
©John Chizoba Vincent
From_A_Pen_Refusing_Frustration
Citizens in culture crossed
Morals lost in distance chase
Flowers wither at night
Solitude?Come not to us our is not a ghost city.
Fun seeker? Come not alone our canopy is big .
Our fresh oceanic cuisine is surplus and honeymixed.
Fear not when baby whales are washed to the semolina beach
Or when little children are basking on zebra and horses' manes
But jump on a tusker and have a whale of the tamer of forest.
The angels shall alight with the rising of the sun
With awesome fry-pan or leaf-cutter backyards,
Perch on love like butterfly and enjoy our moonlight rock and roll.
Violence in a lorry’s heart
The cruelty of a swoop-hawk
Afflicting along a highway
Of a rural-urban stray;
And drivers in endemic pipes
Of high-life tunes of our folks
The angry touts shout and curse
Passengers in and out of trucks!
LAGOS
Lagos.
Why have you been so plenty?
Is it because you are near the waters?
Why have you been the commercial sight of men and women?
Is it because you were once a colony of whites?
Lagos is a place of struggle
Lagos is to hard by the shadows of pests that run through the streets of the
islands.
Lagos full of people a difference between the rich and the poor.
Lagos, the world feared by the poor and which make the rich bold.
Why have you been so cruel to strangers?
I know you would stretch their necks
And steal their selves as a whole.
Aliens, beware of nice city.
Lagos, citadel of confusion and the sluggish intellectuals who
In the morning work for money and in the night pay crooks
Lagos thank you for being a place of education and land
To proud of both positively and negatively