My Corner of Town
Houses in my corner of town
have lost shape long before
obesity became ill health
Tell Iya Mujidat her house
has lost all affection for me
and I for it.
Water marks on these lowly ceilings
slowly broadening
in opposite direction to the shrinking of Lake Chad trace the speed of my stationary life.
Tell Iya Mujidat her house looks like her:
Sprouting mosses the color of faded tar
embarrassing secrecy in unwashed crevices
home to cobwebs way past their expiry date: dust.
These bathrooms: ecosystems to lichens,
debilitating in slippery verdant splendor.
This is not rock bottom
It is death with swollen feet:
Hobo of no gender
Beautiful walls with soot like the witch’s at Endor.
My Corolla
running, with feet at the speed of joyful patter
of toddler at sight of mama,
towards me from the land
of daydreams where it once called home
is broken
down,
axle
broken,
fuel tank.
Is there on V-connect companies
that provide tow trucks with audacity
to pull out my dog-eared Toyota
from the land of daydream dwindling in hope
to dusk to this Lagos of sooting dust?
The houses at my corner of town
are out of shape…
Lean, my pocket tells me so.
Bus-Stops and Philosophy
Westminster, Coconut, First gate:
Time will tell if junctions deserve
the respect to slap buses
stop
like conquering kingdom of erosion
straddled across tarmac.
Town Planning, Mobil, Oni and Sons:
I lost the loss of presence to
familiarity.
The end of the goat isn’t the knife. It is
to be born goat,
bleat.
Oshodi, Along, Iyana Dopemu:
The way to love is paved with tar
with scarred pimples mimicking in
minutiae
dimples. Adulterating this affection is
a selfie, self-absorbed,
entirely.
**********************
Post Image by Chez Chike-Udenze via Flicker.
About the Author:
Roland Ndu Akpe finds living in Lagos a sore chore. He is too busy, in banking, to write about it. Performing poetry and reading poetry he likes on SoundCloud is something he enjoys. He writes fitfully, is sure he is not alcohol-dependent and does not have a collection of short stories or poems ready for publication by May next year, or any other May. Maybe.
tomiwa October 11, 2014 18:11
Very Rolandish* i.e clever. I'd love to hear the spoken version. Sure that'd would beat the pleasure of reading it myself.