LINES AND VERSES

These streets don’t give cold shoulders
Like the opulent streets of Maitama
Or the flowered crescents of asokoro
But awakens you to a medley of wannabe dreams

A flat, a shop – storeys emerging from a shanty!
In a striking dissonance beauty transforms the beast

The people are warm, the law is far
You could smell the inner ghetto in your backyard
And watch dreamers covet you in their dream
While the louts eagerly await yuletide raid

A path meets a roadway, power lines tempt balconies
Someone fails to toe a plan
Another builds on a sewage line, raises a fence
Against the river, the river waits upon the rain

Different sounds from different homes
Different colour for every house
The road turns pool when it rains
While the river reclaims its lost land

JUDE IFEME




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The king makers unveil a new worthy son
Teach a young monkey a few old tricks
And let the best of the rabble whine or pine
Let the followers of unscrupulous creed
Master the craft of an age long greed
A march on the hill, a march in the creek
A march, and tear lines a side of the cheek
…
The fires give way to a dark purl of smoke
The angels take home more luckless souls
The law and its makers are left in a choke
Another worthy son lose a faith in an oath
Surrounds his sins with a fresh band of rogues
Fistful and furious the battle endures…

A fellowship of men, a pile of defeated ideas!
A conquered people dream away
Faraway, a mullah calls – the church bell rings
Another day is born, perhaps a new king
That may see not the calling of his time –
Since the oldies still defy death, death visits
Very the young

The earth endures all pain, the earth swallows
our pain
The wind rages again, the sand blown away
The toe of our buried rift looks around in glee
Which way will the mummy g…

I look beyond the hoods of my eyes
Nothing but these thoughts of mine;
No guiding stars, no hovering skies,

Try my feet on those paths
I have made, yet I am a stranger
To these things I own.

Every man chooses to stand tall
Be unbowed by their daily wars
But someday a man will crawl

To look at the world and see myself
That’s when I am mostly lost.

2011© JUDE IFEME