Lagos you are dirty
Your sand is soiled
Your fruits pithy.
I am tied to you
in a strange land
by lines that queue up
for foodstuffs you
should be eating but
ship off to me here
where I stand on check
out lines and marvel
at the cost of one
paw paw, just one mango
singular, along and apart
from you my dirty city.
O Lagos, your streets
are packed and pollute
the air while here in
a smug smogged city
I choke.
Your cord cuts my throat.
I am hurt and I cry like
my Mami market mothers
who go home night after
night with the same tin pots.
Their food is rotting and
ought to be thrown out to
the birds and beasts of
the forest/ but the lines!
O God, these lines are so long
and between the houses and
the foodstuffs so many palms
must be oiled.
Nairas are dripping with black gold
and yet a beggar man’ s lot is the
same/ He covers his shame as best
he can and little boys skip school.
A policeman holds his right hand out
a green car passes him dash. And we go
dash you dis and we go dash you dat
and mek we do business.
O Lagos, Lagos, ah say, you don tyah
fo dis? Yousef wey you de com fom?
Me, I long for the cleanliness of
sand roads that breathe long in carefully
spaced intervals between cars running
wild like mustangs roaming the plains.
There are no drivers to speak of.
They have vanished over the hills and
into gulleys.
The seeds have been planted. It is a
bitter harvest we reap. The deeds have
been done. What has been sown is the
flower of our calabashes on the eve of
harvest. If only the waters in the Marina
If only the waves would whisper
louder the secrets of her beaches I would
know all/
My harbour is named after a queen whose
son’ s footprints are planted like a bad
seed on the headdress of my children.
Lagos, lay your plans carefully. There
is no way to stop the rise of bicycles
and lorries, hopeful bodies and empty
pots. You divert dash for food, care
for business. We are not an oasis in a
dying desert/ Have we not learnt, o
Lagos, the sound of seductive songs
and sights that blind us
between need and life there must be hope/