cee

DIPLOMATIC LIP SERVICE
Whenyousee a couple
consumed in a public tiff
‘Don’t bash the oneto stroke the other
I believe you get mydrift.

If they ever invite you
perhapsto stand as judge
Listen well and listen good
But make sure yourlips don’t budge.

Because whentheclash is over
Andthey’re professing love again
Youlook like a busy-body and
Lose not twofriends butten.

For they’ll malign and castrate you
Tag you a murderer of happiness
With your big mouth and know-all ways
You'll be appalled by the nastiness.

So if you’re ever called upon
Perhapsto stand as judge
Listen well and listen good
Makesure yourlips don’t budge.

THE BEAST (MERCEDES600 SEL)
I am the overweight monster of the road
Six hundred thousand poundsoffat
Six hundred notable marksof excellence.

Overruling dictator of my microscopic
subjects
Governing the highwayin sleek splendour
Dominating the fantasies of peasant
headlights
Dashingthe hopesof revolutionary wheels.

I establish the affluent
in their righteous quest
for bigmanism.
To the poor,
Iam the symbol
of class immobility.

Don’t cross my path
Lest I crush you to cipher
with mybigfat alloys.

1 am the beast, Monster of the road.

TWO WOMEN TWOBEGINNINGS

Two women, Two soulmates
Soldered by a commonsource.

Two heart-breaks, Two dream-stakes
Riverlets, driven by a similar force.

Two angers, Two comforts
Busting their mushy fetters to society’s
flaws.

Twocaresses, Two kisses
A sympathetic cure for phallus-inflicted
sores.

Two passions, Two spouses |
Bitten full-faced by unfaithfuljaws.

Two chances, Two dancers
Riding the meadowsona soaring horse.

Tworebels, Two pebbles
Making trash heap of their mothers’ laws.

Twoimages, Two grimaces
Listening in on phonecalls through cracks
in the doors.

Two promises, Two madnesses
Fighting the need for thrusts in bedroom
wars.

Twovoices, Two choices
Yearning for release from love’s clumsy
claws.

Two goodbyes, Two male friends
Two classical, cyclical stories, a pause.

Two beginnings.

FLABBY TUMS
The fold-laden belly
is really quite fascinating.
Note the advantagesof this glorious
wonder.

Moreeffective than any factory-born dye,
It debars you from viewing
that intolerable greying pubis.

 

African

Quarterly

Q

f

 

 

|7age=er—ewaerers

on the Arts dete

. Boe a — 0}

   
 
  

Vol. 2/No. 1 GLENDORA review

a
se

Titilola
belongs to the
breed of
emergent and
young female
writers in
Nigeria. Born

in 1974, she
graduated in
English at the
OgunState
University, -

Ago Iwoyein
1995 and has
enrolled for a
postgraduate
degree in
Ibadan.

These poems

are selected

from her very

first collection
of poetry, SO
ALL THE
TIME I WAS

SITTING ON
AN EGG

whichis

unpublished.

shortstories.

Sheis also an

authorof
unpublished

 

 

Lessintricate than the horrowing buckle
on your two-colour custom-madebelt,
It keeps yourtrousers frorn sprawling
lifeless
at your ankles.

More manageable than giant metallic
wheels,
It is proof that you areliving andliving
well.

as they thrust the metal doors
this way andthat.

II
Sell me some more
of that brown seedy grass
that sends me two octaves higher
andeases the pain
in the days that swallow the weeks
and sour into months.

JOSHUA OLUMAYOWA
A window.
A windowwith
silver window-sill.
A window bejewelled with sapphire
flowerpots
that hold roses.
Rare roses of baby-blue.
A window.
A windowwith curtains
White nappy-softcurtains.

A Handdrawsthecurtains,
and the sun smilesin,
making mylife beautiful.

ETHIOPIAN ROOTS
Copper dreadlocks bobbing up and down
hestrolls, city to city
slappinghis heels to the Roots Rasta Reggae
he hearsin his head.
Hechants to thelistening spirits, Jah’s
emissaries.
Sleeps underthe candy-seller’sstall at the
bus stop,
Jah’s sacred temple.
Wearstailored rags, Jah’s superiorregalia
Accumulates choice garbage,Jah’s
consecrated icons.
Rummagesthroughthe skips, Jah’s high.
table.
Houndsthesane, destructive Unbelievers.

SONG OF THE CONFINED
I
Theballadofthe rusty creaking hinges
that chorusesatthe corridor-mouths
has gotto be a love song.

For the tune reminds me
of a certain kind of freedom
T once dreamt up
Butit’s hard to escape
to thatclassical place
whenthe wardenswith their gutter-deep
consciences
keep disrupting myfalsetto

Ill
Myclaustrophobic limbs
scat in jazzy harmony
so I sweeten the melody
with notesoftired sighs
for the dreams I’m drawing
in musical bars
on these deaf prison walls.

BE ANYTHING ELSE BUT YOU
MaybeI should be morelike the sea
through raging tantrums and sweep away
footprints
like they don’t mean

thing.

MaybeI should be morelike a snail
and bury myself in a spiral home
with room only for me.

MaybeI should be morelike a lioness
tearing apart my prey
asit stalks to steal my priceless cubs.

Maybe I should be morelike the sky
sitting majestically on a blue and white
unicorn
wonderfulto behold, sacrilegious to grasp.

MaybeI should be morelike the spider
and build mycastles in the crevices
of another’s palace.

MaybeI should be morelike a cool breeze
dishing out mypeacein spurts
-kiss and run

MaybeI should just be anythingelse
if my being human
is running milk in the coconut,
its source, mysterious.

FROM THE TING! TING! HADES
CAMP
Shirtless ribs press through
the cyclops lane to misery
bonybare backsof children
m neon pants

 

wes
Wie
GLENDORA review

African Quarterly
on the Arts

Vol. 2/No. 1 

 

magnify italic memoirs of hunger and
homelessness.

Twiggy fingers scrape
yellow plastic cups for the dregs
of palm-full cornmeal

Taut brownskin stretches over
faminedfacesreflecting
swollen-headed dreams.

Gulleyed sockets cocoon dusty pupils
recollecting histories
for tales,
tales that tick in the grains
of hourglass tomorrows.

Staggering drones tow away
the buzzing bodiesof the sick
and the dead are plunged
in the roadside ditches
so the earth can muffle the cries
of Zaire’slost.

FIRING SQUAD
Ten brownbottles
Standing in a row
Each brownbottle
Tied up in pretty bow

Occasional guffaw
_ Lip-deep laughter
Flaming tears
For the there-after

Hearts breaking
Grown men shaking
‘Mylife is being taken

 

Andit’s my making.’

Fire...!
Andall is still.

KENULE, EMMANUEL

Haunted andhated,
Tried and tribunalized,
they stole him away
to the ports of our courts
and hung him out at the gallows
to dry.
Pipe-borne tears of surrender
whethis tired soul,
sizzling the flames of vaingloriousinjustice.
And hecried out
with his last breath,
‘Spirit of Ogoni, forgive them,
for they know whatthey do and doit!’

ABOUTLIFE
Write a poem aboutflowers!
Oftheir tenderpetals
bruised by the heavy black boots
of a sulking son?

Okay, write a poem aboutbirds!
Of the snowydove,half dead,
dangling in the clawsof a falcon?

Alright, write a poem aboutlove!
Of sweet expectations shattered?
Ofinfidelity, violence, suicide?

Then write a poem about life!
I just did.

 

 
 
 

erreer)
African Quarterly
  
  
on the Arts
Mggieeal eesaeUPI |
Vol. 2/No. 1 [GLENDORA review

 

 

 

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