My ****** mind craved
a new hearing from you
I would sit night after night
Imagining castles and angels
I would dress not in a cape
But in Burberry mufflers and a hat
learning to serenade in your voice.
The in betweens beckon once in a while
but i have known the true voice
just like you know from deep within.
I know of a woman who thought picking cherries
and dreaming of castles were for the wrong
I know of another woman,
Evolved from the Eloi Clan
And Elvish. And she sings
The rain to sleep.
She is Bella
I am learning
to breath
and I hope you still do.

writing letters of apology,
we utter words like,
'weakness in man. the curse!
women, the abominable sin'.


writing letters of apology
we first deny the obvious
welding lies with truth
wrecking trust with words


writing letters of apology,
we quite recall others
who stepped in these traps
wearing shields and helmets

writing letters of apology,
wriggling in pain and depression
we gnash our teeth
words admitting that man is weak.

today i played Ambre
in a concert of 20 people
with my eyes closed all
but at the 25th bar.

Out of every sobre
heart i saw for that 3 seconds
i saw your own eyes closed
enwrapped in the music.

you weren't thinking about the calibre
of people in this small room,
or the cost of the ticket.
Not about the cold room

or warm bodies or the fibre
that stuck so close to your skin
that they were seduced with its pleasure
or the fingers that pressed the keys

Your mind covered by sabre
in the message.we both knew
what Nils Frahm wrote in that piece.
We know. But we can't say

teen (age) lover,
is there anything
I can change?
We have lost time
                                      curse this watch
and lost touch
                          curse this skin

secret lover,
would it still work
if i hid our communion
under piles of dirt
                                       this calendar
skimming through streets,
acting like i don't know you
                              this equation

surface lover
i could feed us
with more lies
but nothing feels
better than the truth
that i walk in your dreams
                              but i'm the sleeper
and nothing can change that
                        nothing has changed that

these metaphors!
but i still live in your fear
these metaphors!
tell me you understand.

Please tell me you understand!

when
you
see my shirt stained with blood

when
you
see my cheeks ripped with red

when
tonight
my ***** reeks with excess of red

leave me to my God,
              ,  you don't know what happens
                                                              , behind closed doors.


leave me with my god






or love me deep.

They warned me often about my lavish spendings
and reckless lifestyle.
They warned me with heavy words like

poverty,
sleep,
children,
future,
hunger.


But I would not listen.
So they gathered and talked amongst themselves.
Planned for the day I would come late,
Asked that I followed them to get some latte
Then we parked at the place of initiation.

Women talking in languages other than my fluent tongue,
Smokes and fires! Firewood and charcoal!





Three days later, I'm driving to Aromire Road
For my steady diet of akara* and bread.

"Oh Seye, you now eat 'bean cakes'?"

you repugnant *******!
you keep me wondering
just why god created you

they say He has a reason
for everything. Why he created you
I still don't understand. but lately
i wonder if you were created
just so i could have this day
to myself.

full of filth, creepy as hell
disgusting at the sound
of your belly being squashed

but for the sake of justice,
i sprayed you with my favorite
perfume.
not because i have a pint of love for you
but because every opportunity to end your life
should be fully taken advantage of.

i watched you die. it was slow.
first your legs uncoordinated,
you scrambled for the walls
but they failed you. they did fail you.
then you choked. i could almost hear it
you thought of the darkest place
to dig your grave. but not on my marble floor

i watched you die. i wanted it faster
but the sweet smell of the Hugo Boss
and the death of a scape goat...
a scape roach,
was bearable.

maybe you deserve a soundtrack
or a more befitting burial in a bin
but a poem for you is totally undeserving
save for my joblessness.

and then i infused
my fantasy in your dreams
tomorrow, you'll come.

In the beginning we prayed the sun would shine
And that we would have butter for tomorrow's bread
And that kings would call us on our phones
And then we prayed for our families and for our friends
And for the meeting with the boss
At 10am tomorrow.

Later we walked through the back gate
Of the  petrol station that led us to the market
This time we prayed for enough money to buy stock fish
and the new maggi flavor they talked about on TV
But despite the fumes from the noisy generator outside,
8.30pm's dinner we would enjoy

Wasn't it the other day we prayed for lamb
and more soup when the bike hit you
and we could barely afford a cab to take us back home?
Quickly buying balm from the kiosk beside George's,
Asking God why again,  we prayed for a car.
Taxis don't enter after 10pm.

So from that day, we dreaded the gates
between the station and ojodu market
We looked beyond the skies when it rained
Soaking our sunday best. She hissed
And I made excuses, "Maybe God wants to tell us
That this time tomorrow, we will tell a story"
10pm tomorrow?

Heaven 's giant gates opened
Yes, slowly. Those everlasting gates did open
They did open to our hearts
But ours were shut.

Who knew when?

the death of a lover
a bottle of ***
a shrugged shoulder
and a chest that weighs
more than my body.

once again i shrug,
laugh it all off
like it doesn't matter.
but she still tip toes
in the middle of the night
to insight envy.

the death of a lover
a cup of tea
a teaspoon of sugar
and a memory
of starless nights.

I am looking for someone who knows how to stay
Someone who ignores the bad breath
That walks out of my mouth when I say the words,
"Will you stay with me?"
Someone who won't get scared seeing the scars
Well lodged under my fitted white t-shirts.
I am looking for someone who looks beyond
The words 'commitments' and waits for me
To stutter the right words at the right time
About the right time.

I am not made of plastic or steel
Diamonds belong to the rocks
and songs that praise dead warriors.
But I am made of dust. The one you
trample upon- On the busy streets of New York
Or the rowdy streets of Ikeja-under-bridge.
Dust that won't stay.

My emotions bleed like the felt tip pen
In one moment's rush and in another second's silence
Like the ocean tide.

Like the ocean's tide, sometimes I get high
Sometimes low. The winds that blow
Never leave me to my own predictions.

I wear a shell of manhood
One that masks the same little boy
Who lived on a mother's breast;
The same boy who bit his nails
At every opportunity. The same boy
Who never knew the difference between
right or wrong.
visit or stay.


I know what it feels like to be a forest
And I know what it feels like to be a tree.
My bark is tough and my leaves wide
I can shade from the beating pelts of spring's rain
The Sun and I have an alliance
And anyone that lives under my arms
Owns a certain glow.
I am looking for someone
Whose roots will stay firm to the ground
Curled around mine like the lomp of the
Nigerian man's hair.
I am looking for someone
who will stay.


Will you stay?

Us,
Our love
was like
a fairy
tale

Very real
but untrue

This tastes like a bad dream
And its scent, the bitterness of the night.
I have watched me save myself from you
But these memories hold me tight
like skin holds these blood vessels
from spilling blood.
These memories call me like a curse
That looms an abattoir.

Dear, the adrenalin kept me standing
The fear of being wrong kept me coming
This magic, your magic kept me wanting
Wanting what you could never give.

So now, you take to the hills crying fowl.
You tell all that my garment smells foul.
You open up flesh and leave these open scars
You open up while I drop my cards.

This still tastes like a bad dream
And I wrap it under my sleeves
A souvenir for wounds we can't mend
My heart was once made of tissue
But now it textures dark leather

You see I lean on horizontal walls
And I see you wondering why.
You think I don't see your eyes
You think I don't see your fears.
Mine have taken over me
Isn't it an irony how a faith
That soars like a kite against the wind
Is mocked by a fear that feasts on me
Like cavity to clean white teeth

You see I lean on horizontal walls
And behind these eyes that glitter
Is what I have lost control of.
Even jesus has refused to visit.
Or that's what I think.

Whenever this wall is broken
When it chooses to stand upright
You'd be the one to teach me to walk
When I finally remove these gloves
It would be you I would learn to hold
When this black eye becomes beautiful
Won't it be you I will be seeing?

I see your heart tangled
Don't think mine is not
I left a note in your heart
One that only you can read
I left them with cryptic words
When tomorrow comes
And I have nothing to lean on but you,
Find this note.

It's the cause of this fallen wall.

In the conversation you had with your sisters and friends
over coffee and chitchat,
you described me as perfect, a gentleman
adorned with a cloak of eccentricity,
Tagged along by a shadow who has has never been
in the dark or seen anything but the light.
At this time, your accent lifts as you described me.
"Perfect gentlemen don't exist", everyone retorted.
So you go on and on about
this and about that
And this too and that.
Till even the least enthusiastic
Buys a ticket to watch me.

So I perform. I perform. Only this time
I wear no mask on the stage of enticement.
I laugh out loud and carry the bottles.
I sing out loud even when my voice is muffled.
I play along, like a skilled ocarinist.
I blab about life in the slums and the impending economic crunches,
i brag about my dreams and the few nights I don't snore.

In the same conversation I had with myself,
Sitting to a bottle, a moleskin and pen all by myself,

I tell myself how much of me hasn't changed,
How my thoughts never changed
Despite my unkempt beard and bad breath.

I tell myself how the-same I am,
Only this time, I'm wearing a different shirt
stained at the pocket with oil from yesterday's tofu fries.

it wasn't like we didn't know what was right or wrong
but sitting under abandoned structures at two in the morning,
talking about work, money and betrayal felt like neither.

i held the big bottle of beer for the first time
while stretching it out to her.
"Add ciga join oga", was her next response.
so i pulled it out from inside the pack. her pack.

"who you be? you be pastor?
why you come? you dey n.g.o?
abi you dey dea dey form good boy
siddon dea!"

so she blew out some smoke from her mouth,
blew what was left out of her nostrils
took another sip from the green bottle
some spilling off the side of her mouth
she scratched her back and waited for the next line

we managed to talk about what we did in the day.
i, a popular janitor, for better job to hang on to.
she, trader in Brazilian hair, owed by all her friends.
but i admitted being jobless at night
while she pleased other men for cash.

so she blew out some smoke from her mouth,
blew what was left out of her nostrils
took another sip from the green bottle
some spilling off the side of her mouth
she scratched her back and waited for the next line

"teach me facebook", she said
putting the sudden silence to shame.
so i grabbed her phone with in disgust,
but with plenty of curiosity,
while wondering what i was doing here.
"na ikenna send me dis fone"

so she shows me ikennas picture.
a young man with another woman beside her.
i quickly flipped through other pictures and messages.
some were about fights, some about clubs,
the others about robberies.

she blew out some smoke from her mouth,
i stand to go. so she asks, 'you go come shrine,
fela shrine tomorrow?'
with a smile only familiar friends can read, i accepted.

afterwards, she told the security men to let me go.
'na my friend'. a wicked smile scratched on the faces
of these men who stood for balogun street's security.
and we were friends. familiar friends.

many months have passed,
i blow the heat from my lungs with a sigh
i scratched my back and wait for this memory to erase.
what was i doing there?

So you face Mecca five times a day
Muttering my name under your breath.
So you remember the nights and days
When your hands kept me from falling,
You pulling my weight from my coarse palms
And weak fingers.

You remember the seasons we reigned,
Ruling the world with straws, wielding lollipops
And cotton candy in our hands,
our own king your own queen.
We promised each other fortunes
only they were cut out of paper,
adorned with sketches of us
And I swore I could catch the last firefly
that glittered after dawn.

But suddenly it’s a real world. The castles were built with sand,
Our faces rid with pimples,
our hands separated by distance
You say I am not who I used to be;
my voice a tone deeper.
But I only see your own chest heavier.

Suddenly the mention of my name
is forbidden in your sanctuary
The same name you scribbled
behind your notebook in biology class
and wherever there was a pencil and paper,
where there was a nail and a tree,
where there was a finger and some sand.
You pick on my weakness and forget
That  its the same thing that we are made of;
that which makes us one.
You forget we were formed from the ground
The one we step on. You forget our mortality,
The topic we never brought up.

Friend, we are so lost. Tell me,
Are these wounds we can mend?
Or is this a chance to pretend
Again that we are not friends

but strangers

You pick every word I say
With rapt attention.
So I tell you about tangerine skies
In Vermont, how I shape them.
I tell you my dad invented Cuban cigars
In Argentina.

You heard about the prawns,
The ***** and the lilies. A story only I could tell.
I could tell it in fluent Yoruba.
You watch me sleep like I don't have a care in this world
Snorting away while chasing dragonflies and seahorses
In my oblivion.


You watch me walk in the shadows
My gait like gridless frames of a restless gate
blown open by the wind.
(If I was the night, I would be bright.)

Finally you see my hands well adapted to cutlasses and owes,
Irrespective experienced with oriental oils
and manicures.
'One day I will be king', I thought I said.
But you heard it from my mind.
You heard it alone.

Yesterday we owed this to ourselves.
Tomorrow we will be lovers
Today let's be friends.

We broke up and we broke down
Running from all that we were really looking for.
You woke up and you looked down
On everything we stood for.
You crept from beneath squeaky windows looking in
Till you saw forms and shadows,
And so you pointed and shot.

But there are a galaxy of excuses
Some from beneath our pride, others from surfaces deeper.
There is a gallery of our frustrations
But you quietly let yourself in.
You see, everyone wants to be heard
And so I voiced out.
I opened a palm and opened the other.
But you never asked. You never saw.
You never once thought the other way.

But what if our fears were a farce?
What if our trouble was meant for something noble?
What if this hatred for each other and the dark consequences
were buried below?
What if our worries were left behind?

Oh god, what have we done.
We are leaving our things behind
We are leaving our sins behind.
We are slowly losing

This beautiful place

lemon peach and ***** jeans
these are some of the many things
that keep my mind busy


and then it quakes  it tocks
like a pendulum talking
it ticks  like a dog scratching

it rocks like a door squeaking