Water of remembrance sprinkled
On the mountain crest of recollection.
Indulgent mussy memory catapulted
Stones of retentiveness into the
Courtyard of events like bricole
Of battles.
Pendulum of reminiscences swinging
On oscillating milage of roads like
Trotting horse with drippage of sweat
And itching foots.
Ghost of reminiscences restlessly
Roaming with carriage of yesteryear.

Final year educatees required
Boardinghouse,
But list of items engorged dear
Mother's treasury

"where do l raise money
to buy oyinbo mattress, Ilori?"

Mind pullulated with weariness.
Intonation of worries.
Cantillation of wants.
Deficiency of measured means.
Oyinbo mattress beyond ladder
Of reach.
Gluttonously waiting to devour
Lesser items,
But rays of compulsion unslammed
The gate of respite.

Lordly arrival warmly welcomed by
The dorm room's porter,
Walking majestically to the bed-space
With the acquired cotton wool and raffia leaves mattress.
Gamut of items passed through the eagle's eyes of the housemaster.
Silver painted pail donated by a neighbour passed through the sentry of inspection,
And got its admission.
Mother's used cloak turned bedsheets
Passed through the rigorous scrutiny.
Newly built portmanteau unlocked and neatly dissected, item by item.

Agazed eyes focused on the cotton wool and raffia leaves hand-made mattress.
Expectations rattled mumbling astonishment.
Legs stuck in the mud of mystification.
Telepathic dews covered ocean of thought.
Tranquil silence engulfed vicinity,
Deflating the balloon of hope like a litigant awaiting verdict from the jurist's chambers.
Porter's gesticulating gesture connoted nothingness of demeaning disapproval, perambulating on the hilly terrain of approval.

Akimbo stood l.

Now the verdict!

Molten volcanic magisterial command erupted in a gestapo gesture,
Spudding out from the barytone's baritone voice from the selfsame housemaster,
From the bastion of authority,
And the house generalissimo like a wild brant squalled, matter-of-factly,

"we do not accept bed bugs cotton wool and raffia leaves hand-made mattress here".

Entreaties collapsed.

Gorgeous and lushly coloured
West End lights so brightly shine
Reflected in the obsidian road wet with rain
And slick with reckless hope
The painful ***** of tired dreams
Winds down around a bronzed
Soldier, toting his gun, who grimly
Sets his lantern jaw against the
Long dead faces of war and fear

I sit at his feet and watch the cabs
I draw on my cigarette and pick out
Eyes of the people sitting in their seats
They are travelling fast to places
Where I’ll never go and I don’t care
Their lives will play out and we’ll never
Speak or smile together though
Our atoms are siblings in phase

I lift my head to the stars and
Marvel at the time passing many
Years ago when the world was young
And nature was naive enough to
Believe she had got it right
The night lights flicker slowly on
And off and mimic the pinprick
Glows against the raven wing
Canvass above my head

Nothing in this world can shake
My beliefs or so I thought
Until the days when life became
A subtle masquerade and the
Food in the dishes no longer gave
Me the nourishment I craved
Everything I knew was wrong
And right was just a wishful thing

So here I sit, my suit crumpled and
Wet with sweat, the tears and rain
My case is thrown over there and it
Has burst its gut spilling those once
Important papers but now just covered
In vacuous glyphs known to others
But no longer to me
At home that think I am this
They think I am that
They say they know what I will say
When this or that happens
They know me little and
Like all men when grips slacken
Just the few square inches in my brain are
Truly mine and infused with logic
That tumbles central and
Squats on a raffia mat
In a windowless room

Happy in my world and loving
In my deepest thought
Placid in my retrospective views
Motionless against the swell
Of the crowd around me;
Nothing more of me is required of me now
I am free to leave they tell me
And for that I’m
Pleased

I close my eyes and fall to imageless sleep
The cabs keep whizzing by and
The stares are still fixed upon their
Days of lives as they approach
And when they finally come
I will greet them with a simple

“You know me”.

She wore a wig to cover the hair
That was windblown, into her eye,
And topped off that with a raffia hat
To disguise a look so sly,
She sat up there on the balcony
Looking down on the street below,
Watching the heads of the perms and dreads
And noting which way they go.

Her boots were scuffed right up to her knees
Her stockings ragged and torn,
Her linen skirt had dragged in the dirt
From the day it first was worn,
The neighbours called her a demon child
For the savage glare in her eye,
They looked away but they scarce could say
If she’d cursed them, passing by.

She said, ‘Watch out for a matt black car
With its windows tinted and grey,
A single headlight, seen from afar
And the chrome all rusted away,
The driver’s window wound halfway down
To the height of the driver’s eyes,
You’ll best not stare at that wicked frown
He will draw you into his lies.’

The clouds then gathered, the storm came in
From the place that it last had went,
Thunder clashing and lightning flashing
The hail and the sleet it sent,
She pulled her hat down over her head
In hopes that her hair would dry,
Then pointed down to a matt black car,
‘The Devil is driving by!’

David Lewis Paget

Tap Dancing Dog
In my Kitchen
Waiting For Dinner

Panting abruptly

Scratching her ****
On the raffia carpet