The things I see and imagine
I recently saw a character in a TV drama threaten another with the story of Abraham and Isaac and the sacrifice the former attempted to make of the latter. That story is often told as a symbol of divine provision, but consider for a minute the absurdity of it all. A man who searched for …
I was reading one of John Ashbery's poems last night when I opened Twitter and saw tweets about his death. It was a weird event that still feels like a lie when I recount it to myself. I was looking at his work again by the way of a list of poets I encountered two …
Can anyone refer a chiropractor (affordable) in Lagos, please? Can they assure me said chiropractor won’t act like my (equally) affordable tailor? Will I go to the chiropractor on Monday, subject my spine to being pressed and rubbed and shifted in ways that would redefine pain, then have to wait till Friday to retrieve relief …
On the bridge, a carnage, Turmoil in a flipped white bus Unified gasp like collective hiccups. Head stuck in glowing screen — For fear, nah — for horror. You cannot stay bowed forever Death holds an irresistible allure. The bloodied head, the resolved chin The displaced leg, the lifeless Body on the route to …
Crazy It’s a sight as common as the bright yellow buses: two fighting. Drivers boxing. Two car owners testing the strength of their egos with the force of balled up fists. I remember the day I went crazy. I hasn’t happened yet, but I’m looking at it now. Me, pot-bellied. Me with a Camry bruised …
I entered the empty bus after walking a good stretch of the bus stop looking for a less messy point to cross the pool of mud that had gathered in the middle of Oshodi. I tip-toed over puddles and chided myself for leaving the house fifteen minutes late. I’d fallen prey to that additional minute …
Battling traffic daily in Lagos has recently turned me into an accidental poet, the kind that looks at a gridlock in Obalende and thinks of Yeat’s popular poem. Some people might think the opportunity to make art I’m incapable of except in moments of distress is a blessing. When I’m hungry—in that moment between lucidity …
I worry about the man who walks home at dawn, jacket in hand, his singlet brown and stiff from dirt while I rush in ankara paired with jeans skipping muddy puddles to save what is left of my shoes. Conductor who chooses fight over paying the hound-like money collectors who clutch at his shirt that …
I’ve tried to read Emily Dickinson’s poems as much as I can this December. At first, I just wanted a reading challenge for the month that would fit into my need to be on the road inside Lagos during the week and out of it on most weekends. But reading Dickinson turned out to be …
1. A man in blue walks to the back of his car, both hands locked behind his head in regret. His car is the third in a three-vehicle collision. At the top of the accident, a green SUV revs, tires whirring on the wet asphalt, trying to lose the car lodged into its rear. The man …
