Poem | Lagos: An A — Z

Posted this to Facebook on April 11, 2008, with the accompanying photograph

Apple-hawkers, area-fathers,
Bloody-eyed bastards, beer-brewing bellies
Crown-princes of nowhere, crash-
Doomed cars, and the dust-drenched;
Escapees, expirers and the expired
Funders and fillers of feasts
& Friday-funerals.
Gentlemen of grass, graffartists,
Hitmen on heat,
Innards-spillers,
Jincheng jangle-bells, just-in-time mechanics
King-fakers,
Ludacris-from-the-skipping-disc,
Man-U-zombies,
‘nointings that break the wallet,
Opportunists who (unlike opportunities) do not come but once,
Pumpers of hell’s horns,
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Revellers on concrete dividers, straygullets,
Solomons dispensing the wisdom of the Super-sex Syrup,
Tales-by-traffic-lights,
Usurpers and usurpers-of-usurpers, and
Violentourists.
Who wants to seem a millionaire?
Wempco road. Dusk, and the roads fling concrete.
Exuberant car tyres dance
Yahoozee.
Zeroes live here, set in our roads.
Zebra-crossings don’t.

Tolu Ogunlesi © 2008