IBADAN

Ibadan
The rust-red lake
Rivers snake around its banks
Scrap, debris, produce all hauled
With the pains of men
Ibadan
Where the sage erupts
He runs every year
And Akala fished in aplomb here
Then drowned at velvet's shores
And belched
From the choke of his blood

BUARI

Comets don your crests - dragon’s vomit!
Fists of Herod, fists of Xerxes.
You are yesterday’s May twenty-ninth, just before cun personified
Solitude consumed at will until they became Lagos.
Cairo, but I insist Lagos
Octopuses rained on the cells and drought cremated the grains
Sphinx of your doom parched the leeways to our bellies
When necessity became your first concubine

Hate of your communion begets doom
Franchise and King makers score in your court
But love visits them - the frog prince and the lair
They pluck chaos from glue, the white elephant
When Eze goes to school