Lakunle Jaiyesimi

Jaiyesimi is a poet, short story writer and essayist. His works have appeared in Nigerians in America, Hackwriters Magazine, African writer Magazine, and Purple Dreams. His Screenplay - Akanni-Opomulero was produced as a home video in 2005. He is currently concluding work on a novel and an anthology.

Rain dropping
Like outstretched lashes
With vigour on all heads
Bald and sheathed
Drowning in Oceans
Of tears, saltless
With no Armageddon
But silent feet
On a parade of
Threaded roads
And melancholic hoofs
At a pose-trek for
The prize of Pageantry
Charmed bracelets
Guttural detonation of
Scriptural expression and
Careless swallow of
Spirits fermented
Accompany the tunes of Ogidigbo
As new converts
Expedite to convert the humble
Into the new religion
And subvert the powerful
Under the dominion of the Queen
By Sermon
And Warfare.

Houses on our Street

Choking the enervated gap
Of her thumping throat
Houses grow on our street
…and finding no paths to thread
Trekkers lurk around the bushes.

Rusty and Scary,
They take root
Side-by-Side
Pressing the air
In-between them
To the spaces of heaven
So our street
Becomes a vacuum
And more…
…an oven.

Choking her throat
Houses grow on our street
…and finding no paths to thread
Trekkers lurk around the bushes.

Rusty and Scary,
Yellow paint is the favourite
The landlords’ special choice
And an afterthought
Of thin twin black stripes
That run the defaced bellies
Of the houses, drooling
…drooling
When the rains fall, scorching
…scorching
When the sun rises
Drooling and scorching
Scorching and more…drooling

Who cares what the houses
Do to them? To their heads…
To the heads of their children…
And together…to their buttocks…
Who cares?

Are we not all peasants
Driven away from the face
Of naked heavens?
Where all bugs bite deep
Into our famished skins
And storms and floods arrive from
Ocean floors, seething
…and flushing away all belongings.

Choking her throat
Houses grow on our street
…and finding no paths to thread
Trekkers lurk around the bushes

Are we not all destitute
And our children, hopeless
Driven from the prying
Eyes of widened clouds
Into the Rusty and Scary
Houses that choke our street?

Do I see right?
Are they the ones I see…
The IN-valuable buses
That ply the streets of LAGOS bv day
Searching for cowries to spend
And stall at night on our street
To serve as makeshift houses
FOR US AND OUR CHILDREN

Choking her throat
Houses grow on our street
…and finding no paths to thread
Trekkers lurk around the bushes