Traffic Police

The taxi stopped three cars away from the junction
I looked to my left and, the driver was smiling
I looked to my right, and the driver was also smiling
As far as I could see everyone was smiling
I could understand because I was also smiling
We were all staring at a lone figure
His black beret was competing seriously with his face
His orange shirt complimented the sun perfectly
His black trousers and boot were a direct contrast
To his sparking white gloves
He stood in the middle of the road
The smile on his face was certainly something to behold
He moved his hands like a conductor in an orchestra
He moved his leg like he was dancing the moonwalk
I could tell he was having the time of his life
At that moment I wished with all my heart
That we could swap places
Not because of his dance moves
Or his conducting skills
But an opportunity of a vacation at my vocation
But then again we can’t all be lucky.

when he died...

It was a day like every other
Yet it wasn’t like any other day
Death came knocking on the door
Not subtly but with a big bang

She was at that place
between sleep and consciousness
The first thing she heard was
My brother is dead!
Her eyes flew open
yet she thought it was a dream

The woman cried inconsolably
“Who will take care of my daughter”
“Who will take care of my daughter”
It was a pitiful sight
But alas it didn’t require pity
For the mask of piety and selflessness
unceremonious fell off
And the naked face of her was revealed
For the brother  was not without seed
And she was not a wife but a sister

She looked at her and for the first time
Not with tainted glasses
For although she was greatly grieved
She couldn’t help but wonder at such comedy
How can she cry, when she is so alive?
And his children, orphans all of a sudden

It would have been a celebration
If the faces where a little less sorrowful
And the music a little less solemn
if he wasn’t lying in the middle in his Sunday best

She pranced around while everyone looked on
Her sorrow was palpable
not for who she lost but what she lost
And as she also looked at her
She knew not to ever trust the human face
 it is a mask above all others

the virtue of selfishness

Psychology is very good
But that isn’t my major
Per-chance I am psychic
Why would I want to read your mind?

Intuition is a gift
One I happen not to have
If you have something in mind
Pity, but you have to say it

Humility is such a virtue
But who ever said I was virtuous?
The last time I was docile
I must have been a toddler

The world is full of  perfect people
Of which, I’m not one
I might be a lot of things
But I am no hypocrite

Pretence is a skill
One I have no desire to acquire
Being a wolf in sheep clothing
Just isn’t my style

Okolo-Ama

So little so beautiful
Perched in the middle of the deep blue sea
Surrounded by pelicans and shells
Sited at the very end of  Rivers

A beautiful heritage
Young women vibrating to the rhythm of the drums
With their ‘biebite’ and ‘egerebite’   firmly around their waist
Proudly celebrating the rite of passage to womanhood

A friendly paradise
Luring her friends with the gyrations of  ‘nwaotam’
And the quest for oil money
And fulfilling all her promises

Dignified, reserved and unassuming
While her peers were running around naked
She was playing host to the British
And drinking tea from teacups

‘Okolo-ama‘, my Bonny
Ushering in your children with ‘essem akpakpa’
Into the welcome embrace of their mothers’ arm
You are truly a kingdom and rare




*OKOLOAMA-is the indigenous name for Bonny Kingdom in Rivers State, Nigeria
*BIEBITE AND EGEREBITE-special sets of wrapper tied by young women when performing the rites of womanhood
*NWAOTAM- a masquerade of the Bonny people usually celebrated on the 25th of December
*ESSEM AKPAKPA-periwinkle shells

Virtual Romance

The world is evolving no doubt
Everything is at the click of a button
Everything you’ve ever wanted
Seems just a screen away
Vocabularies are changing as well
Tweeting, facebook, pinging
And what have you;

Love at first sight?
That is so ancient
It’s the 21’s century
Try, love at first ping
Or perhaps, love at first chat
Maybe again love at first tweet

Silly!, You think?
It is a virtual world we live in
Virtual goods, virtual brands, virtual friends
And my ‘favourite’ virtual romance
Absolutely fabulous

A word of advice though
Don’t get your feelings involved
Want to know why?
There is no virtual pain
It is the real deal
How do I know?
Just take my word for it

The Painting

such an intense gaze
what lovely Brown eyes
soft, smooth and evenly bronze
so is her skin
not a hair out of place
the smile playing around
the corners of her lips
said she knew things
no one else knew
oh! and that dress
haute couture
she is so exquisite
no wrinkles, no freckles
and she is only thirty
oh dear me!
She's been thirty the last decade

how lucky you are
to be eternally youthful and graceful
full of life and the bliss of ignorance
to be frozen and captured forever

Question Marks

What is happiness?
What does it mean?
How does it feel?
Happy, quite a simple word I suppose?
Have you ever been exceptionally happy?
Can you come up with a memory?
Ok, were you ever just happy?
Still can’t pick out an event?
Passably happy then?
Perhaps, the first time you fell in love?
Were you happy because they made you happy?
Or you were happy with the idea of being in love
not even then I suppose?
What am I saying?
You must have been happy a lot of times
But how do you know it was happiness?
If i don’t even know what happiness means?

Letter To The Grave

Dear Mom,
I wish I could forgive myself
for all the things I said and did
you didn't say it
but I know I let you down


I remember how you cried and begged me to stay
I remember how you longed
for us to be best of friends again
I remember the nights we sat quietly
And you tried to explain your decisions
and I also remember how fervent
I was in my sense of right
I remember saying, I had severed all emotional ties
I remember saying I didn't care if you stayed or left
I was hurt, I was truly foolish
how ignorant of your pain
and how selfish of me
to ask for something
that wasn't in your power to give


I remember how you waited for me
before you breath your last.
Do you know what I regret the most?
Not listening hard enough to hear you
moments before you were silent forever
the guilt has refused to go away
I wish I could have another chance
so, I'll spend each day
proving to you how much you meant to me.
You were right about everything you said
it's all true.
All is not lost completely
I have an opportunity
to try and right the wrong

she is exactly like you
she is become quite a beautiful woman
though not as beautiful as you
she's such a little 'Miss Perfect'
like someone we all know
I promise you
I have never loved anything or anyone more
I’ll give an arm and a leg
before I stand-by and
watch her put in harm's way
each time I look at her
I see you
and I love her all the more.

I know you forgave my stupidity
but still how will I ever
forgive myself
what will take this guilt away?

In loving memory

Memories Of Yesterday

She wore an animal print skirt
With a smile that said come get me if you can
That was when he first saw her

He gave her a bottle of water
Made a good speech in the ‘house’ and won her over
That was two years after

She thought of exploration
And the meaning that was their’s alone
And she gave a silly chuckle

Two cities in between
Many years, several months and countless  days later
And it was all memories of yesterday

She thought that she was lucky
To have loved and to have been loved
‘coz most people go through life without cupids arrow

Nothing lasts forever or so it seems
Today she’s stuck in memory lane wishing they could have
Lived together in a home named happily ever after

Wanderlust

A trip to Guatemala and the
Secret of the ancient Mayans
A visit to Bucharest
Valde Thapes, Count Dracul
And the emergence of the Vampire
See Sicily and learn the art of omerta
Go rambling in the English Countryside
Titillate the taste buds with exquisite French cuisine
Dance a few rounds of Samba in Brazil
And a round of Flamenco in Mexico
Visit a real Hacienda in Spain
Learn patua on the streets of Kingston
Watch the sunset from the Grand Crayon
Attend a tea party in China
Marvel at man’s ability in Dubai
Live in bikinis for a week
On the Caribbean Isles
Stroll through Athens
And learn her myths on the sidewalks
Go through every street on the globe
See every shade of colour
That makes the earth
Such a beautiful tapestry

Sleep Calls

He crept up on me and like a lover
he called me to nest
I stared on harder
determined that he would not have his way
no! not this time
like the master he is
he beckoned and reluctantly
I followed to the softness
that is my bed
slowly, slowly, and ever so slowly
he peeled of each layer of my resistance
I heaved a sigh of resignation?
Encouraged he grasped me
and like a suckling child
at the mother's breast
I yielded to his charms
and gratefully followed
to rest in the arms of Morpheus

Something To Ponder

September 24, 2009.

What a terrific book, what an extraordinary man? As I flipped through the pages of ' IN HIS OWN WORDS' by Nelson Mandela, page after page I read his commitment and focus to the struggle for what he believed, his determination to be imprisoned rather than accept to live passively in a society that alienated it's own citizens, I couldn't help but wonder: When will Nigeria's Mandela come?!

Why do we keep deceiving ourselves with religion? By the grace of God! God's grace is already sufficient, so if we refuse to embrace it whose fault is it?. I am of the opinion personally that when Karl Marx made this statement '... religion is the opium of the people....' he had Nigerians in mind.

Various literature has been written about a number of African countries and their "long walk to freedom" the determination to sustain and improve on their hard earned freedom. The question is why  Nigerians do not adopt the same attitude, it is perhaps because as they say, our freedom was handed to us on a platter of gold.

To say that nothing works in this country will be a cliche, but it is a cliche we will be stuck with hearing because truly NOTHING WORKS! How else can one explain it, that whereas the natural order of things is to be progressive, in Nigeria it is the other round. What would you say is the cause of unrest (never mind by what names it is called) all through the country? Your guess is as good as mine.

I understand there is a re-branding campaign going on at present. Believe me, I would like to be a strong supporter of the cause but re-branding in my opinion (I stand to be corrected, after all what do I know, I am a product of our faulty educational system) is a process of taking an already existing brand (Nigeria) and reworking the brand into something different or better than before. Now the question is: Has there been an improvement on the system? Has the poverty level been reduced? Are there more jobs? Has the power sector improved? Is the educational system better? If the answer to all these questions is NO, then what are you re-branding  We gained our infamous image primarily because of a system that does not work and self-seeking public office holders. So is it not reasonable, if I may dare, that we revamp our system and let that gain us credibility instead of 're-branding' when we are still same old Naija. Is that not DECEPTIVE ADVERTIZING?

Beauty Insanity

March 7, 2009.

Although it has been said on several occasions in most circles that it is a “MAN’S WORLD”, there can be no arguing the fact that issues of beauty are as feminine as childbearing.

According to Shakespeare “Vanity, thy name is woman”. Truly the amount of money, time and effort, which most women, put into their appearance in the name of beauty, one cannot help but wonder why the fuss?

Although there have been various attempts at defining what is beautiful or what beauty is, no definition or description is universal.  From ancient times, various cultures and peoples have distinguished certain attributes to qualify what they consider being a beauty.

“In ancient China, the 4-inch "lotus foot" was considered a sign of perfect beauty. The practice of foot-binding, uncommonly seen today, involved breaking the bones of the forefoot and folding them forward, then tying the misshapen appendage to prohibit growth. Foot binding caused severe pain, imbalance, and falls, and eventually osteoporosis, because afflicted women were unable to bear weight and ambulate correctly. Other consequences included hip and knee osteoarthritis chronic pain, and even joint replacement surgery.

For ancient Egyptians, Romans, and Persians, sparkling eyes were considered beautiful, and they applied the heavy metal antimony to make their conjunctiva sparkle. A woman with a high forehead was considered beautiful during the Elizabethan era, and upper-class Elizabethan women plucked or shaved their frontal hairs to achieve this look. These women also covered their skin with "ceruse" (lead-based) makeup, which caused peripheral neuropathy, gout, anaemia, chronic renal failure, and disfiguring scarring.”(WebMD Medical Reference from Medscape)

“In the court of Louis XVI, noblewomen drew blue veins onto their necks and shoulders to emphasize their exalted status ("blue-bloods"). In the 16th and 17th centuries, the wealthy used belladonna eye-drops to dilate their pupils. Users acquired an "attractive" doe like appearance, but they also risked retinal damage, glaucoma, and blindness. During the 18th century, vermilion rouge, concocted of sulphur and mercury, achieved popularity. Users lost teeth, suffered gingivitis, and (unknowingly) risked kidney and nervous system damage from mercury -- not to mention their having to deal with the unpleasant smell of sulphur.

Corseting, popular from the 14th to 19th centuries, originally involved compressing the bosom and constricting the waist with tightly wound whalebone on a steel frame. Shallow breathing, combined with the inadequate venous return, produced fainting and swooning. Hiatal hernias caused by overly tight corsets are termed "Sommerring's syndrome" -- after the 18th century physician who first warned of the dangers of tight lacing. Christina Larson points out, "the corset facilitated a pernicious association between physical beauty and virtue, as upright posture and a slender waist came to be regarded as evidence of discipline, modesty, rigour, and refinement. Ladies who abandoned their stays were scorned as both lazy and immoral.”(Ito Nakamura)

Ancient people even performed crude cosmetic procedures to improve—in their opinion—people's appearance. In western Russia, for example, a broad, flat nose was considered beautiful, so parents would bind the nose of a child to achieve this result.

Among some African tribes, an elongated neck is considered a thing of beauty, so some women keep adding rings around their necks stretching gradually to a desirable length. Some Africans believe that a plump, curvaceous woman is a beautiful woman, as a result, in Nigeria women are put in fattening rooms  especially in some areas of the south to achieve this beauty.

However, in today's world popular culture (Hollywood) dictates that beauty can be described as being extremely thin (size 0), high cheekbones, pouting lips, wide-eyes, pointed nose, large boobs and a whole lot more. The list is seemly endless, and as such, many women have had to visit various surgical rooms with all the complication that accompanies, just to meet these specifications.

In trying to be thin, many women have resorted to vigorous exercise routines, all manner of dietary programmes including only Apple diet and absolute starvation.

It is indeed safe to say; looking at the various descriptions of beauty,  that no matter how much time, money and effort are spent it will never be quite enough- So, why the fuss?