A song for Oshodi

Lagos
2 Min Read
Oshodi

OSHODI

By Akeem Lasisi

 

So, a rose could rise from a bed of thorns,

An affectionately green park

From a jagged pile of broken bones?

You are the damn fresh spring from a heritage of mud

Silver granite from a memory of stones:

So, you were eminently saveable

When you buried yourself alive in jagged filth?

Oshodi, your story has changed

So also must your poetry change.

 

Once upon a time

You kept your children in coffin-like trucks

Whose  traffic, blaring smoke and more

Guaranteed your global status on hazard lists.

I do not want to remember your history of notorious mess

When pepper sellers contested the rail with locomotive trains,

So that where  we now have a pedestrian bridge

We had a harvest of pedestrian deaths.

Oshodi, your story has changed

So also must your poetry change.

 

It is a big fun watching the insane at play

But no one dreams of giving birth to a scattered brain.

With your award-winning heaps

You became the toast of every poet

Riding to acclaim on morbid puns.

But just when we thought your redemption was gone

Some kings came who knew not your dirty gods

They have changed your song with their mega gut.

Oshodi, your story has changed

So also must your poetry change.

 

I forgive and forget your area boys

Who snatched my wallet on a Christmas eve;

I forgive and forget the warring songs that deafened me

I forgive and forget your area boys

Who had coloured my lung with alien smokes

For a rose has risen from a bed of thorns,

An impossible green park

From a notorious pile of broken bones.

 

 

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