Time Is A Fly
Innocently the clock sits still like a studentThe seconds hand ticks past the minuteThe minute past the hour. Guiltily the years put a great dentOn dreams we do not meetAnd hopes that are dour But this time, you are a fly, so prudentRolling and rolling the helpless digitOf moments both sweet and sour.
The Web of Life
(…for Ogbonnaya Agwu and his irreplaceable loss. December 2015) It was just a simple phrase But when dropped, his world stood still Mine slowed down from the spill Yes this world, this strange place What then should I say? Should I remind him he’s no more here? Or will I say I understand This complex […]
There Is No Shame In A Bus Race
Work is over. Grab your stuff. Wait for a bus or hail a taxi. Get home on time. That is how it should normally be, but Lagos is not normal. “TGIF or Thank God it’s Friday!” is a phrase common in Nigeria, said on the last day of a workweek. Lagosians do not thank God […]
Anonymous
…Before technology stole everything, “Anonymous” was a pen-full word! I have always been fascinated by celestial bodies (the skies- all of it that we can see), and these works of creation take ample space in the heart of my art. I didn’t think people noticed this until friends began sending me pictures and videos of […]
LIFE IS A MONTESSORI!
Life is best lived by living. Sometimes, within safe ceilings, we should not limit children to conditioned expectations, we should let them express themselves in arts too, after all, Life is a Montessori.
Cocktail, Cock-tale
(Let me seize the moment to say a quick bon voyage to someone whose absence has brought back crazy food ideas: Ezra Samuel. Today, I made a cocktail in his absence.) My brother Bassey Samuel was a smart kid. He was smallish and adventurous. Of course I was smaller by virtue of age, but he wanted to do […]
Danfo, “Owo Mi Da!”, and moving in Lagos
“Are you in this Lagos?” Is a line my friend uses often in conversations with me. At first, I found it a bit presumptuous for him to ask me if I am in this Lagos, this very Lagos I have been before him. Still, thinking about it helped me realize that I am still amused […]
Life is a Sport: Tug of War
On that Sport Saturday in Teslin Balogun stadium, Lagos, I supported Green House. I was meant to support it because the kids who came with me for the inter-house sports belonged there. Green House was doing well in the secondary category, but in the primary, it was neither here nor there. Yellow, with their noisy […]
Rocket Science and the Art of Dreaming
The sky seemed to have been cleansed by the first rain of the year because its refreshing blue colour was devoid of dark clouds of uncertainty. What drew my attention to the sky was a white stripe across it which stretched like white chalk marks made by a giant finger. It was made by a moving […]
FOLKTALE: Tortoise in the House of Food (The Nike Art Gallery Lesson)
I grew up listening to folktales. Often, those stories were about the tortoise and how cunning and ‘wise’ these slow creatures are. Well, my generation did not question those stories like young ones today would because at the end of the stories there were moral lessons clearly spelt out. One of those stories I remember […]