To Garri by Adejumo Uthman Ajibola
don’t be sad, Garri
do not belittle your worth
because everyone affords you
like a street prostitute
you are the poor man’s diamond
an asthma patient’s inhaler
the rich man’s wealth
snoring in foreign accounts.
When hunger creeps in
like night,
everyone,
in rags or robes
takes teaspoons of you
like medical doses.
Adejumo Uthman Ajibola
Adejumo Uthman Ajibola is a 300 level student of the Department of English, University of Ibadan. He writes poetry and believes in the correcting power of poetry. He is a lover of art works and paintings. At leisure, he moulds.
Agege Bread by Bada Yusuf Amoo
The adventure started
With the foaming of flour
In rectangular-shaped tins
Set in red-clayed baking ovens
Fired beneath by hellish fire
Agege bread, your sides are brown
Strong like muscles of Mike Tyson
And you readily await as food of the masses
Uniting our strength for life’s struggles
Along the lane of laughter and perseverance
Where the sun rises as if it will never set.
By 11am at Mama Kafaya’s canteen
Where we gather to sing love songs,
Talk politics and sports
Side by side unemployed graduates,
Retired civil servants, old soldiers
And the illiterates
You, politics and sports bind us.
With 20 Naira beans and 30 Naira water
We have enough to soak your strength
Not to choke out throats during arguments
You are dependable like the man
Who caters for his family.
Bada Yusuf Amoo
Born in Agege, Lagos-Nigeria, in the late 80s, Bada Yusuf Amoo had his primary and secondary education in Agege. He holds a National Diploma in Mass Communication from Moshood Abiola Polytechnic, Abeokuta, Ogun State where he edited an E-anthology titled African Eyeball. His poems are available on different publications both in print and electronics.
These guyz are crazy upstairs. I duff my hats for them.