(‘Once and the repeated time, ageless’- Wole Soyinka)
From the vicious knock of the Daggering Boots
The city could hope nothing but the necessary healing
But what we got was the death on the streets.
The ravaging of conscience
The flood load of cash to silence the mind dead
And unzip onNews lips to loud applause for things
Only pronounced as planned to be done & never done
And those who refused to still watchNews got bombed
The city lived through the hell of the unsmiling duo
The palace shuffle of faces to the gap-toothed
Who shot his bosom friend for the childhood
Fancy’s of you do I go do too.
City held captive at the officers mess on a round
Of beer & pepper souping with sworn promises
Of support and loyalty for one & all to go the round
& the reassuring charm of the name of Maryam
To lodge self in the birth hole of the Messiah’s mother
And be wiser on the examples of neighbouring cities
There they dropped the boot for Italian made shoes
Changed gown and not the face & stay put
So at gunpoint the evil genius reclined.
And “is Our MAN” got his ballot counting to victory dumped
Find whatever, cook it up with all the cash in the vault
Increase the ratio & the ration & the rational
Hitherto unbeknown broadcasted to the city
But the dregs of the city. The low level trouble makers
Who leaflet the city before of an ‘Hidden AGENDA’
Closed down the city and trooped to Allen
To the house of the elected but declared president
The Night vigil that Sankore knocked down
This city can awake to live its dream of existence
And July 5 was a storm all over the city uprising
And “Our Man” calmed the nerves to ease the people
Out of the street and then flew out to await a call
To return from the deal done in the shade
But the Dark Goggle stuck to the Beer & pepper soup
Arrangement to take rounds to be lord of the city
He led the troops out on the city July 5
Shooting and killing and laying down
Corpses to country the city into a state in the cemetery
And oil workers hit the flow.
Kokori is a jailbird. The strike is dead.
‘Our Man’ got boxed in black maria
And city made progress with all the progressive men
Of ‘Our MAN’ changing side & refusing to step down
This power is sweet. ‘Any master na Master’
They volunteered to be foot soldiers
For this soldier to shoulder the city spot on
To new lights with a blast of blindness offshoot
Adorned dark Goggle. The city cries for the ballot box
The plea is heeded. Certainly not another abortion
So wheel the city dead out of its own failed dreams
To live the dream of neighbouring cities
There where one man is the man
There where the boots and uniform are hanged
And the same man can be trapped alive to live
Against the ritual of going and suffer the waiting out
For another coming into the lordship reign of the city
All the five fingers were working to anoint one man
And so fell the apple into the plot and the dream
Of one man fell out of the city reach for existence
For a fresh dream. The city can begin anew
But too many wanted ‘Our Man’ freed and back
So they smuggled death into a cup of tea
And the city became a cleaned slate for the same
Vicious lot to start all over again the same game play
The “Once” not enough the ravaging must goes on
And the city unable to tell the different faces
And citizens couldn’t tell the fortunes of the first
Of second comings of the same man who handed
The city to this calculated disordering of dream
On a miscalculated two/third of thirteen
To keep the city at failing unchanged
To win the city another round of soldiers shuffling
And two decades after, the keys of the city
Handed over to the same man who handed it over
The city underneath the cover of an umbrella
And for eight years unending they kept
The city standing erect in a falling tears of rain
And the umbrella shields only the ones
Who came on board pleading to protect
The city from getting wet
And Death is not a foe therein for the faithful
When the sick heart tried his hands to mend the city’s
Oil wells differently. Reclaiming the refineries
Aiming to have them fixed. He strayed from the script
To drown the city in the pocket of the oil barons
Who ripped millions of hard currency daily
From cooked figures of imported fuel
Who stole cash from pump handles tweaked
He paved the way for the cooled headed
Remote controlled good named luck
And the city of dead dreams want for existence
From the “Night” marauders of a retired General
Harvested the city for the hat reign of a fresh brood
Who “sucks the oil” like never before
The woes fit us into the birthhole for the second
Second coming of another displaced General
And the grand failure is flight to the precipice
The polity is nothing but a revenge mission
Visited on the conscience of citizens
Who failed to protest against his dislodgement
The august time around in the first coming
And the City of dead dreams never nearer
Than ever before a rebirth and rehash of dreams
They all go to sleep at night fall after inauguration
To await day One of the boy from Lagoon city
Whose dream of death to citizens is unleashed
In the same white ink colour of crazy orders
“…the killing cry” from across the border
By finance Sharks in greedy thirst
For cheap blood of cheap cities
To flow the pipelines of veins with vigour
The strength and power to gulp down the throat
One city dead dreams is sweet meal for another city
To post a healthy status on wall street
Aj. Dagga Tolar ©.
Excerpt from my new Collection – *CITY OF Dead DREAMS*
