He has eyes, amused eyes
“Instead of ears which bring him news about everything, he has eyes — amused eyes”
Before I had the balls to call myself an artist of the lens medium, I favored and tinkered with poetry. I used to try to squeeze my life into stanzas — not only my life per se but the lives my life rubbed against. It was expression, as well as therapy, perhaps they were simply soliloquies about hyper ambitions and purpose. Pseudo haiku, pseudo rant.
When I started shooting the streets of Lagos my initial premise was to shoot things I could muse on later for poetry and my eyes brought me all shapes and forms of poetry, half of which i would have been forgotten by the time I made it back to my work desk. These ones survived.
“Soldiers for sale
How’s the battle?
Need help fighting?
I’m mercenary,
Merciless.
Let’s do business
Call my inquiry empathy
Okay? Okay..”
The camel gets fatter
The gate shuts tighter
The preacher gets sleeker
Getting the gains here
Rather than squeeze through a needle
*
Heaven can wait,
We only watching the clouds.
Curating shapes, seeking forms
Immaculate forms.
Heaven can wait.
*
If I want to see god
On my face I will lay
With no fabric on my form
Looking within — into the void
Where God seats pretty — awaiting no hallelujah
*
To it I will say
I want mine here
Heaven can wait
I want mine here
No post humous
*
If it doesn’t answer
I will continue my walk
And if again I meet it
I will kill it
As humans do to Life
*
Heaven can wait
We only watching the skies
Heaven can wait
While I fuck up the world
Curating my own heaven through the hell here.
Like migrating birds
Navigating with brains smaller than orange seeds
Oblivious of where we are
But certainly not lost.
*
Afterall the size of mustard seeds,
Are all the faith required
For a difference.
(Inserts coin into life’s jukebox)
*
Watch us whip and nae nae
Through it all
Or so it looks
Hands up, head bowed
*
Which could also look like a worship
The war cry is internal
We are not all Trojans
But we can all be soldiers
*
Fighting on arrival.
Fighting for survival.
RIP to the conscience I wouldn’t pay any mind,
The last movie said
Right or Wrong,
Depends on the aisle and shopper.
*
I eyed the usher’s butt
She smiled, I swear she smiled.
Finding love in hopeless places.
But then man of god must turn blind eye
To cleavages that makes up his POV
*
RIP to the con science I wouldn’t pay any mind.
Neither black nor white
In between — paying no mind to consequences.
RIP to the medium posts I will never write
I’ll birth poetry instead
*
D’evils closing in : I’m pushing
Shedding an old sentimental skin.
Holding my glory wood with pride
Ready to screw, ready to prove.
*
Since Serrano dipped Christ in urine,
Have been trying to sculpt him in gold
But how can I do God’s work
When I’m only human.
You fan crackling embers,
Calling them bushfires,
Depriving them the rage,
The time in between
That a flame learns to love and hate itself;
*
Learns that its colors are beautiful
And deserve peacocking
Soon it’s tongue touches
And swallows everything moving, loved and immobile.
*
The flame will hate itself
When it learns that warmth
Isn’t the desired effect passed across
The miscommunication only meant death
To everything the flame loves
*
You fan crackling embers,
calling them bushfires too early.
Depriving us of a beautiful tragic dance
with which a full blown fire burns.
*
Allow crackling embers be embers.
Let it burn.
I heard there was a secret code
That turns shepherd boys to leading Lords
Roll, Dance, Jump
For the god you trust
*
Catch the sunset
on the skin of the beautiful maiden
For why be Stronger,
Than The weakened Flesh?
*
Tend your sheep -
With no fear for Roar(s)
Sling with all thy might
You’ve only got one shot.
*
For what else will I do with LIFE than LIVE?
I heard there was a secret code
That turns shepherd boy;
To a leading Lord.
