Samuel Oladipupo Essoodee
The inauguration of new facilities in Oshodi brings to fore Akeem Lasisi’s poem for the transformation the popular area in Lagos has witnessed. The poem and its video well bring out the iconic character of the community that many can neither love nor hate.
OSHODI
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
A king came who knew not your dirty gods
He changed your song with his mega gut.
Oshodi, your story has changed
So also must your poetry change.
READ ALSO: Yemisi Shyllon gets poetic justice from Lasisi
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 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.
NOTE: Watch the poetry video on OSHODI/Akeem Lasisi Poetry Channel/You Tube
