Titilola 
belongs to the 
breed of 
emergent and 
young female 
writers in 
Nigeria. Born 
in 1974, she 
graduated in 
English at the 
Ogun State 
University, 
Ago Iwoye in 
1995 and has 
enrolled for a 
postgraduate 
degree in 
Ibadan. 
These poems 
are selected 
from her very 
first collection 
of poetry, SO 
ALL THE 
TIME I WAS 
SITTING ON 
AN EGG 
which is 
unpublished. 
She is also an 
author of 
unpublished 
short stories. 
IGLENDORA.. POET 
DIPLOMATIC LIP SERVICE 
When you see a couple 
consumed in a public tiff 
TJon't bash the one to stroke the other 
I believe you get my drift. 
If they ever invite you 
perhaps to stand as judge 
Listen well and listen good 
But make sure your lips don't budge. 
Because when the clash is over 
And they're professing love again 
You look like a busy-body and 
Lose not two friends but ten. 
For they'll malign and castrate you 
Tag you a murderer of happiness 
With your big mouth and know-all ways 
You'll be appalled by the nastiness. 
So if you're ever called upon 
Perhaps to stand as judge 
Listen well and listen good 
Make sure your lips don't budge. 
THE BEAST (MERCEDES 600 SEL) 
I am the overweight monster of the road 
Six hundred thousand pounds of fat 
Six hundred notable marks of excellence. 
Overruling dictator of my microscopic 
subjects 
Governing the highway in sleek splendour 
Dominating the fantasies of peasant 
headlights 
Dashing the hopes of revolutionary wheels. 
I establish the affluent 
in their righteous quest 
for bigmanism. 
To the poor, 
I am the symbol 
of class immobility. 
Don't cross my path 
Lest I crush you to cipher 
with my big fat alloys. 
1 am the beast, Monster of the road. 
TWO WOMEN TWO BEGINNINGS 
Two women, Two soulmates 
Soldered by a common source. 
Two heart-breaks, Two dream-stakes 
Riverlets, driven by a similar force. 
Two angers, Two comforts 
Busting their mushy fetters to society's 
flaws. 
Two caresses, Two kisses 
A sympathetic cure for phallus-inflicted 
sores. 
Two passions, Two spouses 
Bitten full-faced by unfaithful jaws. 
Two chances, Two dancers 
Riding the meadows on a soaring horse. 
Two rebels, Two pebbles 
Making a trash heap of their mothers' laws. 
Two images, Two grimaces 
Listening in on phone calls through cracks 
in the doors. 
Two promises, Two madnesses 
Fighting the need for thrusts in bedroom 
wars. 
Two voices, Two choices 
Yearning for release from love's clumsy 
claws. 
Two goodbyes, Two male friends 
Two classical, cyclical stories, a pause. 
Two beginnings. 
FLABBY TUMS 
The fold-laden belly 
is really quite fascinating. 
Note the advantages of this glorious 
wonder. 
More effective than any factory-born dye, 
It debars you from viewing 
that intolerable greying pubis. 
African Quarterly 
on the Arts 
Vol. 2/No. 1 GLENDORA
Less intricate than the horrowing buckle 
on your two-colour custom-made belt, 
It keeps your trousers from sprawling 
lifeless 
at your ankles. 
More manageable than giant metallic 
wheels, 
It is proof that you are living and living 
well. 
JOSHUA OLUMAYOWA 
A window. 
A window with a silver window-sill. 
A window bejewelled with sapphire 
flowerpots 
that hold roses. 
Rare roses of baby-blue. 
A window. 
A window with curtains 
White nappy-soft curtains. 
A Hand draws the curtains, 
and the sun smiles in, 
making my life beautiful. 
ETHIOPIAN ROOTS 
Copper dreadlocks bobbing up and down 
he strolls, city to city 
slapping his heels to the Roots Rasta Reggae 
he hears in his head. 
He chants to the listening spirits, Jah's 
emissaries. 
Sleeps under the candy-seller's stall at the 
bus stop, 
Jah's sacred temple. 
Wears tailored rags, Jah's superior regalia 
Accumulates choice garbage, Jah's 
consecrated icons. 
Rummages through the skips, Jah's high 
table. 
Hounds the sane, destructive Unbelievers. 
SONG OF THE CONFINED 
i
The ballad of the rusty creaking hinges 
that choruses at the corridor-mouths 
has got to be a love song. 
For the tune reminds me 
of a certain kind of freedom 
I once dreamt up 
But it's hard to escape 
to that classical place 
when the wardens with their gutter-deep 
consciences 
keep disrupting my falsetto 
African Quarterly 
on the Arts 
Vol. 2/No. 1 GLENDORA, 
as they thrust the metal doors 
this way and that. 
II 
Sell me some more 
of that brown seedy grass 
that sends me two octaves higher 
and eases the pain 
in the days that swallow the weeks 
and sour into months. 
Ill 
My claustrophobic limbs 
scat in jazzy harmony 
so I sweeten the melody 
with notes of tired sighs 
for the dreams I'm drawing 
in musical bars 
on these deaf prison walls. 
BE ANYTHING ELSE BUT YOU 
Maybe I should be more like the sea 
through raging tantrums and sweep away 
footprints 
like they don't mean a thing. 
Maybe I should be more like a snail 
and bury myself in a spiral home 
with room only for me. 
Maybe I should be more like a lioness 
tearing apart my prey 
as it stalks to steal my priceless cubs. 
Maybe I should be more like the sky 
sitting majestically on a blue and white 
unicorn 
wonderful to behold, sacrilegious to grasp. 
Maybe I should be more like the spider 
and build my castles in the crevices 
of another's palace. 
Maybe I should be more like a cool breeze 
dishing out my peace in spurts 
-kiss and run 
Maybe I should just be anything else 
if my being human 
is running milk in the coconut, 
its source, mysterious. 
FROM THE TINGI TINGI HADES 
CAMP 
Shirtless ribs press through 
the cyclops lane to misery 
bony bare backs of children 
in neon pants
magnify italic memoirs of hunger and 
homelessness. 
Twiggy fingers scrape 
yellow plastic cups for the dregs 
of palm-full cornmeal 
Taut brown skin stretches over 
famined faces reflecting 
swollen-headed dreams. 
Gulleyed sockets cocoon dusty pupils 
recollecting histories 
for tales, 
tales that tick in the grains 
of hourglass tomorrows. 
Staggering drones tow away 
the buzzing bodies of the sick 
and the dead are plunged 
in the roadside ditches 
so the earth can muffle the cries 
of Zaire's lost. 
FIRING SQUAD 
Ten brown bottles 
Standing in a row 
Each brown bottle 
Tied up in a pretty bow 
Occasional guffaw 
. Lip-deep laughter 
Flaming tears 
For the there-after 
Hearts breaking 
Grown men shaking 
'My life is being taken 
And it's my making.' 
Fire...! 
And all is still. 
KENULE, EMMANUEL 
Haunted and hated, 
Tried and tribunalized, 
they stole him away 
to the ports of our courts 
and hung him out at the gallows 
to dry. 
Pipe-borne tears of surrender 
whet his tired soul, 
sizzling the flames of vainglorious injustice. 
And he cried out 
with his last breath, 
'Spirit of Ogoni, forgive them, 
for they know what they do and do it!' 
ABOUT LIFE 
Write a poem about flowers! 
Of their tender petals 
bruised by the heavy black boots 
of a sulking son? 
Okay, write a poem about birds! 
Of the snowy dove, half dead, 
dangling in the claws of a falcon? 
Alright, write a poem about love! 
Of sweet expectations shattered? 
Of infidelity, violence, suicide? 
Then write a poem about life! 
I just did. 
African Quarterly 
on (he Arts 
Vol 2/No. 1 GLENDORAr