NIGHT VISIONS |i| Published in Nigeria in 2015 by WriteHouse Collective Under its Sankofa imprint WriteHouse Collective NuStreams Conference Centre, KM 110, Iyaganku Road, Off Alalubosa GRA, Ibadan Tel: +234 809 816 4359 | +234 818 188 0536 Email: [email protected] | www.writehousecollective.com The right of the various contributors to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with Nigerian and international laws. Cover design by ‘basit Agbaje and book design by Innocent Ekejiuba. To be read on compatible devices or printed for keep. This was produced on A4 and best viewed at 75% with bookmarks, or where in landscape at full screen without bookmarks. All rights reserved. This publication may not be reproduced or sold, either for profit or nonprofit, without permission in writing from the editors. Copyright © 2015. NIGHT VISIONS |ii| NIGHTVISIONS NIGHT VISIONS |iii| TABLE OF CONTENTS vii||MAIN SECTION 1||REBORN 3||LEARNING AND CULTURE 4||EXAMPHIVER 7||TALES 13||SUNSET 15||ORÓ ÞLÁ, ÕRÕ ÞLÁ, ORÒ ÞLÁ 18||ANGLOMOZ 21||JAIL BIRDS 23||FAJ RATS 24||TO BE OR NOT TO BE 28||THE JOURNEY 31||LABYRINTH 34||ISRAELITE JOURNEY 37||TAAN GBORO! 40||IF I WERE YOU (GOD FORBID) 41||SCIENTIFIC MAXIMUM SHISHI 43||ROOM FOR RENT 45||BLOCK FOUR 47||PEACE ADDRESS 49||DISCOVERING HOME 52||FIRST SEMESTER 55||SHOCK AND SHAME 56||EQUANIMITY 57||I DO NOT READ* 59||THE THREE ON A TREE 61||TODAY, WE TREK 63||OBLIVION 65||BROTHERS’ BOND NIGHT VISIONS |iv| 66||YOU LIVED, YOU LIVE 69||OAU MEDLEY 71||SENTINELS 73||COMMUNION 75||AMPHI MEMORIAL 79||BONUS SECTION 80||LAST NIGHT 82||ART 83||TO RAPES FROM APES 84||BLINDFOLDED LOVER 86||DEVOURED IN MY SLEEP 87||THOUGHTS 90||SIDELINES 91||TO BE A MAN 92||BOULEVARD 94||GOOD IS EVIL 96||AŞAKĘ 97||A SOUL’S PRAYER 98||HOPE 100||A LONG DEAD PUPPY 102||SPRITE OF THE IROKO 104||BREAK FEAR 106||PHOTOGRAPH SECTION 159||AFTERWORD 160||GLOSSARY 162||CONTRIBUTORS 165||APPRECIATION NIGHT VISIONS |v| NIGHT VISIONS |vi| MAIN SECTION NIGHT VISIONS |vii| Temitayo Ogunmokun REBORN Ifê Ages ago, I waddled to your gates On crooked, malformed limbs. Knock kneed, Innocent, inept, green with naiveté Awed by the magnificence of your undulating hills, Misty mountain-tops, sultry sirens, Towering indifference, charming novelty. In these plethora of concatenating variances, I lay hid. A swelling embryo, Swirling, whirling, twirling In the amniotic cocoon that sustained me And when I was ensconced in the comfort of your womb, You spat me out. Without remorse. Ifê You gazed with dispassionate eyes When your sucklings treaded on shimmering coals And your babes bawled in discomfort You smiled with contentment; When your protégés withered into soulless sheaves NIGHT VISIONS |1| Temitayo Ogunmokun And your best were immolated on your altar of excellence; You glowed victoriously When we twisted like scarecrows To the staccato drumbeats of your danse macabre And dropped dead from exhaustion. But you screamed in sheer joy When we were reborn, And like the Phoenix, rose from the ashes Of the ebbing fire you kindled Refined. Purified. True denizens of your walls. Ifê Do know, though wide I may roam Always, a true son comes home No stronger impetus than the thought Of your all-embracing arms wide open To bid your pliant son welcome I have been here before. In another life In another space. In another time. I am here now. IFÊ I am home. NIGHT VISIONS |2| Oke Christopher LEARNING AND CULTURE We are here for learning and culture, And indeed we have learnt That “A is for God” And God, is as many as have willing vaginas. We have learnt that goodwill can be bought By paying for a few rounds Of bottles or with women. We have learnt that we must work, Work hard to succeed But hard work is not Spending endless hungry hours at Oluwasanmi Hezekiah Reading worthless texts But the frenzied twitching Of perspiring bodies Behind closed office doors. Culture after all, is washing your hands So you can eat with the elders. NIGHT VISIONS |3| Trust F. Òbe EXAMPHIVER The sudden malaria I feel from within Is innocent of a female anopheles For when school pressure volunteers to be the mosquito Stress wilfully becomes the disease That brings this kind of bodily fever Anxiety is the internal volcano That has chosen this moment to erupt why else do I feel an internal combustion that betrays my inner calm How can words printed on white paper Besiege my memory Threatening my igi iwe to bring forth eso odo This is the moment and place Where recollection reigns supreme And knowledge is only titular Where current futures may or may not depend On retrieved memories But success will surely come up short In the absence of recollection NIGHT VISIONS |4| Trust F. Òbe It has not begun and I am tired already The next few hours feel like a marathon That should explain why my nose is running. II Time sits still for a while And suddenly becomes insufficient If the pen was truly mightier than the sword My inner Genghis Khan should do this writing Memory should bear his armour And Recollection should give him counsel In this war that fought mainly on papers Where mighty ones often falter And various GPs meet their maker Get or be gotten Let exam sheets recite the Lord’s Prayer Hallowed be my scores My will be done on these sheets These questions lead me to temptation But I lead them back, To their cremation Deliver me from E-portal For if ink is blood NIGHT VISIONS |5| Trust F. Òbe I have formed an alliance with my pen(cil) I am guilty of bloodshed Exam is labour period, Memory is a midwife. The fifth alphabet is closest to a stillbirth An F is the Ultimate miscarriage That screams fervently in my face That If I still want something out of this, I will have to do it again! NIGHT VISIONS |6| Kemi Falodun TALES I am not the answer But I will lend my good ear To the tales you tell Your feet tell tales of the first becoming last And past champions begging for a space This race, is an ancestor of NUGA Where all you do is drop the books And lace the boots Your eyes tell tales of this virulent disease That has put your overwrought soul in quarantine Shutting your eyes from the rays Of morning sun gently caressing your face You look but cannot see I am not the answer But I will lend my good ear Your calloused hands tell tales Of the pain you have held on to More than your calloused hands, Life is harder NIGHT VISIONS |7| Kemi Falodun But if you love her enough You would embrace her and Put a diamond ring on her finger Your lips tell tales of deceitful tongues And hearts saturated by indifference Flocking around you Like those winged creatures in Oba Awon University Time lost Emotions wasted Efforts evaporated – your lips say I cannot tell why monsters persist And why the innocent cease to exist I hope you will summon courage to tell these tales And not let these tales tell you I hope when you finally tell these tales It will be to the living And not to the dead I am not the answer But I will lend my good ear To the tales you are yet to tell NIGHT VISIONS |8| Trust F. Òbe DEPARTURE We all never finish together, whether in life or school–Damilola Yakubu. (for ‘dàmölá and Moyõ) I. Friendship made in school, when sweet Is on a par with mother’s food Distance is a male despot, the hypocritical father of gradual separation. Moments before departure are fraught, with emotions fast-paced, like action scenes laced with tacit incredulity that is nondescript Should one cave in to a haunting breakdown, Or mask emotions in a fake calm? Promises of keeping in touch made Like newly introduced cousins But when distance harasses close friendship It’s then affection becomes relegated To spectator from participant A shared bond is mutually betrayed And good times are bound by time and cast Into the jail of memories NIGHT VISIONS |9| Trust F. Òbe Pleasurable companionship reduced To voyeuristic recollections Voyeuristic recollections of memories. Memories that last longer Longer than the moments that birthed them II. Togetherness guarantees a kind of safety taken for granted like electricity in OAU the departure of a dear friend is never timely voicelessly whispering out in reminder how death splits asunder When time finally connives with distance Their fornication guarantees an alliance Against friendship made over time– and betrayed by time To distance. Life feels like a cancelled TV show, when friends depart as quickly as a careful whisper NIGHT VISIONS |10| Trust F. Òbe said only once Or as frequently as periods of uninhibited menstruations –of virgins and nuns. III. Ambition couriers a friendship but distance pays postage And then elopes with time as they hold friendship hostage wihout demanding ransom a narrative - for which ambition is sometimes the exordium but there will be a lot to ask in the end from the duo of distance and time when the future resurrects memories for the sake of questioning when a dead friendship emails the conscience and demand to comprehend The reality of departure is as apprehensive as The fear of being caught As friendship strong as cast iron gradually corrodes from inside out on exposure to gaseous time in a solution of aqueous distance Distance seduces a friendship into old age NIGHT VISIONS |11| Trust F.