How come everyone
Has suddenly turned into a volcano
Erupting at the slightest touch,
Barking at one another on the tube
Like the Alsatian bulldog
And behaving like a cat and a dog?
Why this burning heat in the month of July
Which makes everyone perspires like a
Christmas turkey in the ovum?
As everyone battles the sweat,
Fanning themselves on the iron millipede,
It comes back in a moment cascading down
Their bodies in saltiness like the Niagara Falls.
Within the anaerobic confines of the much
Squeezed carriages, passengers huddled together
And gasped for breath in the sultry afternoon of July.
Ken, if the Thames were emptied into every coach
With waters flooding the underground,
It yet cannot be compared to these sweats
Flowing down the bodies of passengers
In the hot summer of July 2006.
IMMACULATE LOVE
(End of I.T. Reflection for Isi)
True love
Is God-centred
True love
Is white.
True love,
True love
True love
Is ever pure.
This meeting of ours
Will ever green
In my memory remain.
This is a going
That is not a parting
But a going and a coming
That strengthens our love.
– John Odey Aduma.
*Written in a cab on my way to Ota in Ogun State, Nigeria.
January 28, 2000.
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