spilledwoords
“Poetry burns in our hearts with the passionate heat of a lover’s embrace.”
Third Mainland
“Third Mainland Bridge,”
a faded billboard announces.
Twelve kilometers to Adeniji Adele,
if you got the mojo take a ride, take a leap.
Like a dog eating itself from the tail
nobody gives a hoot; no niceties here.
This is Lagos – everyone on wheels is a genius
every genius a Road-Rage-Maniac.
Traffic clogs each hour on this roadway
where Mainland meets Island and
East fuse with West yet an ocean separates
the bourgeois from the proletariat.
Lekki is nearer to heaven –
hip, modern, buttoned-up bankers,
expensive apartments, grand hotels
here wealth is life itself.
Oworonshoki closer to hell –
flirty alleys dotted with
low-life brothels and pickpockets
survival here is a purpose in itself.
Split personality –
a city divided yet united
by what divides it –
the Lagoon.
© Ugo Nkwoala, 2019. SpilledWoords.
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