Underbridge Poem by Tony Adah

Here is an assortment of people
And things, a jumble of living and dead
Men and women on independent duties
Hair unkempt, some spiky and others in dreadlocks
The air is froth with all types of cigarettes
Which mixes in some noxious fumes
And the uninitiate is ill at home.

There are broken rubber paints
And water holders and this is a hovel
For the humming flies
A woman in soliloquy
Is busy in her kitchenette
Where smoke billows from a fire
Made in a hearth of three stone
Upon which a dented black aluminium pot perched
A wooden spatula in her hand stirring
Her pot of soup.
Here and there
Pieces of wood mostly concrete tainted littered
And pots of ornamental plants blossom
Innocent of who their breeders were
A young man half clad rested on the bridge pillar
Cuddling a piece of wood singing
To the tunes from the stringless guitar
Another splashing water and soapsuds
In an open broad daylight bathroom.
Here lagosians just pass
In their hustle bustle inured to the under bridge
And it's the only way to know those
New in the town who come watching the scene.