More On Marilyn - Lagos Forty Or More Years Ago - For Theresa Lola Poem by Keith Shorrocks Johnson

In Lagos, the atmosphere stands over you like a dark genie
The water has failed in the smart concrete apartment
And I shave using Sprite to foam my face
But the electricity works, so the paddle-fan moves above my sleeping place in the lounge.

Burning myself out from work up-country for my engineering company
I have come, fighting for my life again, to this dense dark city
On the way home - back to Heathrow and the Home Counties -
If they'll recognize my ticket at the Nigeria Airways desk - dash permitting.

I have somehow made it to a nightclub and become a little drunk
And found myself liking and loving a girl who has excellent English
Who also speaks Italian - having been what we would now call trafficked -
My beautiful girl, my Black Marilyn, my night club pick-up.

The fan is still turning above this stifling ceiling of inadequacies
That most beautiful of deep, dark lustrous skin to be cherished
For both of us a petit mort - death itself in touch
You were so much more than your beauty - I still can't take my eyes off you.