I am a building/
by Babatunde Adesokan
in the throat/
of the conquistador/lintel-less/
I walled myself in/
against grief/
against thieves/
In the city/
a boy becomes a fascicle/
& a chapter/
in an incomplete dream/
The depth of the dream/
hollowed/
into insufficient balance/
& incessant expenses/
I palm prayers unto heavens/
I dove my eyes unto the sky/
I saddle hopes into each day/
I swim in this cloud of dreams/
A smokescreen/
to the harsh reality/
of a broken boy/
Forgive me/
if you find me tilling soil/
with no hope/
my birth has stripped me/
& my innocence/
has citied me/
into a pollution of debt/
Babatunde is a teacher on weekends, banker on the weekdays, aspiring farmer, and budding writer.
130-word Tribute to FirstBank @130
by Babatunde Adesokan
An elephant does not turn out dwarfish,
130 giant strides woven into fabrics of
our society. Can you feel the footfalls of
Ajanaku echoing through nations
in jubilant symphony?
Door-to-door, dawn-to-dawn
sewing the economic camaraderie
of brimming cities, of forgotten villages
A sojourn of exceptional service
from infancy’s crawl
to this new chapter spun.
This elephant never ages
This elephant never breaks
nor runs at sight of dogs
Triumphant over brambles, over hedges
over recapitalization that swallows peers
she walks with pride & purpose
EPIC among the rank of animals
FirstBank, may your foot be planted
where customers & competitors come to drink
May you march on even if the market vine
is as thick as palm tree
May 130 strides be just a crawl
to what your future holds.
Babatunde Waliyullah Adesokan (Toonday) writes from Oyo State, Nigeria. He works with Sterling bank. He is a lover of poetry; a lover of everything that breathes poetry. His works appeared / forthcoming in Pangolin Review, Wales Haiku, Ethel-Zine, Shallowtales Review, Stillwater Review, RoadRunnerReview, Lucent Dreaming.