Dear rains Weed the clouds And form a clear path in my sky I need its lovely blue To stay strong III Dear lightenings Shut the loud mouths Of your thunders To stop their roarings like hungry tigers My ears plead for peace III Dear Moon Appear like a knight And clear the dark To […]
Crawling snails Are scarier than jumping goats They are armed by silence And aided by care Let all heads be still in listening Do snails have noisy footsteps? Do they have loud voices to call for alertness? Don’t they have such cool touches? Ones to make fantasies real? Like shadows they penetrate Their shapes and […]
Chaos boils like hot water In the highest place of the land Can it melt its saucepan To help create another in good shape? I think not Given the fact that Here is here And choas boils to cool Never to ever rise in heat Ah! Kwa kwa kwa kwa, beaky chirps II This fire […]
Clouds form to give life to rain Rivers flow to give strength to seas Plants grow to feed, heal or kill But beings grow into the earth We know not the colour of ghosts Like meteorologists and their audience Some predict Some believe Some sit on fences to just watch We, these sad girls Amoafowaa […]
Sire Now the situation is dire Grant my desire And all the pride for you I will acquire Even as I walk through this fire I do know enemies, for me, this pain hire I know there awaits a mire And the beatings of struggling wire For they never tire Sire All they pump are […]
Most crowns have fallen Into the gutters of civilization Their stools Lost in the wilderness of democracy Arresting conventions to be whipped like criminals In the fallacy of globalization Their seers turned predictors Wearing garments of dense education Mostly with magic of turning what is Into what isn’t Why won’t most cultures vanish like ghosts […]
Clicks with flicks On lawn at dawn Born anger seems torn Like a cool dress turned rag II The waving-swooning-moon The sympathetic gazes of the tickly-giggly-stars The tired-dozing night birds Who are fighting sleep to catch this climax Make me wish for wings III Like a cozy teddy bear I have hugged you a million […]
Cry rain, light, thunder Blossomed roses flirt with all Dust, filth included Kisses that misses disses Hit hard harbouring hatred II Where is harmony Without ha-money? When hands seek to be seen in waves Instead of fighting for farms? III Love a flower Love its thorns, not only the nectar Love a shower Love its […]
Did I see it green or brown? Did I see it not at all? Did I see it still or wavering? Maybe the eyes of my sight is lost Now I look But I see not it The sight sees all But what seems lost Like a paint eaten by its sheet Its debris remains […]
Some are born kings with wings Like mushrooms growing on anthills They get to battle trees in height Their only prayer Not to be grazed down Ambition, not a usable tool Maintenance, a need II Some are born free to spree Like left kites in right sights Flying high with the right air Shaking their […]
Talkings of humans Chirping of birds Croakings of frogs Roarings of the cat family Bleatings of goats and sheep Wave songs of seas Whispers of breezes Combined with all others Make the rhythm of life The earth our major instrument All bodies, accompaniments I am playing my part You? Amoafowaa Sefa Cecilia (c) 2016
Per the airs of our forefathers Entering through the shores of our land Asaase Yaa needs ears Care and spirit to fight Enabling all tools needed II The airs whisper their messages There is no teeth which fights not its tongue But each needs the other for the sake of survival Swords of words must […]
Won’t I miss you When I’m gone? You shelter that sheltered Knowing all Seeing all Feeling all Without breaking your hall No word came from the mouths of your walls You hide the dirty sides Prepare for my better sun view Keep the secret tears Like invisible diary only I can read You labour In […]
I need to dine With the queen of England And if we wine I will be in Powerland To find the soul Of the sea of English Which gave enlightening bowl From the rivers of British And made some clowns in wish for crowns II I need to dine With the queen of England And […]
Do I need the stool Of the queen of England? The seat of Liberia’s power buttocks? The stance of South Korea’s head? The heart of Yaa Asantewaa? To have gazing eyes mellow to look? Flaunting egos listen to bow? Strong shoulders stand down from arrogant ladders? Peppery mouths calmed by salt? Tight trousers loosening to […]
It promised to be fun The hunt I dreamt of games I dreamt of tames I dreamt of antelopes swift and lame I dreamt of moons Leading with light I dreamt of victory none the same Then I threw my arrow It hit the marrow Looked like a narrow catch As I waited for my […]
Beautiful lips Red, like a rose kissed snow Beautiful nose Straight like the line of a perfect artist Cheeks so shaped In place, like that of a perfect carver Chin so devine Inviting, like the whispers of dawn Neck so long Straight and bearable, like that of an “akuaba” Eyes so intense Like Odomankoma’s seas […]
How many masks do you wear? Love over hatred in hurts? Smiles over disdain in pain? Friendliness over cowardice in bruised ego? Truth over lies in ambition? How many masks do you wear? II How many masks do you wear? How many? You are like a rotten seed in a bleached yellow mango Like a […]
The she in me Is like a traveling soul Stuck in a robbed hut Needing hands to help her transport Into a he frame A he frame that can visit the gods II Who can blame her? She too craves for a voice for choice To exorcise loneliness She too craves for the chance To […]
Meet me there Where arms of trees Shield like roofs of huts There Where rivers merge to parliament There where ghosts hunt And lives play II Meet me there There Where cocks and hens turn to guinea fowls Cats turn lions Lizards turn to aligators Butterflies turn to nightingales III Meet me there There Where […]
All that they dish Are traps filled with many a little fish Acting like baboons accomplished While living like gluttons, so childish Wanting to be those hearts cherish While breaking through coffers to garnish Themselves to have others famish Aren’t they greed-stricken foolish? I pray criminal seas you banish! To lose all you relish So […]
All ye clothes Needing to be perfect to clothe Like silver linens and its cloud Listen The edges of the scissors Come together to murder Cutting through like a dead meat Leaving you tattered For the painful pinning Of waiting pins Cry not The same hater strengthens Fitting you onto your dreams Making you dreams […]
I stand in your palace Where your former stool sits with open arms And your crown hungs Yearning for the touch of your head II Stools for your elders lay bare Knowing not when nominated buttocks Will clear their dust And make them again shine III The prayer ground stands still Like a river in […]
Vultures hover Like ants promised a sugar rain at dawn Watching from my skies Hoping I fall like a broken log For carnivores to have their fill So they can have their turn What did I do to attract this attention? II I am no fruitful tree Sure no bird so free No crown for […]
After being wooed She soon swooned Opening up for a palpable wound Then her raised eyes lowered Her pride got showered And washed into the mud The hidden flower in the bud That all sought Appeared briefly to greet her lord Taking a toll she could not afford All against her own accord Until her […]
I am a daughter carved half from prized stone Onto the crowned seat of Kwahu-Abetifi And carved partly from silver Akyem Brenase blood being my donor My first elder sister is married to a Wassanian The second an Ashanti My son has an Ewe blood My second younger brother Loving a Ga My God mother […]
A smiling sword mostly Holds bitter bitterness Which develops sharp edges in the dark To take hearts from its enclavic back Hearts which warms up to them II Match eyes with mouths Ears with hands Shadows with backturns Scribbling and dribbling not neighbours The mind lives on the storey building The legs being its palanquin […]
Death is like a school The many that pass through Are like the many admitted The students complain Like dried leaves under feet Yet take it all The punishments and sleepless nights Sitting for examinations Passing or failing to fall Leaving a replaceable space The only killer of death known now Is birth If birth […]
When the heart chooses Foul air turns life saving Harsh words burn like acid in pleasing works Only for a second And calms like balm for its initial sores II When the heart chooses Crowns are eye made On bald and crooked heads Making ugly relative As monkeys turn angels with fine light And beautiful […]
Legs of iron Walk through this hell Into the snow Beneath which lie The thieves who stole our innocence Revived and lured out our dead-in-buried-slavery Like zoo guards do fierce lions II I will wish to light them a fire Which will burn into desire And will blast into their attires And turn hellish fires […]
When the gates of my eyes Failed the bait of darkness And stood ajar Like a third leg mad man in attentive glory I knew the legs of the night Would go at a snail’s pace Tik…tok….tik…..tok II The balls which needed to be hidden The bigger colours which needed to rest The lens which […]
How now wows calls for vows How now bows calls for yaws Clean like a nightingale But live like a vulture Work like a bull Live like worm Sit like a gluttonous pest Live like a king Knowing big seats Makes you all defeat Cruelty laughs at piety Lies threaten candidness The world tears up […]
Tell me Tell me what is in your heart I have no eye with laser readings And I am no eagle in high flight To see your all from the top II Tell me Tell me what is in your heart I have no smell with inferences Not like a trained dog on problemed field […]
My mother’s mother’s mothers Were like dogs Trained to serve even on stepped nerves Tamed to submit even when pain emit Taught to shadow Even in the brightest light Ordained to please no matter their horrid tease What can I do to their souls appease? II Like dogs Some got good owners And lived well […]
Flaws Crawl like cowardly spiders In hidden tears Shielded by pride II It flows to the brim And cause all that is dim Making tongues sour like the tree of nim And like an old sim Feeding all new phones to have vims Defying all that is proper and prim III Knowledge is power So […]
Asamando adwen kesefo Monsore!! Monsore!!! The world drifts from the main Into a fake Mains are free to live To rot Into death While their abstracts stay intact Clumsily trying to work for them But what can work without a soul? II Put on your ear aid Rest your buttom on a comfortable seat And […]
When my heaven in daylight turns to hell Calling to keep a countenance none can tell I always yearn to recoil into my shell Like a tortoise in danger smell II Oh how I wish there was a bell To help me skip any problem cell So none can say “she fell” And carry me […]
What do you see? Birds in flight with different wings? Different sizes of animals On all fours living as they please? Those struggling on twos And those sailing with wings? Rivers screaming for seas? Clouds clutching on skies? Airs roaming Invisibly aimlessly Touching with no fingerprints? Look Look hard Tell what you see Think the […]
Where were you? When cold threw shivers And tears on my fragile body And boxed me like Azumah in his boxing fury? II Where were you? When scarce waters Were woken from deep pots And made to flow into gutters Like unneeded waters from a washed colander? III Where were you? When the gates of […]
Bad morning greets in hollowed caves Thinking aloud its knighty saves Fantasizing itself as Biblical Daves But none seems to work as none helps paves II It is the lack of saviours That calls for its misbehaviors If the bad is released And its curses seize Whatever wrong it writes Will erase itself Tearing through […]
Lord I need For you to breed My inner seed In your kind deed II I need to feed So I try to weed And try to heed But I flaw my creed III Free my mind Free my soul Free my body To sour like your dove When I fall in the mud I […]
The sinking sun rays The sad melodies of nightingales Wake owls with crowns of dreams Waking bats with thoughts of mischief II The dark will bark And mark my lack The yearns will bite And take my light Fears will guard And brand me bad As the night climbs mountains To get me through dawn […]
Why did we not get rods? Why did we not get skies? Why did we not get water To easily slip and hide in the land? II Why did we not get moons? Why did we not get stars? Why did we not get airs To escape when enemies chase? III You gave us lands […]
We have crossed Crossed the rubicon And can never get a head To dream of change Change which can alter positively II We have, like gluttons, dined Dined with the undinables Food whose stench can never be removed Let alone hidden from its seekers Who have the light to chase We who have no light […]
I don’t want to be a land I want to be a tree No matter how deeply rooted I will stand firm With branch-like hands Waving my leaf- like fingers None will step on me into mud None will dig into me None will wash away my skin None can blast my stone like bones […]
As to how it got quenched I cannot tell Except that like a vulcano Overtaken by a rebellious tsunami I woke up bruised At the shores of love When I had barely paddled to the count of ten On its sea II Wet grounds Wet woods All dry matches watch Marking abominable my territory Taking […]
Verily verily, I say unto you All that is bitter Great and disappointing In this wide world Never fails in blame of All little holes down women’s south II Vying to soar like eagles Altering fates to appear like perfect frames Giving out like Father Christmas on a big win Initiating rights to act like […]
Love made her his dog When he was himself a frog Tied to a log So her running turned into a jog Her big frame Insulting her state Like a queen with her crown With a fool tag like a clown Teeth showcase themselves in her honour For the fun of it When it is […]
What is the difference between much and none? In the much How is the rush? In the none How is the crash? II Many are the laughters of the much Like sugar and ants Many are the odours of the none Like a dead being rotting in leaves III Eyes in goggles of deceit Break […]
Just a glance At an entrance And it fell into a trance Never asking for a chance To get enchanted Are you a dog on climbing duty? II Agya Waadwo! So I met a goat on heat It failed to bleat And chased on three feet Hoping to me cheat Me, that bloody future meat!!! […]
Mum Cee