“Y’ani abre, y’ani abre kↄↄ Y’ani abre, y’ani abre kↄↄ” Chant demonstrators who in years past sang “Onoaa n’ἐko oo, Ↄnoaa n’ἐko oo Onoaa n’ἐko oo, Ↄnoaa n’ἐko oo Obiara nim sἐ ἐyἐ ↄnoaa n’ἐko oo Obiara nim sἐ ἐyἐ ↄnoaa n’ἐko oo” Qwaqwaqwaqwaqwaqwaqwa I laugh in all types of languages As I […]
Oration of chastity Parading of nudity Inculcation of sincerity Akweley passed the test of “Sonimouni” No rice or corn ingestion She was bathed in a river with admonition Of family ties and connection By the gathering of all hands to eat “Ho fufui” Her hands were trained on the culinary Her skills, […]
Stories are told Of a vicar who only preached About hell fire and its recipe He expounded on lies Fornication, Adultery, Divorce, Lack of submission, Quarrelling, Lack of respect, Cheating, And many others His bulky wife had a mouth as sharp as a double edged sword She was a lioness who wore angelic clothes in […]
This leaf is raddled Saddled by the reigns of ageing Ageing which happily flaunts its job To the fascination of time And takes ridiculing as its compliment This leaf is raddled Raddled though it is It has seen all shades of the sun; Mild, seductive, angry, angered, and frightening But none blinded it […]
Eyes like owls’ Faulty at your sight Eyes so bulky Saw all perfectly but you Heart like mules’ Faulty at your touch Heart so healthy Felt all well but you Head of a genius Faulty at your reading Head so thoughtful Thought all else well but you Now they mourn in unison […]
There’ll come a time Pens will write by themselves Seeds will grow themselves Foods will cook themselves Cars will drive by themselves Airplanes will fly by themselves Ships will sail by themselves News will announce itself Houses will build themselves Sicknesses will heal themselves Countries will rule themselves All bodies will be listless And obese […]
When the wind blows It is alright I’ll shield its blows And hope for sunlight When the sun shows It is alright I’ll enjoy its mild flows And hide from its fright When the rain falls It is alright I’ll only walk tall Until I reach a shaded light When it is […]
Laugh from the heart Because we are here for a while, Only a while. We are balloons We are like balloons; Flat at birth, Blown to be big and beautiful Only to burst Or our air let out Little by little until weakness catches up And little holes make themselves in us Then we are […]
That will be one saviour appliqué
So she lies like a helpless bulldog
Being dug, cut and licked like a dog
Her beautiful features are giving way
Giving way for horrific skin which cannot sway
She is the punching bag of all desperadoes
As her bodyguards always play the rondos
Salad leaves are no kontomire leaves And I am no goat in a coat Coffee is not for the energetic And I am no weakling Heavy furs are not for the heated And I am forever perspiring Losing to make-up is not for the natural And I am no artefact Throwing fists is not for […]
I am a whore There’s no need to deny I have dated from affable to acrid From brats to bastards, From cute to candid From dull to dunderheads From eloquent to the eleemosynary From foul to fantastic From gullible to giants From heartless to horrible From industrious to innocuous From jesters to jollies From kabuki […]
This is a clarion call You saw the dirty fall There is none in your net, no ball So why can’t we form a happy wall? This is a clarion call Let’s meet in the hall And walk hand in hand to the mall No need to be blinded by a blindy pall […]
Seclusion in abundance An unhappy witch’s handicraft, perhaps Collusion of voices of annoyance Amidst vocals painting great ambience Still secluded, a bad spirit’s doing perhaps. Blow me cold, blow me hot Blow me right, blow me left, perhaps A good embrace awaits somewhere Somewhere these eyes see not To pull me to safety with a […]
I am tired of living with Jack Frost Who blows, taunts, jabbers and queerly sings Even when goosebumps in surrender raise their wings He laughs and gains more strength to frost Honey, come and let’s sack Jack Frost I’m tired of being his puppet even during springs He puffs and hardens and makes me […]
Let’s aid and abet the blowing wind To travel across the wretched sea To clear the dust and misty mind Of hate and killings they love to see I can see their thoughts like words on a board They make no attempts to conceal the lot If we stand to watch these in their […]
I am a black chalk Chalks of all colours Let’s join hands and draw a painting to stalk. A painting to stalk inferiority complex, A painting to stalk superiority, A painting to stalk ethnocentrism A painting to stalk racism And haunt them until they land In the traps of their hunters Let’s give those hunters […]
I was once a decent lady, All the members of my organization were No matter how nasty any member was, She wore an apparel, An apparel of decency before stepping out But I know not when time and civilisation Staged a coup, a coup to have my kingdom naked And in the public, paraded. The […]
“Mother, did any one see God creating things? Mother, if child births are painful, Why didn’t God put the womb on males? Mother, Why don’t all living things work by day? Mother, is hell real or just a myth To scare people into submission? And mother, I want all explanations with scientific proofs” What do […]
We cannot be the sun and moon Whose shuttles orbit hundreds of miles To keep their distances and painfully swoon Light repels light no matter their differences But this light wants to merge in a cocoon With the light that is tearing its eyes For its weak rays need yours to happily swoon And sack […]
She lies there in her nakedness Like one who knows no clothes Caring not about the awkwardness Of the eyes which peep through no protective clothes All she cares about Is what comes from her inner court The inner court productions who keeping lives is all they’re about So flow through her nakedness under […]
Hehehehe, one plus one is one But what is this I hear? That Paa Ekow wants a nice earthenware To be his one and only bowl. Not a bad idea, after all, a man must have a bowl But, what is this I’m hearing? That he wants a last-hand bowl? This bowl I know, is […]
Her hands are not for grabs She is the cook, the cook for all mouths Those hands cannot be broken like the legs of crabs They must be together for the sake of all mouths The cook cooks and the eater eats What is this about one wanting all her bowls? And what is […]
I remember,
I remember my love for darkness
For grandma sat on her story throne
With trickles of fire-lights showing her face
And deepening the darkness at her back,
Like a muse, she poured down all the secrets of Kwaku Ananse; the spider
Who like a chameleon, went from doing good to being bad
And from being wise to acting foolish
what gives passion thoughts? What gives passion feelings? What gives passion the gestures it upholds? Like a dead wood, I live,I eat, I drink, I sleep, I wake Only for a repeat The sages say listen to your heart, The adages echo, find you passion The society screams; “a bum you are” Parents hide their […]
It started like the whirlwind Shifted from darkness by an unknown steam This barrel wept seas of tears And complained of being taken away by the wind Now I cannot imagine your broad beam As you looked into my steps in a few years There were heavy barrels which capsized in the beam […]
When my clouds formed in my sky It called the rain, I saw with my eye Then it called the storm Which stormed with lightning There was flooding and I was soaked My umbrella flew away, I nearly choked The rains camouflaged my tears So all they saw from afar was my soaked being […]
Trading chastity for a dime Dogmatic audacity for a rhyme Pimping vanity for a mime Brutal insanity for a thyme Selling veracity for a prime I need to keep my sanctity Trading amity for a dime Humping sanity for a crime Hailing mendacity for a good time Insane profanity for a chime Consuming fatality […]
Why does it change? I smiled knowing the preposterousness Of the raining promises The smiles from the heart Lighting the eyes The heat from our bodies like mild fire from the Fireplace in the cold being enough To protect us from the cold The cold sweat breaking on a cold day, […]
She tends to a farm,
A farm benevolent like heaven,
Which kills all hunger but hers
Sauntering in gutters Abysmal whiffs walk proudly and shatters Noses, avoiding hoses, holds hands With flies which feast happily on caked defecations As the mosquitoes sing happy melodies on me A toad takes advantage of darkness and winds The throats of others to make them bullhorns to fit the situations Situations of the lantern […]
All turn to mouth
Who swears to utter nothing
Our prides fought
A fight chaos bought
I You say you’re rich So you call me a bitch Because you can afford many Well, guess what, you aren’t getting any Not from me II You treat your earthly vehicle like trash While asking her daughters to hush Then you tell me, You want to board my ship, sweetie, You aren’t getting any, […]
Brutalities of traditions Clashed with civilization Like two deadly enemies My grandma said Her grandma told her of stories Of Penche Otu and how his family’s thirst Was curbed by the blood of beings The people cried and cried when civilization whipped Then the gods chose the leopard; A worse blood shedder Death and […]
Stories are told of a man Who had many eyes on his head Which made him the sun Leading his people to a place where a voice is only heard By him, a voice of settlement His mysterious life Living under the world of a hat Was unraveled by his weak wife While lying […]
I am on my knees Begging for peace In the midst of the fangs of the bees Are many who’ve no fees To pay to the bees Because they touched not their honey I am on my knees Like the perpetually kneeling tortoise, for me The river that flew through me Gathers in beauty […]
I was the rotten wood Which water lifers used as food Water determined where I stood Would’ve fled if I could But I had not the power On the water, you shouted In your fuming loudest “Do you wish to be the haunted?” He went in his slowest And you picked me up […]
Caught by unseen tentacles I consulted many oracles To naught, until you magnified your miracles Now I make my car a tabernacle Because your love is sweeter than a treacle In the desert I was the dessert And my soldiers did me desert To my enemies, the timing was perfect But you appeared in your […]
As the sun sets only to rise,
As the sun, in her lifetime, is conquered in its own time
By clouds and eclipses
So is the ups and downs
I hear the hushes of the bushes And the marshes of the brushes I hear the soreness of darkness And fleeing plans of the fireflies I hear the lifting mats of the bats And weaving spectacles of some tentacles Even the headless carries a headdress A great storm is about to storm […]
Conscience stricken, Defeatism controlled I thought I saw your contrition My desolation was the attraction The wind in you embraced my storm And exploded, scattering lightning Which blinded and unblinded Like a shellfish conquered, My shell was left ashore Waiting for a picker to pick Either to grind, play with or love Luckily, an adorable […]
I hid it all from many eyes
Though many noses sniffed
And gave it a chase,
I waited patiently for the chosen
It stings, those eye brows And like pepper make the eyes weep The mouth cakes and rebels At many of its clothings The breasts cry for some air The tummy shouts “mummy Free me” to no avail Then the legs complain of the pressure Of the feet which in turn complain Of the foreign pressure […]
Weeping sweat On a cold day A sad heart, on a bright day No smile, no fulfilment No inspiration Blank sheets Un-writing pens Infuriating noise, blank head The desperation, a block, Her worst fear Wanting to write everything And having everything But a full head Anxiety, A writer’s worst fear Amoafowaa Sefa […]
The centipede coils When the stick pokes The stick wanting to see its length The centipede wanting that in wraps He pokes, It coils, He pokes, She coils The sun watches in anguish Seeing fun flee from their encounter Time laughs at their clumsiness The sun closes its eyes And leaves them to the scare […]
Toys created by toys Sent by toys And loved by toys A toy was created and Breathed into The toy had a tag of a boy And became a man Now the toy thinks not of himself a toy And has created many toys with commands and sits back As his metals freeze He sends […]
In this dark road With many horrible noises like that of a toad With moving shadows And strange whistles from the lost meadows I stand here with only a comrade Under no shade With only a torch light And some guns in case of a fight I can be swallowed by a python No […]
I was once a pretty dolly I loved my little telly I acted really silly I loved the name Billy I had a friend called Cecily Who introduced me to Emily We were cute dolls really Although we weren’t funny We looked for things pretty And talked were all never dullies We climb […]
I take a stance And look from a distance Chickens like famished children Wailing in anger Hens like desperate mothers Crying in anguish Cocks like men with bruised egos Sitting with capped jaws As the Hawk sits comfortably on his throne He, the hawk comes down And takes what he needs to fill […]
I cried I did not like that And you did that anyway I smile and say it’s okay And you let it go? How convenient! Knowing when to push your luck And when to keep your pocket full I know one must say what she wants But it is no fault of […]
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