A state of mental dysfunction

A state of mental dysfunction
We are on a mission to commit suicide:
So help us Lord.
Let us build mansions tall enough to hide our deficiencies,
And share pepper smeared with fresh faeces
As gold for the poor.
Let the people talk about how our fart smells
For a week;
While they are at it let us fill our paunches
And add an ounce of gold to the tip
Of our imported leather-made shoes.
When they almost see us,
Let us bathe our bodies in oil
As black as ourselves, and
Use dollar notes as stickers, so
We shall not be seen. When they look
Into our eyes in search of some truth,
Let it be that of a baby’s – pitch black pupil
Reflecting our mildness and innocence, yet
Deep and white of uncertainties
Unspoken of.
When those of us as yet to announce
Battles with their conscience
Betray this esteemed group with their good, Lord
Let them carry the burden of the night soil
Till their necks break and then death.
We shall arrange a funeral
In one of the saintly churches
And sing foreign hymnals, alien
Enough for the tired lips of those of old

We attend with money taken with
The breath of night and a killed mind;
A chorus of adieus for you, and
Those like you
For our tongues have lost sounds of due!!!

We know when we pull down panties, and zips
The child playing at the corner will see
How rotten are our bottoms;
So let us swim in black oil, and hot gold.
Let our decayed tooth
Weak with sweets be changed into shapes of gold
So when we turn to smile
The toddler would giggle a while
And tap with her left hand the red earth.

Lord
You will know we have arrived
With offerings of suffering
From the people; and,
You must help us!

2 November, 2010. Legon at dawn

For LaS

snoring away memories
but rise to pick them
scattered along the shores connecting
us are those gems
of laughter and of pain

Mask Me

So I feel like I committed an abomination
I was angry so I didn’t care

I cut all of my hair
Against your wishes and the dictates of some sense
You who know all things
Making the Sahara your dry leisure
And the foot of Afadjato your sleep place

I committed an abomination under your shed
(You did nothing; you wretched soul
You looked on unconcerned; and the wind blows anyway)
I was angry so I didn’t care

23 September, 2010

Laur

When the windows shut
When thrown out, the wind hits hard
When beyond Sherman Oaks you dare dream
When you see beams of you and me
When along the shore you see the connection
When you rise above the chorus
Just see us!
18th August, 2010.

One for the Land

Let’s dip our hands, together
In the one pot
To recount lost paths
Wiped in daylight by Scavengers

But today is one for kindred
Not for weary souls suffering
Under the weight of past wrongdoers
Not for they who kvetch

The old patterns woven by Ananse
At corners of Our walls should show
Now old skills, ready for sharpening
As we fire guns filled with age-old powder

Kpopkoi shall rise in response, reconnecting
Spirits of Old Ways, of newer bumper Harvests
For today is one for Feasting
And Alien hands can come!

24 August, 2010. Dansoman.

When We Lose Reason

God does everything, everywhere.
She is at that palm-wine joint
Ensuring the victory of the Stars;
Killing cockroaches at the Pentagon;
Slashing off the legs of a child in Afghanistan;
Receiving praises from a politician
Who eats beef imported only
From Argentina while the people
Queue for water.

God does everything, everywhere.
Urinating in floods when her bladder
Can contain the screams from the earth no more;
Blessing the hungry with
A cedi at the edge of a smelly gutter
At Nima—
And after gaining no pleasure
From the monotonous lives of pitiful humans,
She sets a new comic in motion:
Wives catching cheating husbands,
The blind falling in gutters,
Fools winning lotteries.

At the peak of her pleasures' end,
God laughs thunders, hurricanes, earthquakes;
And shifts the tectonic plates
While quoting Laing:

'And what was joy anyway,
But a movement of brain energy.'

26 June 2010.

I am the He-Goat

I am the He-Goat
Upon licking all the sores
Of the world—the taste,
Recorded in the eternal
Memories of my tongue;
Memories which I chew
As leftovers
Of journeys
Of pleasures
Running into wild imaginations
Of body touching body;
I am the He-Goat
Not so slow in my adventures
As the millipede who’s
Curved ways is etched deep in the path
On which it treads; for the millipede is a sculptor
And I am a chaser of a sort;
Awake on countless nights—the stars
Have descended,
They, my sentinels, keeping away the eyes
Of the world—Dogs and sexy
Male Cats, who are less holy and plain,
Less physical and sexual; I
Recounted many light days
A dog had jumped unto
Another, in the very eyes, eyes
Of Cats and Fowls and even I,
The seductive He-Goat;
And its own thing stretched
At full length like a guava tree,
Its thighs stood as if
In readiness for the rapid
Journey it was about to make,
Its thighs are the size
Of the neem branch—
The stars would tarry
Awhile, like they enjoyed my
Journey
Of a line of She-Goats
Curved at their lower sides
Selected for I, the He-Goat;
On starless nights my mind
Travelled to distant lands;
I hear better She-Goats existed,
With darker smooth skins awaited
My Second-Coming!

The Second Time

The possibilities lie in our hands.
We should not drop them when the winter
Sets in, when the sun scorches, and
Leaves us with slippery fingers
For on such many nights, your stomach—
It will knot screaming on a lonely mountain:

Fear is a strange visitor lurking at the back
Never courageous to come in full glare

When dusty winds blow into our eyes
We wait, weary, yet our oars remain strong
Touching the Atlantic, connecting our minds
Knowing full well that our paths
Shall dare to hug
Even if, for
A
Short
Space
Of
Breath.

For The Daughter of Tuesday

The irony of the African Sun
beautifully orange, sitting at Earth’s bottom.
In her rests the power, witchcraft
not technology, to change her colour.
The Californian Sun
it does not orbit—
it is just red, less burning—
neither does other objects so bright;
the cosmic dance of the glorious Earth
is in Africa only, in the safari chest
where long-horned antelopes are watched.
No, the Californian Sun sits in
solitary.
It has no neighbours like Earth as Africa
Those who watch the Californian Sun;
they do not see the African Sun
Earth sees two Suns.

One Way Trip

I have been waiting here like always
I know you will be asleep, dreaming away
Many memories of Us, Our ways in plays
In which we have drawn up our characters as gay
As new Lovers. We know they say
What we will become come the day
The merciful Sun will show its ray
On Our path so we do not stray
And miss the line when we grace life’s stage
We will see each other; five moons soon shall pass soon
Under the politics of the wind I shall fly to you
And we shall sit and wait here like always.