Assault Her Dreams

And she started turning the world around
in her stomach
You cannot ask what it was she did
but you only wonder
How beautiful
she made all that was grievously sad
You cannot ask what you do not ask
but murder is murder
Yet she harbours all the world's pain
when you sleep in dry harmattan
You cannot fathom so do not ask, suffer amnesia instead, torture her
And after nine months, if the world survives, forget, assault her dreams
Assault dreams of her because you are a shameless world that through nightmares you sleep
Assault her dreams

When We Lose Reason - A Poem

I do not remember exactly where I was when I wrote this poem, but I presume I must have been frustrated, yet clean in thought enough to write. A lot has been said about the poem, especially when OGOV, an online literary magazine, published it and later Badillisha Poetry recorded me on it. A friend, had requested severally that I publish the poem here.

As the year ends, (mine ended in August, as mentally I go with the Ga calender of afi ooo afi in August) for most of my readers out there, I republish the poem "When We Lose Reason". CHEERS to all Humans!


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 only eats beef imported

From Argentina, while the people
Queue for water.

God does everything, everywhere.
Floods stream when her bladder
Can no longer contain the screams from the earth;
Blessing the hungry with
A cedi at the edge of a gutter

At Nima—
And after gaining no pleasure
From the monotonous lives of 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 pleasure's 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.'

Something Beautiful

I want to write something beautiful
Not a poem
For I fear the gruesome reality
Might shock me
Shattering the smithereens 

Of what so human is left

Of my community's love

I want to write something beautiful

Not a poem

For I might record something grim

Wiping the smiles off the walls

Of strangers faces that greet me

Each morning

On Amantra Street

I want to write something beautiful

Not a poem

For I must capture lost dreams

Why passers-by pass by

Erasing our once communal love

But what I heard this morning was beautiful again:

Of You telling me "we don't know you yet we love you"

19 December 2012.

Osu.

An Ode for Nana Addo

I wrote this poem on Thursday, 13 December, a few days after the declaration of the election results. What is missing in the poem is the last futuristic stanza, which a friend promised to complete. While that remains to be done, I publish this poem for all Ghanaians. Enjoy.


For a decade
Your politicking years was robbed
Dragged through the rubble
Forced to sleep at 6PM like a chicken
Your hot head filled with nightmares
Of dummy soldiers walking in your cortex
You lost your sense of smell
To the stench of khaki uniforms field with grease
And all that was left was ashes
For you to rub your fingers in.

For another decade
You fought from within
Among your own you showed
How your difficult life was raided
Why it was your turn
Because you were a vanguard
You shined in Ghana's dark ages
When your people stared into the barrel of AK47s
But you missed their thumb
And another star died.

For yet another decade
The cloud was clear and you had crossed rivers
Y3nim wo dada yet you were "Milled"
Stretched to the limit
Then you gave up only to return
Upon being stampeded by your own Cash
But you were tired of paying for all
And the last lap was to be free until nature interfered
Replacing death with unknown new life
It was then you were done.