Monday, December 23, 2013

WE ARE WHERE WE ALL BELONG

I do not know what happened
before I became a singer, yet Agbozo says
we are where we all belong on this earth
 
they say the dog does not birth a child in public,
to whom should I give my song in this hot noonday
when some say I should cover my face with my hands
that good things of this world some have it others don’t
that is why Agbayiza tells the wayfarers
we are at where we all belong on this earth
 
yesterday, I carried my sorrows on my shoulders
like a net but I met an evil god on the sea at Azizanu
so I came home with my sorrows on my shoulders
and told the people in the town that the sea was bad
Agbayiza, listen to me, in the middle of my speech
all mad dogs of Agbogbloshie chased me to Ghostland
 
The royal palm says he does not talk in vain
it is the whirlwind that provoked him
what made bats to hide in eaves and come out at night
is known only to the Creator God and not us
 
Kofiloto, lets cry together, I’m a pilgrim of sorrow
tossed in this wide world with nobody to hear me
they say what happened to you yesterday
and your wives run away to marry strangers
has become the flood waters ravaging my farmstead
and now people want the son of the eagle
to turn a beggar in the market square
 
Why is Afitor and her people bellowing, yearling fuming
like a hippo, like a voice of thunder angry like a smallpox god
terrorizing people in every stead, in every market square
maybe I’m like a swallow imprisoned in the rafters of the rich
and they want to kill it and throw it onto the dunghill
but Agbozo, when the sea dries can’t you walk home
or when the market is closed don’t the sellers go home
it's always the useless dancer who blames the drummers
 
Akpalu once said, he lives his life in an anthill
That termites are his next door neighbors
Should anyone wish to love him that person should know
He is not alone, he lives with termites in his anthill
You said this tree is barren; it has no shade for your tired self
Why then are you wailing that it denied you comfort in the sun
Or maybe the wailing is for your regrets
 
It was Kamasa who said he wished the diviner could tell him
why one mother gave birth to four children
one is Aɖuefunawo, another is Gbɔgblɔbu,
one is Deafeamekpɔ and the other is Enuemekpe
Nɔvinyewo, we are where we all belong on this earth
when they birth me the priest did not know I’ll survive
so you too is surprised I didn’t turn a beggar at the market square
 

FOR XENODZI

Fonyemetɔwo, there is a Boat on the River
And Kutsiami the only Boatman at the haven
of sprawling Waters is about to row me home
If Dzoɖuamtɔwo want to smoke me out early
It is Adehenu mehea aɖiɖigbale o who said
it’s the secret of the world
that nothing dies
 
They say Awudi de aʋa metsina aʋa o
Because on this earth akpa klika mewua elo o
So tell them that we do not die, but retire a little
from sight and afterwards return again
it is Hofe who said nothing dies
 
He said, nothing dies; men, women,
the old and young they feign themselves dead
to accept our dirges and mournful notes,
while they stand before the windowsill
looking sound and well, in some strange disguise
watching our tears fall in torrents of rain
 
so, when Death comes
like the hungry hyena into the veldt
to take the bright Coins from our Purse
tell my children, tell all kith and kin
I step through the door full of curiosity
wondering what it’s going to be like
in that cottage of Darkness
 
And perhaps if death is kind,
and there can be a returning
I will come back one fragrant night
and walk those village lanes again
to join in at the dinner table
 
I’ll then look into the eyes
of each new offspring
I will give a long handshake
to all kith and kin
 
But when I come down
there should still be the resounding drumbeat
of Akpalu, Kinka, Akpoka, Afa,
in fact, Gbadza and not Azonto
with henɔgawo singing the old songs
 
We will meet under the baobab tree
where once we met the ancestors and they accepted
our offerings and gave us the long gentle breeze
that brought rain to the crops and peace to the land
 
the night will be starlit
and you will be happy you were there

I WISH WE NEVER MET

I never knew those supple eyes
had a maelstrom of unkind desires
hidden in their peeps and tweets
 
I never knew your embraces
have such cruelest spites
the most unkind in the divinely design
 
The lips are no source of life either,
They birthed venoms spit death threats
conceived in the darkest shadow
 
In our search for pleasure
I never knew it will be a consort of pain
that erupts agonies even in my slumber
 
they say living fire can beget cold impotent ashes
you’ve become yesterday's hot fire
that begot today's cold ashes
 
and I wish we never met

SURPRISES


The endless
doubt escapes
and darkness turns
to daylight

The deepest fear
of tomorrow
now walks in naked light

And they hide
their faces
in violet sheds of tears

Now their daughters
like Cinderellas pirouettes
and twirls their tulle “Kaba” skirts
asking for the needles they cursed
in the dark

They want the aroma
of clean sheets, to dine with fork
and knife just milliseconds
before they sleep

Surprises,
they forgot their constant doubts of yesterday
they forgot their deepest fears
of tomorrow when the journey began
they forgot they left the boat in the storm

(Padmore Agbemabiese, Cleveland, 12/21/2013)

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

What Else is there than Death?

There were sounds of hymns to God all night
While a thousand hearts wailed beneath the dungeons
They were hushed, scrubbed, pillaged and scoured
and rushed to fields to gather tears and trembling distress
into their bosoms till their blood tissues wore death
like a bracelet till worms claim their souls at dawn
 
after their nightmares on many rivers
they were stretched on a bloody bier
down narrow lanes they whispered in silence
when they heard Emmett once sang his dirge
about his lost black southern manhood at 15
I think I was told he entered an uncle’s store
And kissed Death’s prophetic ear in a whistle
 
Within the windowless arms of the high walls
we’ve fanned the strongest flames of love
we’ve counted rosaries of remembrance
chanted Pater Nostra all nights to a dear father
only to carry thin lines of dying dreams in our arms
 
are dead folks not the 'liveliest' of us all"
 
 

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

DADDY, COME HOME FOR CHRISTMAS

(for my children)

Daddy, please come home for Christmas
soon, Church bells would be ringing;
our choir would be singing, the "Silent Night"
and the glad news of Christmas
will fill the air of every home


right now, I have no friend
to wish me greetings of Merry Christmas
nor tell me how wonderful the New Year would be
so Daddy, why don’t you come home for Christmas

for it is going to be a Holy Night with angels watching

the house next door, our relations across the road
have all put up their Christmas trees
they have even lit their candlelight in the porch
and by New Year's night friends and relations
will send each other salutations

they will drum and sing and dance

every child will dance and sing too

they will see a star shine above
and joy will fill their hearts, when Daddy walks in
to put a smile on their cheeks

my child will see no star but an empty space
void of an arm that could warm the soul
so Daddy, tell her gently how long is her wait
for you to come home for Christmas?
 
if you could come home for Christmas

our home would be a manger in my heart
where there’d be no more sorrow
and there would be no more grief nor pain
I'll just be happy, and happy in my soul
for Daddy is home with me for Christmas

Daddy, for my sake

please come home for Christmas
I want to hear the bells ring too
I want to be in the choir
when they sing, the "Silent Night"
and the glad news of Christmas
would fill the veins of my heart just because

Daddy is home with me for Christmas

(Written in Columbus, Ohio 1998)

The Stable


the winds were scornful,
passing by without a note
and gathering Angels
wondered why

Mary, a burdened mother
for God’s sake did not mind
that only animals in this world
were kind to her child.

Grandma used to say, “Who in this world
could guess that God would abandon
such a lovely soul in the middle
of such a horrible loneliness?”

and I too wondered, why

Drawing me


the road that lies ahead
is under construction
and much is yet to be done
yet, it is night


the picture from the other side
is hazy and foggy and funny
this isn’t the picture I wish to see
to let me be and become at ease


I've been to Texas
I've been to Montreal, to Birmingham
everywhere in search of me
it is mist and storm crushing my soul

many roads run up and down where I go
yet I needed only one  
where do I go with them
when I’m lost with uncertainty


climbing and scaling mountainsides
away from home chasing butterflies

that seems beautiful everywhere

I’m painting lines in my mind
as I want them to be
that makes sense in my head
and I don’t care what you may say


if the picture has no appeal
I’ll draw it again
I’ll keep drawing it till I see me
the real me in Reality

The Will


IMPRIMIS—I wish to die at the place I call Home
but it is too late now
 
my departing shadow I entrust to Heaven
my memory I give to the silent Dust
my Body I give to public censure
to be disposed off as my friends think fit

 
the miseries I brought onto my aged home
are gifts of an unthinking Youth
and at my funeral will be melancholy’s song
the only requiem fit like cries over garlic

I never thought of a chill snow-ribbed world
with a drift of rare flowers with delicate

shell-like diamonds enclosing frozen lily-leaves
their camellia textures were mere teasers
they are colder than the thorn of roses

now I know the windflower
that keeps alive the breath of ants

from the north-wind world

today I depart this world
with intimate thoughts of the place I call home
and treasure its beauty on my mind
from now I’ll reach out to share
the rare pure texture of its beautiful spaces
and long lines of marvels to grace

I will preach of its intimate hands
and dear drawn forever-green garden wards
all these sheer raptures I will take
to mold a clear and frigid statue
for small Poets to bequeath like my Pen

Prophecy


one day someday
I will claim my wings
I will seize the skies
I will take the land

one day someday
I will return your heart home
I will return your soul to the land
the land of your father's birth

you will return to the land
reading poems of love
from ribbons of human touch
drinking from pools of human laughter

you'll see dreams of amazing grace

one day some day
I will return
return in Waterfalls of Fire
I will return to trembling eyes

step on mounds of burning chaos
pick maggots hanging on mouths
crush the lies in living museums
and the Rainbow won't set

till the poor inherit the kingdom
till the hungry are filled
till they that weep laugh
in the land of their Father's birth

 

 

Monday, December 9, 2013

An Apology for Sena


(For Z and B who witnessed the slaughter)

Forgive me if I smile often, Sena,
for you are not sure if I have a heart
overflowing with love enough to ever love dearly.

You are too young to remember
how I was named in sentences of unaccented tongues,
And you do not know I was buried in an open grave
And like a poor man from Salaga I never had my say
and I took my unsung dreams with me to my somewhere

You were young then and I was too frail
to sing loudly in the court of conscience
and they all found me guilty of love
of not caring enough to love their daughter
and I died and I dreamed and I tried and I
I died of sleep. 

This was many years ago
and Zeno was away and Britt was put on pause

Sena, forgive me if I laugh myself away
I laugh and smile because I’ve unfashion the open grave
placed my swollen feet in a complex lace
and I’ve ended the foreclosures on my life
and refused to demand recompense for my heartaches

And I never cursed the Land which gave you birth
for the many heartbreaks I survived

Sena, if you see me laugh shyly
it’s because I do not have a tongue of worms
like some who expose the venom they learned from somewhere

And if you care to know
I’ll never burp you up
I will always hold your love close to my heart

 

Will Return



Whenever seconds tick astray
this heart glides into its Birth-waters.
In every slaughtering of the day
it sails in the morning rain to the place it calls home.

Many birthdays ago
we knew nothing about a landing that
will hold us suspended above our bones

Many seasons ago
When our souls arrived at the port of longing
after crossing oceans with hope in our loins 
we knew nothing about the muddy waters
or the toxic wounds inflicted by a hurricane of smiles

Today, there’re too many mournful things
to be named in a single sermon on the mount
But how to pass our songs to ancestral rivers
before time collapses in the woods
is with great difficulty

Each day we’ve seen our songs turn into germs
while our tears drowned our panting souls

How little others know about the migration of our souls
crossing oceans to ports of longings
and the stampede that baptizes our breaths
and in the midair we become clowns
chasing the Dream lost in each other’s shadows

We are still here with limbs starched to our bones
only waves of scars on our fatigued selves can say all

With no roadmap to escape from the thunder and plunder
we awake each dawn with whisper-screams and blood-tears
tucked beneath our cracking skulls

but one day, before I disappear without my coat
I’ll pick up this breath to remember me

In my dreams I rub my limbs and tell it to sparkle
with laughter on village lanes

If you meet me—A Goodnight Song to Apartheid


(for Nelson Mandela)
If you meet me sitting
Quietly, counting fingers by the moon
Like the chicken pecking bones
In the pain of winter,
Don’t think I need your tears.
 
If you meet me sitting
Quietly bathing in streams of thought
Like sad blues from the gallows
Like screams searching heaven
Don’t think I worship your name.

All these pains of drought
All these smiles of dying leaves
All these screams of a corrugated breath—
Wet blankets of colored birds
Stretching into dawns.

They are absorbing the day’s heat
They are gathering screams from the village
Laughing softly at your imperial dreams
With their hungry swords they will empty
The grief cared long by all prison-drowned souls.
 
And if you meet me again sitting quietly,
Whispering words on the back
Of the Wind don’t think
I’m roasting dreams
I’m claiming the sky like a Bird.

Saturday, November 9, 2013

Post-Its of Love

helplessly yours;
I’m devoted to you after tasting your kiss;
truly, I’m lovingly yours with an eye on that elegance

kissing your smile and making my day;
please savor this while falling asleep;
I’m dreaming of you and missing your arms;
so, holding onto feelings that’s true as days are cherished;
my heart is never alone, you’re always on my mind;
is your heart on loan, it’s like drifting away;
dear, let’s bring back old memories with bliss
where with just your kiss I shiver through the body; 
choking on words and screaming for your mercy
I am your love and all
till the waters in the Ocean run dry 

Misconceptions

African boy,
he ain't got shoes except blues
works all day and hopes to play
like others in the sun  
with a face that's tan but
at the end of the day, when work is done
he ain't got anything but blues

yet, like a bird on a wire
like a drunk in a midnight choir
making a living out of black-land dirt
he has tried in ways to be free
like a bird out of a cage

like a fish on a hook
like a knight from an old fashioned book
like a baby stillborn
like a beast with his horns
no one reaches out for him

yet, like a beggar
leaning on a wooden crutch
like a soul hanging on a darkened door
he saved his ribbons for you
and got your bills when you don't own his ills

the African boy,

ain't got anything to lose  

when you watch him squirm

put him on a hook and you drop him in a brook

everything's gonna turn out just right,

tonight you'll see him fry fish

with his eyes dancing with the stars

Ever Since We Met

ever since we met
in every breath I take
your presence lingers
on the breast of my soul
and I feel the rhythm in my heart

in every dream of the night
your love stares at me
and with gentle smiles I hear you say
you’re the breeze in my dawn
the beam in my sunshine
and the colors in my rainbow

sometimes when I am lost
and I cling to the pillows I dream on
my soul swims in the deep streams of thought
suddenly, your love opens like petals of a sunflower
clothing me with your warm and tender love
let me say it, I’m blessed to be in love with you

ever since we met
I have listened to your soft splendor voice
heard your laughs rise into starlit heaven
they give me the power to love again

today as I journey on the streets of your heart
and dance on the breast of your mind
you are the one whose love
not even death will take from me

A Bouquet of Thoughts


 
to you, these flowers of inner thoughts l send
each one nurtured in my heart for you
since the day we met; their seeds were sown
now they look beautiful in the Moontide

where once was a desolate field
you sowed a treasure store of beauty of love
with every kind word and loving deed
you brought a tender touch and nurtured my beauty

so let me send these flowers of inner thoughts
promising never to let such a beauty die
lets endure the test of time; molding the joy we carry
weaving all into a symphony of poetic rhymes

At Crossroads

anytime the Sun rises
I wonder what the Day will bring

anytime I open my door
I know not what to expect
or whom I’ll meet
on this long road where no Heart
should beat alone

will it be the Drunk or the Bear
or the hand of gentle Breeze on my chest
to immerse me in passionate embrace 

or is it going to be
another long night
with my dreams tailored into nightmares

maybe, maybe not,
and hopefully not

A Night to Remember

last night
you made me go deep inside
the hidden places beyond eye spaces
you made me walk through the forest
to taste secret joys no one knows
you made me bathe in feelings only

known on wedding nights

do you remember anything about the night?


do you remember
the low genteel waltz across the corridors
the glee and whisperings from your lips
the spark of passion when I stood at the door
and on entering the soft secret chambers

the kiss sealed the embrace

do you still remember all that?

do you remember
how you made me dance
on the velvet platform
the twists and turns
and I wondered why
you kept under lock and key
this juicy berry for my taste only


do you remember
the emotions that flew
with the kisses under the Candlelights


it was a long night
where nothing happened except
knowing we both loved one another
warmly and until time comes, we will remember
the love between you and me


will live until time goes to sleep with us

 

Saturday, November 2, 2013

Let Me Comfort Your Tears


 

if it’s love that can dry your tears
                  let me comfort your fears
if it’s love that can bring you a smile
                  let me make your life worth-while
if it’s love that can change your desert green
                  let me push away your pain
if it’s love that can make you fly
                  let me bring you to the sky
if it’s love that can bloom your heart like a rainbow
                  let me sing you a song that’s yellow
if it’s love that can break your loneliness
                  let my warmth fill your emptiness
if it’s love that can refresh your soul
                  let my presence make you feel complete
if it’s love that can bring a spark into your eyes
                  let me show you how the world is wonderful
with your love

A POEM FOR THE FAMILY: A Dedication


to you my daughters whose love I forever will sing
in the songs of silence

and to you, who gathers my tears and bury them
beneath the earth crust and rain joy each morn
on the desert fields of my agony
I sing these notes in memory of you

these are rhymes graciously strung with intent
than words that are scentless but ageless with love

they sing for you in a passion of dearness
and they come from a song-less tongue
who in the deepening of dawn awakes
with warm wild winter winds with a love
to sing you songs in silence and to celebrate
floods of dreams nursed for you

today the dreams are freed by storms
and the floodgates are loosened by desires
that the heart may pour out torrents of love
stored in the heart many seasons ago

come lets harvest dreams and drive
sleeping selves out of swarms and move
through grieves to joy-fields praising the Moon
who stood by a father’s dream till the sun arrived

AND I ASKED MYSELF WHY?



around me people are laughing and joking
but on my face there is no smile but a frown

and I asked myself why?

I never laugh anymore instead I cry,
but I never stopped to ask myself, "why"

I heard we live and die by the choices we make,
and there's only so little a person can take.

and I wondered why?

I live in a world where there's so much life around me
but I'm the only one without a smile and without love

sometimes I picture myself in a place I could be
and wish I’d go and sit on a garden to hear the birds sing

but life isn’t a crystal stair and wishes aren’t given
often I wonder why so much anger is wrapped around my heart,
squeezing my blood to faint and stop flowing delicately
just then tears drizzled down my cheeks
and I bite my soft lips and screamed

why me, why me, oh Lord!

my tears filled the pond in my palm
there was nothing to shelter me
I’ve seen the tall grasses concealing the creatures of land
but no one to feel the presence of my absence

and I asked myself if tomorrow will ever come
will it be pleasure or danger in my yard
and I looked into the sky and I saw the sun on the horizon
it was bright, rising slowly as if to say, it's a bright new day

GOOD NITE

 
 
between yesterday and today
there were dreams we shared,
but now it is time to pack away,
from the dreams with sadness and care

there will be smiles mixed with tears
whenever I come to think of you,
but that could be neatly folded in a corner
and made to rest in a box of memories

I remember how we wrapped our love
and always sealed it with tears as glue
we were like butterflies in the rose garden
but all that is now in a cage of sadness,
and locked up with tears of regrets

this morn I’ve gathered all the kisses we had
each wrapped with a sigh and a lost hope
I’ve placed them outside the door
and asked myself why you shattered our dreams
leaving behind an ever pain

but do not worry about anything
I’ve packed up the pieces of my heart,
wrapped it up tenderly and placed it next
to a distant smile away from every ache
I’ve closed every curtain and shut every door
and there’ll never be any tear for you to gather
 
good nite


 

Sunday, October 27, 2013

SONGS OF MY SILENCE


in a restless dream last night
I wondered about what keeps thoughts of you
alive in my memory and takes me through avenues
to listen to the voice of your eyes that nobody but I
could understand and plants in my heart songs hidden
in your silence and that silence encloses me with your looks
as you open petal by petal your heart as Spring opens the rose
to touch skillfully and mysteriously that place inside me
which no one has ever traveled gladly beyond any eye

ever since the dream I’ve walked in your silence
with your heart with your songs with the voice of your eyes
and the gestures in the silence enclose me with a love
like a naked light that brings whispers like silent raindrops
on my narrow street and without any musing my heart consumes
the whispered words of love in the sounds of your silence
and nothing which we are to perceive in this world
equals the power of your intense love whose texture
compels me to surrender to your love what I am forever
till heaven closes its doors on me

Can You Give Me Your Smile Again?

("Come to me, all you who are weary
and burdened, and I will give you rest.”
Matthew 11: 28)

can you give me your tired self
your sorrowful soul, your hurting heart
that’s yearning to breathe love

you come onto me, all you who are weary and burdened
and I will give you rest

come and let’s eat love drink love and live with love
you who are weary and yearning to breathe love
come and taste the purity of love from the fountain of Love
let me satisfy your unquenchable thirst
with every drop of eternal passion

let me restore your strength in love
with the hope in my arms let me sprinkle
your fields with soothing feelings of love
and for those love has gone away
I’ll awaken light to befall you with delights

I am the anchor for your teeming aches
the haven for your roasted self
the porter of your broken dreams
bring me your homeless heart
and taste the smile of love

to you I lift my lamp to welcome you Home
and give you rest from all that you miss
in a kiss

 

THE FIRST KISS

afterwards we sat and talked about
nothing
about nothing

I looked into your eyes longer than before
and you had that drunk look

what happened next
I'm not too sure
last night I remembered the first kiss again
I remembered when with your hand around
the stalk of my neck you held me closer
and I fastened myself to you
and we made the seal tight

it was like what I get, when you put your lips
to my nipple, and your mouth go slack and my eyes   
turn filmy as though something was rising up
to fill my heart and I wanted to scream with a lol

that night everything took me by surprise
either the moon dozed off
and in the dark you gently caressed my lips
or you, took me in your arms
and gave me a dose of a first kiss

that night something sucked something out of my body
but whatever it was
it crowned the moment  and I was helpless 

that’s what I remember of that night
when your lips first touched mine
and we leaned against the fence
at the back of the old Presbyterian Church
and had the first kiss

TEARS AND CRIES


these tears
pour down like rain
covering my cheeks like a blanket
as they run down my face

no one knows
the pain hidden deep within them

no one knows the scars
buried deep in my soul
or why these tears burn and sting
as they pour out


walking through the rain
I try to forget the pain
I try to ignore the sting in my eyes

like many of my age
we lost our fathers before our puberty rituals
but losing a familiar face in an unknown place
leaves you not knowing nothing about you and your past

I heard many die after the rituals
but I also heard you aren’t a man without the rites

now, I know why I run from my fears
and I know why I’m followed by my tears
I want to leave this unfamiliar place
but where will I go without a father

or without a mother who left the dawn after my birth

trying to release the fears I locked away for days
only runs me into a sea of storms


never knowing when there will be a closure
all I could do is to cry myself to sleep
although I want to know more about me and my past

Just a Note

Dearest Dear,
I hope this note finds you safe

yesterday, I wrote your name on the steps of my house
when the rains came, the waves washed it away,
so, late in the night
I wrote it on the blank pages of the night sky
hoping it would glow like diamonds for all to see
but the wind came and blew it away

so, early this morning
I made the decision
to write it in my Heart
and that's where it will stay forever
with a glow that reaches the heavens
till death do us part


 

THE CROSS

lately, I've been losing sleep
dreaming about the things we can do
and lost in the sea of my tears
I wonder if we may ever know
how much we can unveil our dreams
or how if the light catches us
we can gather our breath

dreaming of how you could touch, burns,
gathering your smiles in my arms, haunts me,
imagining your hugs, pains me
reminiscing how you could care 
makes me want to cry

often I glance at your lips in the dark
and look at your arms and dream of when
you will hold me with opened arms

lately, I've been losing sleep on this
and it’s a cross I carry like the one of Calvary

how I wish we could walk
with courage into daybreak
away from the Night and in standing
on the clouds we climb into wondrous
moments and shine our light
together with joys of freedom
even if shadows persist


No one belongs here more than Me

the decisive owner
has
a room of his or her own,

goes
where angels fear to tread,
faces
fear itself,
becomes
the one love
the
only lover.

WHY CAN'T YOU LET ME GO?

you stand behind that old brown curtain
dressed as always in that Dana-Buchman-Twisted-Ponte
dress stained from sweats and dungs from the armpits
wanting to teach me the two-step and a turn dance
while stroking your rump in my face at every turn
and you don’t want me to pick up my suitcase and go

 you want me to smooth the hair back from your forehead
and kiss your neck with longings enough to make cows blink
you said you need my help like we need the jukebox for free
that’s why you grab my bag and nod to me to enter the house
to unpack the sack while you continue to stroke your rump
in my face till I can’t tell the river from the rain

then you undressed, and put on your red Sweet-Sixteen
lingerie and asked me to unzip you because you like that
you then pulled down the straps of my shirt
and unbuttoned my pants before I could ask a question
why do you do these things to me when you know
we both belong to somebody else and we can’t give
each other anything anymore than just a wink

often when alone I think about you
and wish you could call before anyone gets home
moments like this I wait anxiously by the phone
and wish you were here but, when I think the more
about you and me I ask myself many questions
how could something so wrong be so right
but I hate to think about us not together

why do you these things to me when you know
we both belong to somebody else and we can’t give
each other anything anymore than just a wink
I know it will break our hearts than the burning at the stake
but we can’t safely keep this secret for long and I can’t
secretly shuffle back and forth through your door every time 

why can’t you let me grab my bag and go

Sunday, May 12, 2013

A SONG FOR ADONU

the tiny chameleon says,
he has strength enough to spit
into the face of King Cobra
but he chose one step at a time

we are the sons of beardless Chameleon
we are the dog who caught the game
but are made to take comfort in the bones
beneath the master's table

we are the wood splintered by iron axes
we are the door ravaged by steel arms
and torn apart so they may take the prize

we are the deflowered virgin, raped
by sailors from the Seven Seas
and draped in shrouds of soft silken threads

we are the abandoned princess
waiting for the man who touched her soul
to return to free her heart in the stone

we are the vast and endless pasture
caught between delicate pale white fingers
that pluck and tiptoe away the smile on our faces

and now we shed tears, littered fragments
of our broken dreams in every allay of the world
while they rub our chests with the fragrance of death

the tiny chameleon says,
he has strength enough to spit
into the face of King Cobra
but he chose one step at a time
one day when the King calls
for the silent majority he'll be there

HOME AGAIN

we venture out of our birthplace,
when we feel we hit the dead end
erroneously we wave goodbye to our loved ones,
and try to forget some we never loved at all 

away from home we celebrate all that's new,
and dive into its streams with all clothes on
but the surprise is the shock when we hurt in the new
deep in tears we hear a voice from our past
notes of nostalgia come flooding into our souls

soon, the sweet candies of the new
begin to fade and we wish to go back home
back home we come to know the past is dead,
we have been away for far too long
 

TO ASHES

fading is the writing on the page
the paper graying with age
the age of innocence and love almost dead
but the bookmark stands at where
it all begun

the blurring inscribes where once
it was novelty, soaring cozily
memories flash back puzzles
in quest of where the story glide
flapping wings like the hummingbird

with the writing fading
each page begins to wane and mourn
with the paper's corner shriveling

and I shall not see those words again
except the ashes in the bin
 

A SONG OF HOPE


do not tell me
I, even I, who silhouette myself against the clouds
dance in the rain at Kutsime and walked with goats to school
should not know the paths through the plateau
to the house on the hilltop

"I have not come this far
only to sit by the roadside
and break into tears
I could have wept at home
without a journey of several thorns
I have not spread my wings
so wide only to be huddled into corners
at the mere mention of storms"

so, do not tell me
I, even I, who raced against whirlwinds,
ate dried fish from basins of the Volta
and ate with my fingers and walked with wolves without shoes
should not learn to dance in the sun's rays

do not tell me
I, even I, who sang on village lanes, knew the breeze of palmleaves
slept on palm fronds, lost my house to bushfires, and shed tears
for bad harvests at home, should look for tears
again away from home

"I have not come this far
only to sit by the roadside
and break into tears
I could have wept at home
without a journey of several thorns
I have not spread my wings
so wide only to be huddled into corners
at the mere mention of storms"

I know how to dart
sparkling white eyes, flash pallid ivory teeth
sing in a voice crystallizing into raindrops
and breathe the breeze in the house on the hilltop
long before I journeyed through several thorns
away from home

Sunday, May 5, 2013

Keep for me your love


take away from me my daily bread
and if you wish, you can take away from me

the air I breathe but do not take from me
your love

you can take from me riches of the world
and make me the wretched of the earth
but do not take away from me
your smile
 
time may laugh with gladness
when the clouds run away from the horizon
birds in the meadows may burst us with joy
but not as much as your lips   

with your love I can pluck a lance of flowers
and the wave of joy your lips bring
changeth always the sky above me
and open for me the door of laughter I seek

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Good Night

 
today after the final quarrel I burned all your letters
raked all memories of you inside me and like an
avenging angel chased out passions including a handful
of minor odors of sanctity left in the secret spaces of my heart
 
there’s nothing in the archives or in the attics about you
even the ice cream’s gone too and what is left is me
the one of whom you said will forever weep in church
as no one will marry me even if it’s in a cheap off-season hotel room
 
don’t know what nourished your theology but after the renunciation
I’ve retired into a glorious body with passions for jamming
with margarita all night long and surely I no longer go in
for simple irrational desires wanting to be touched
the way an otter loves water and patronize anything
like a cruel medieval baron but will be the way a giraffe
ambles the edge of the forest and nuzzles the tender leaves
dancing on top of the trees in the evergreen forest
 
what I become from now on is none of your business but
just understand the shift of power and perhaps my body from now
will plunge into things so eagerly like a powerful dog not
stopping for anything nor for you because between us
it’s Good Night from me
 

It's not the walk

it is not the walk that is tiring
rather when you go for a walk
and see the tearing down of green
tall trees for a football field and
suddenly you realize this was
the same place the village once
gathered and asked for rain from
the Diviner’s Bag and from the single
sitting the gasping earth had its fill and
seeds flowered rich buds and there was
drumming and dancing in the village I recoil
and remember Akpalu who was comforted
in exile by thoughts of our forgetfulness

only yesterday for instance prayers bloomed
beneath this baobab tree outside the village courtyard
I remember how mothers brought boiled eggs and palmoil
to the grotto and when at last their wishes were heard before
the next dawn they leaped like a wild dog with outbursts of pride
knowing too well their sufferance nourished their dreams

but today long dusty roads stretch from Abor to Tsiame
and young ones clap hands over wine parties and throw
dust into the face of the moon I remember the gourds
of palmwine that once lined the bosom of this baobab tree
and we harvested joy with our feet and heart with music
it is not the dusty road that is tiring but how we plunge into things
too eagerly like a powerful dog not stopping for anything
and now after the wine parties generations are scattered on
distant farms selling nothing but sorrows at deserted spaces

I thought I would grow old with fond thoughts of home
but I’m old and full of sadness with thoughts of the
transience of life hoping for a cool day beyond the skies

Saturday, April 20, 2013

SONGS IN YOUR SILENCE

in a restless dream last night
I wondered about what keeps thoughts of you
alive in my memory and takes me through avenues
to listen to the voice of your eyes that nobody but I
could understand and plants in my heart songs hidden
in your silence and that silence encloses me with
your looks
as you open petal by petal your heart as Spring opens the rose
to touch skillfully and mysteriously that place inside me
which no one has ever traveled gladly beyond any eye
 
ever since the dream I’ve walked in your silence
with your heart with your songs and the voice of your eyes
and the gestures in the silence enclose me with a love
like a naked light that brings whispers like silent raindrops
on my narrow street and without any musing my heart consumes
the whispered words of love in the sounds of your silence
and nothing which we perceive in this world equals the power
of your intense love whose texture compels me to surrender
to your love what I am forever with each breath
till heaven closes its doors on me