Give us this day our daily bread

Our Father, who art up there

You have given some folks life

And an easy breeze to blossom.

But some are struggling to escape slaving.

Why not fill their nerves with laughter,

Just for a while, as they’re still here?

You feed some with hope every bright day

And they taste their soul's desire in freedom,

And they come to flashing waters with smiles.

For some, on each dark night, at every hour, oh God,

They ebb and eke with life clinging to a stubborn will,

And they die beating their ways towards the rising sun.

Stranded between despair and the grave,

Many live with fronds of silence and hushed music,

waiting for miracles and crying for a revelation.

Oh God, I have faith in you though you left me lonely

in the world of struggles, but I hope to meet you

on Judgment Day to discuss the weary hungered child.

You can’t have what you want

We all want what we don't have, and such is life.

We all want to go to heaven but can’t afford to die.
Often our favored doors are under lock and keys.
The beautiful apple on the hill is too high to pluck,
What song shall we sing when we can’t have it all?

No one is happy at where he or she is,
There's greener grass in the neighbor’s yard.

Some want to be happy, but can’t afford the pain
We all want a bigger house and a faster car,
We want to hear the truth, but tell lies each time.

We want the world, but is there room enough in the world?

We all wish love doesn't hurt, since it’s meant to be forever.
What do you do, when your best friend is your worst enemy?
Or when saying goodbye is such a painful word, since often

Unwanted pregnancies stick harder than leeches?

I want to be the face you see when you close your eyes
I want to be the tad you need every night when it’s cold
I want to mean your world, to want you burn like a charm

But you make me like a tree in the shadow, like a river frozen.
How can we live when I want you to need me like the air,

But everything I do is a seamless rock, and not what you want.

Meeting Him Riding in the Clouds

(for Agbonugla Kofi Awoonor)

His memory stares at me, dreamy and melancholic

On his head is a tiara adorning a charming face. 
He turns gently his head towards the gathering
A single tear fell from his tender daring eyes 

It carries the anguished burden of a world.
I bowed and saluted him and our eyes spoke.

With a nod he protested the muddle his father’s house

Why trained dogs bark to veil any cries of the people 
Why there are segregated benches in the lecture halls

Why they tortured and broke the legs of the innocent.
And he held up the sign: The Writing is on the Wall
Saying as he prayed: Soon this too shall pass

Before he left, he planted on me nature’s sweetest hug 

From the banks of the clouds the moon gazed at us

I welcomed the farewell, but I shuddered, I stuttered,

And the closer he gets, the further I fall sadly into the mist

Around my terror-stricken ears he whispered his last words

Then he went past into the twilight unseen beyond

* AGBONUGLA: Is an Ewe word for an elder statesman
   KOFI AWOONOR: One of Africa's leading poets, a novelist,
   a statesman who was murdered by the terrorist attack in the
   Kenyan Mall incident on September 21, 2013, Nairobi, Kenya

A Song for MarlinaFu

Let her snake wait under

Her weed.

Who doesn’t know the poison of words on her tongue?

It comes slowly, darting quickly and sharply to strike

Dangerously at innocence.

Quietly it waits, sleeplessly in the dark,

Like sumac buds with gum in the head.

Like horses pounding hoofs on raw sods.

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned twice.

Does apple fall far from the tree?

Or did someone not tell the children

When you go to buy a gilt, look at the sow?

No one reconciled the allegory.

Now, we have leeches in our throats.

And we flutter drily hawking our

Regrets at the market place.

And today, we are the saxifrage flower splitting rocks.

Hard Road

Sometimes, it is necessary 

for everything to flower from within;

and discover the gold and silver is the hurricane.

Sometimes, it’s self-blessing

to bitterly relearn a thing of its loveliness, 

that after nights of whirring rain, the earth is green again

Sometimes, it is necessary
to put a hand on the grimy brow and sigh

when you remember what made you once sad and cold.

Regrets

When I was young, maybe fifteen or so

I heard the Diviner say to us, the children:

Give away every gold and diamond

Including your love for fun and red lipsticks;

Keep yourself fancy free to gain knowledge

But I was young and only fifteen or so

Too young to care and too young to remember.

Too young to care and too young to remember.

I was very young, fifteen or so and who cares

I heard the diviner say this to us often, so near me

But we heard him through one ear and out the other.

We skipped the farm and enjoyed life till we paid lovely;

We paid with sighs and sold life to endless lament.

I am ten-and-twenty, too old to learn new tricks.

Truth only comes to the goat in hawsers and when there’s

Chaos in the crowd, when the sleeve is taller than the head.

A painting goes waste when futility chokes the image; but

I was too young to care and now nature has given up on me.

Even the roses are distant and aloof as if awake to my fate.

I, who sought beauty and found it at where it never belonged,

Now, every foliage crackles with a soothing morbidity beneath me.

How do I love you?

(For You, on Mother’s Day)

Since the morning of that day we met

I’ve seen the moon refusing to set
Nature itself has declined to go to bed

I’ve seen the rainbow play long on the sunlight,

As if there is something going on in the universe.

They all saw our love as supreme in the veldt.

Ever since we met, I’ve told myself,
You will forever find me waiting for you,
Painting pictures of us on every single moment of time
I’ll always be joyful with you and no one can understand,
Why I love you so much since the morning we met.

Each day, I see minutes take so long to drift away
They just want to catch a glimpse of us in love

And dream of a season like ours when they’ll know love
Let them wait, when in the evening I fly you in velvets
They’ll stare at the ceiling of the sky and smile at us.

I’ve promised myself that wherever I'll be

I’ll let the sun of an unequaled love shine on you
We’ll carry that forgotten fire of love across the universe
To kindle yawning spirits with the language of love

Which you taught me since the morning we met.

Missing Twice

They looked at their faces

And yelled: “Fresh off the boat!”

Broken English, dirty African clothes

And with identity mocked, they faded into emptiness.

Here they come again with the Hashtag

Everywhere people are shedding tears

Their cities are burning, and families are mourning

But they could not be comforted.

Each day mothers and fathers worry

About their children leaving home and never returning.

Men and women, black as me, are the fallen victims,

Those they trust rather snare them to death

Whom do you trust when the protector is the perpetrator?

And the law stands by while the pain intensifies.

Remember Emmett Till, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice,

Freddie Gray, Eric Garner, and Mike Brown.

How many miles more to walk to Selma?

And they looked into the tall sky till they dropped:

Lord, how long will righteousness come?

How long will their hopes die in the rain? 

The Jewel

This morning you and I are being toasted

In every alley of the village because you are mine. 
The day I met you was a wish come true for the women. 

Grandma says: your smile brings out the best in the village,
The women also say you are the greatest gift ever.
It’s the way you smile and laugh and show your love.

Ever since you came, the sky shows a new shade of blue. 
It is brighter, like the gods are revealing their feelings;
And we melt every day when we look into your eyes. 

With you we will make it through every thick and thin;
As long as you are with me like the pea is to the pod, 

Our heart will grow together to weather every storm.  

One thing do I ask of you: can you never say never;

Can you always be loving and kind, so gentle, and so sweet, 
And with you by my side, life will be simply complete.

Whispers

There are whispers in the silence

Following your steps and they are obscured

From your ears with nothing to be told by lips.

In silence, they float on the streets

Looking straight in your rimmed eyes.

They’ll soon wash you away from their shores.

Do you remember when the people sang

About the drought and the famine only to hear

Their own echoes pitched in confused tones?

Yesterday, circles of sound filled the alleys
And nothing is heard except the feather that hit the floor.
Peoples’ tears are embedded inside their screaming heads.

Did you hear the final pin drop?
It’s no more a lost echo carried in night sweats
Their forgotten whispers will tell tales of their chilled souls. 

The people kept looking at each other

And they let their eyes whisper the secrets.

The hands around your throat are your own.

Lost

Each day we hear silent groans,

Lived ruthless dreams, and were lost

In every ray of the rising sun,

What it is we may not know.

Every day is a sad day, just negative, 
Winds are dreadfully whistling,
The sun is heartlessly gleaming.

They reveal secrets and lies.

What a place to live these days.

With innocence gone and love lost.

Sin is taught on the street night and day
And hearts are covered in frost and stones.

We call for wars and go for wars.
No life matters in our backyard

No one is taking blame to save a life, 
Just pushing for fame in the game

Advanced as we are to the world,
We're still untamed and insane
Too much pride, too much ego
Too many mistakes, too many turpitudes.

We hurt others, in the desert-fields
Betray brothers, who trusted our values

And lies harshly feed what we preach
And our hearts know no honey.

Children abandoned, and maimed everyday
Lonely and stranded they walk on the streets

They need a guide, but who cares to look
And we deny it, and reject it with holiness.

Throughout the years, in all alleys
Innocent bloods are shed and more spilled.
We take from the poor, to enrich the rich

And behind lies we hide without shames.

We're loving no more, but who cares.

We're all wasting the life like flies.
We no longer enjoy the sights of neighbors.

Where do we go for peace when the world is dead?

How do I carry you with me?

On and on, going on and on,

I live apart from you

Thousand miles of the ocean is between us;
who knows when we’ll meet again?

Day by day the wait grows faint into the distance,
Day by day shifting clouds block the face of hope.

Though the traveler yearns for a feast on the return.

Thinking of you and the years that go by makes one old

Lost and abandoned, I will say no more,
but pluck up strength and drink my tears.

Growing Weary

I live up north and you in the far south,

Night to night of you I dream.

From morn to dawn I look for you in the sun
Unlike the sun you are not in view.

Though we both bath in the golden sunlight
Anytime the sun rises, yet we live apart.

When will my grief no more grow?
I wish your heart will be like mine.

The road I travel is steep and long;

I hope I don’t in vain pine for you.

Phone Calls from Home

I still receive phone calls and emails mostly from

cracked-up friends caught up in huge dreams, with no hope,

just booze and crazy American madness.

Most of their calls are flashes—“Call me back.”

They want some recognition of where they are

and it’s true, I was there, worse off than most of them.
but I wonder if they realize when their callS arrive?

When I’m dead in the library, when I am frozen in asleep.

They talk of a long driveway leading
to a four car garage, rose garden, blue skies, fruit trees,
beautiful women, a new car each month, red carpet freeways

and dream of fairy-tales in America the beautiful.

I’m 69 years old now and can’t go on retirement;

Oh! How much this flesh had to suffer, yet cannot die;

Hmm! How much this heart had to bear, yet cannot break;

raises questions that these painful tears cannot tell.

I still receive their phone calls and emails.

One came this morning when I was shuddering

At the surgeon’s knife, searching for quivering life
but death chooses its own time; not till all evils are borne.

The Determined

Whether you start at dawn or in the evening

It’s your own set of sails and not the gales
that tell the voyager how to paddle the boat.

It’s always the prize that rips apart the brave
and when you find out why old words die out on the tongue,
you’ll learn to let new melodies break forth from your heart.

Like the twisters of the sea are the whirlwinds of fate
As we journey through life’s alleys; it’s the aspirations
That decide the goal and not the calm or the tears