Where’s the Love?

Often, when my eyes survey the world

They see joy lost and everywhere peace is gone;
And to earth falls flat pleas as dreams lay torn

From the lips of tears and misery I hear anguish

In panic my blood runs cold at things that unfold

When I shake hands with hurts and pain and melancholy.

It’s here I asked myself, where is the promised love?

With hope bereft and despair disguised as gentle arms

I went to the church and feathers of hope fell off me

I went to the village grounds and met open betrayals

On each street corner are greed, paybacks and spite

And all that can break your back left me dismayed.

I choked on the smiles on lips and the love on fingertips

And I asked myself, where is the love we talked about?

I cannot be at peace when people are not free.

And all that come to sooth the soul is angst
I ask myself is this what the revolution was about?

I see people who cannot marry the love of their lives.
I see countries and families torn apart by war and strife.
I met the nakedness of freedom, racism and inequality,

With a wounded heart that silently weeps

I do not think this is how it's supposed to be.

Like a seed that blows in the gentle breeze,
I want to spread love and put bigotry down on one knee.
Every human and every soul deserves happiness.
They shouldn't be harmed; we must lose bitterness.
But why have we lost love in our world?

Deep within my heart, there is a scorching flame
That demands I help my fellow man and woman
They scream at me to give them my hand.

My one wish is to deliver upon the world a soothing rain.
To cast away the reign of intolerance and fear,
To deliver humanity from tyranny's pain and torture

That a lifeless soul or a faceless one losses not the self

Ballard of the Sand

Fudzikomele my dear,

The mother we hired to birth you
Because she does not love me, leads you

Into deep waters, to the deep end

Where the water is darker.

Her open, encouraging arms
That never get nearer you are merciless.

You will dream of this water always
Where nothing comes nearer to your comfort,
Wasting your valuable breath now and then
You will scream choking , but no.

Unknowingly, she is drowning
In a forever thin air of the fog on her nose

Down at the deep end and she is doing nothing,

Really, she never did anything harder.
And you want me beside her. Maybe, in imagination.
Where the water is darker everyday unending.

Think positively and the sound will be music

And your moves will become a dance for you.

I wish I can turn this wry smile into laughter

And our long drought into a celebration of joy

But, you are learning how in this helpless water
It is with our skill we live else it will kills us.

Nightmares

Every night my bedsheets are a snare

I swing, fling and punch my life away

Every night my pillow is a lake
I drown in my own tears without hope

The people I look up to are a harsh sunlight
and their smiles torture and slaughter my dreams

My pain goes deeper into my soul.
it kills my love
the Monster is asleep

I wonder why the sun sinks low
the sky above me burns every little joy I dream

I wait until morning
before my eyes close

in my tears I drown
in my dreams I die

screams woke me
oh, those are mine
I'm sorry
didn't mean to wake you
no, I'm fine
just a nightmare

just a nightmare
until you came in my dreams

The Monster eats pretty princesses when they close their eyes.

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.

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.

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? 

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.

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

What Is Dying?

What is dying?

I am standing on the seashore alone
Like a ship about to sail this morn.

But the morning breeze is far from me.

How do I sail? Am I not a dead man?

At the seashore I see many ships sailing freely.
Mine is an object and I stand watching her
Till at last the sun fades from the horizon.

What is dying and am I not as well dead?

I looked up across and someone at my side said,

“Your boat is gone!” and I wondered “But gone where?”
“Surely, it’s gone from my sight,” I thought to myself.
What is dying if this is not death?

Today I’m a mast, a hull and a spar to all ships,
I bear the load of living freights to their destinations.
But soon, I’ll be diminished in size and I’ll be

Lost to sight, totally lost to all faces, to all voices
If there were love, someone would say, “Where is he?”
And other voices would take up a glad shout,

And they would find me alone in the hay-store.
Without a love, I’ve been dead many years ago.

And God said: who can bring these dead bones to life?

Which Way, Lord?

Staring out into the ocean, with no land in sight,

The world seems so vile ‘cause here and now,

It’s just me and Elyon my hope.

Often, I raise my hands in supplication,

In search of some direction,

To seek clarity in every purest ambition.

The wind and water hit my face, like pellets of reminders,

They tell me the air and water I depend on can hurt me

Just as much as they can nourish me.

Yet still, I hold on to them. I can’t let them go,

Because as much as they hurt at each step

And as much as they nourish, I have nothing else.

And I need them to understand my journey.

The Love of Elyon is pure, yet it comes with pain and pleasure

And we’re told it’s for lessons and satisfaction on the journey.

So, here I stand alone staring out into the ocean,

With no land in sight, it’s only the air and water I depend on.

With nothing in hand, I stand beneath the wings of seagulls.

Logosu, tell me, when the New Year comes to my door

Will my words need plumbers though I rest under his shelter?

Or I’ll need carpenters to reshape how I sit at my place?

Her Journey Just Begun

don't think of Ablavi as gone
her journey has just begun
life holds many facets and the Earth is only one
therefore, think of Mother as resting
from the sorrows and the tears
in a place of warmth and comfort
where there are no days nor years

think how she must be wishing
that we know, life brings tears, smiles and memories
and though our tears may dry, and our smile fade
it is only our memories that live on forever

so we must think of her as living,
living in the hearts of those she touched
for nothing loved is ever lost-
and she was loved so much

so, don’t stand by and grieve and weep
she is not here nor dead
she is the thousand winds that blow in the veldt
she is the diamond glints on the sky
like the sunlight on ripened grain

she is the soft refreshing rain
that falls on a hot summer afternoon
and when we awake in the morning's hush
she is the swift uplifting rush of quiet birds in circled flight
she is the star that shines at night
to bring you a smile that none can steal
when death leaves a heartache no one can heal

To my Ancestors

my silence salutes the tall Dreams

of the Dead who withdrew from here
to roam over fine mountains and
frighten hawks reshaping my dreams

sometime the sound and throbs of their breath
is a rage of blood in eons of anger with stones and axes
at times they come as Fumes of Smoke
on a Dark Noon to take me across rivers of Solitude

but I sometimes wonder if while tip-toeing

in the fog of foreign suits we have not lost sight

of the ancestors' humorous laughs

at the steps we place in the quicksand 

and call ourselves special names

sometimes I stroll around the roundabout of my memory
when carving affections for my dead soul
in unforgettable words like a master-butcher

who picks up the axe and dismembers parts of goat-meat

that tastes so good and says, tonight there will be another party
with champagnes in place of palm wine

I have grown sick of songs of sorrow
I want to cross the rivers of solitude
sing new songs of joy to celebrate the past and present
and sing and dance in gratitude for life at Home

but will my ancestors be accustomed to forgiving me
every day for the loss of my Soul
the Soul lost in the fog of foreign suits

MySelf Again

The tree in that sickening pot
could have grown tall like the baobab

on the side of the mountain, but you carved it,

and forced it to the size you want.

Every day you whittle him and tell yourself

how lucky, tiny tree, to have a pot to grow in.

And you bound its feet, crippled its brain,

muddled its hands and dwarfed its growth.

It is our nature to grow.

One day, when you wake from your dreamland

you no longer can cup my constant image in your eyes.

There will be a grave attention in your eyes

and without words you’ll survey me and my world.

There the dim past and the present will mingle

in an opened-mouth amazement.

In all tenderness, truth and untruths will struggle;

and you no longer will keep me like chattel slaves,

cramped in roach infected shacks of your inner senses..

Your sickening pot would be gone;

my growth would be mine.

What Is Your Fear About

Fear (fear of failure or perhaps fear of success) has been such a paralyzing factor in everybody's life and so we have to commit ourselves to change and overcome that challenge. We all have fears now and then, here-and-there. There are two passions that I have been drawn to pursue and I have been blessed with souls who have dedicated love and time to my efforts. The first is my love of poetry and my strong desire to use my poems to help people feel good about the lives we live. In the quest of celebrating life in my own way, I seek the wisdom of others, through poetry and through other artistic expressions...which led to the creation of this Friday Inspirations. In this pursuit, I've found that sometimes my role is quite simply to show up to let others know I too, I am human, I leapt, I lost, then licked it, woke up, jumped up and I lived to tell the tale of how I emerged victorious even when my head was bloody but unbowed. It's the little push I give to serve as inspiration to get others rolling again.

 An Easy Roll

 Sometimes when you're lost
and you start giving in to fear
All you really need to know
is yes, the road's still there

Sometimes when the engine's on
but wheels just don’t seem to spin
A touch is all it takes
to free you from the mess you're in

Sometimes when your vision's blocked
beyond the crests and turns
Reminders of your goal appear
and clarity returns

Yes, sometimes on this road called life
the easy role you play
Is giving hope by meeting
those who've yet to make their way

Just knowing those who traveled
who're alive to tell the tale
Makes possible the dream
you too can prosper and prevail!

 

 

Treasure Your Heritage or Where You Come From

Is the grass always greener on the other side? Have you ever thought so? I have. I don't know why, I feel that way anytime I hear of a new job, when a new location/residential area is mentioned to me, or a new friend comes my way. I feel like something is missing from my old life and I yearn for the new, and I don't know why I feel that grass is greener at that side. What I do know actually is, it's going to be some sort of greater purpose or career, job or love satisfaction. I then recline into a dream, looking forward to the lawyer lifestyle. I want to feel like I'm working towards some greater goal than just working at some chichi private firm. This is the feeling that takes me over, when I first heard about America when I was in Ghana.

HOME AGAIN

we venture out of our birthplace,
when we feel we hit the dead end
we wave goodbye to our loved ones
and try to forget some we loved

away from home we celebrate all that’s new
but the surprise is the shock and hurt in the new
deep in tears we hear a voice from our past
memories of home come flooding back

soon we tend to forget the new
and wish to go back home again
back at home we realize the past is dead,
we have been away for far too long