Dirge for a Clan Child

Guns in hands, shooting escapes the mind

Knives in hands, throwing poses difficulty

They say the death of a man never far from him

For whatever footwear you wear

Thorns cannot be a taboo;

So the maimed him, they maimed him  

Storm-fire howls against the oak

Deep rooted in the crust of savanna sands

Chased by wild wise dogs

For usurping ancestral thrones

Four decades and two ago

So the maimed him, they maimed him  

He bore the burdens of the clan

He was the voice of resilience

Against dog’s dreams of another brother-trade across brines

Several sea-waves to come

 So the maimed him, they maimed him  

It was for similar or same crime

That grandfather Kwame was chased

To end his journey in a foreign dream

And even his body was at the Supreme Court

For questioning and for cosmic justice adjudication

So the maimed him, they maimed him

They say Lumumba also craved for too long

 A dream time to bury traces of dog feet

That scratched the fertile soils of his farmland

And transported primal work power

To beyond where clouds and seas conclave

So the maimed him, they maimed him  

Sankara of recent dream faced same

Crucifixion by doggish masked justice

When he rose at the battle front to archive

Our tatted memory and birth a new future

And dream a newer dream for our children

So the maimed him, they maimed him  

and just

yesterday

They maimed him, they maimed him

The clan’s only vocal child

The maimed him, they maimed him  

deep inside the gallows of his birthplace

and darkness fell on the clan-house

at noon.

2:05am. 22/10/2011. Legon

Holy boast

They have arrested my voice

The owners of nights arrested my voice

And gifted it to death

It was Mama Wosekpo who said it

Several voices across ancient song waves

That

It is a burden of the cantor

To breathe and eat and sleep and sing

In this ant-hole of our sun journeys

But from far off Madibaland

Bandilisha rode with flying iron birds

To these Osagyefoland

To put my voice on electronic winds

For a website grafted upon internets

It was the coconut husk that boasted

He burns more than the straw.

12/10/11 1:00 am Legon

DAWN MEDITATION (In memory of Rev. Fr. Angelo Confalonieri- mccj)

After all our duties shall we be transported,

Snatched into eternity eternally,

Maybe after the Biblical pension age-

Three-score and ten.

But the just, though earlier taken

Shall be at rest

The age of honourability comes

Neither with passing times’ passion

Nor measured with heaped up years.

Understanding, rather becomes

The hoary crown of men

And unsullied life

The attainment of old age.

He who pleased the creator

Was loved, is loved and 

Would be overly remembered.

He that lived among sinners

Was transported-snatched away

Lest wickedness perverts his mind

Or deceit beguiles his soul.

                       22/11/2008  Legon.

MEMORIAL CANDLES

(to; Sherrie Thompson & Nouberse Philip)

In the evening wisdom of Savannah language

We shall light two candles of memory

On the graves of the abandoned dead

Of unknown families and those of Zong

.  .  .  Lost in the limbo of time, without memories

In the same Savannah language

We shall light three candles

On the footprints of those exchanged

For gold, gun powder, kola, second- hand calico

Gin and knighthood drenched

In saturated blood of Zong

.  .  .  Lost in the limbo of time without memories

In the same savannah language

 We shall light yet another two candles

Upon the voices of those whose bones

Were preyed upon by vultures,

 Those who could not be missed,

And those whose chains still hang,

In the limbo of our memories

.   .   .  And refusing to be forgotten

                                                            30/ 12/ 09      Mafi- Kumase.

HALLELUIAH DIMPLES (For: Enam Juliette Dogbatse, on your birthday.)

Life began in the past

And we stroll through the pavements of memory

To celebrate golden gains of the past

We celebrate the halleluiah dimples

Seated on the cheeks of a mother’s pride

Embodied in the soul of a daughter

We celebrate the silver plate of a face

With a pointed nose and dilating eyes that

Consolidate the creator’s creative powers

We celebrate a life well lived in the past

As we sojourn through the corridors of memory:

The life of Enam, a sister and friend

May those golden doors of tomorrow

Lead to the excellence awaiting

In the realm of the given

From the giver who made you a gift

To so many here and absent

Still united in spirit and soul at your banquet

And may centuries unborn on calendars

Come to celebrate the halleluiah dimples

Creatively crafted in Enam’s pride.    

                                                      3/1/2011 Legon.