In The Butchers Hands

Each day we wake up

There are tears in the eyes of earth

So our little joys

Become little toys

Tossed into the blaze

In the burnt up moons

We measure our strength with blood

The volume split

Tells our love for dignity

Yet battle songs are not always for the brave

The brave keep their hearts pure but unafraid

Recently it was Alkebulan

That submerged

In the flood of human body parts

Piled up, yams tubers

For sale at the World Trade Centre

But before they got there

The Centre was burnt by peace lovers

Sparking several vengeful display

Of scientific supremacy

Now Syria lies at the crossroad

Her fate lingering in the divining room

Each mystical message

Telling different tales-

Germany said no

UK said no

France in a dilemma

USA full of venom

Goes to Congress for death certificate

All for Syria

The diviner lies prostrate

Trying hard not to tilt the du

We all stand

Holding hands across our heads

Praying Syria never goes to the butchers

Her meat, to the soul-prison

Of NATO

Like Libya

Trondheim

Here

The cockerel doesn’t

Summon day to rise from its snore

As it is in down-south

Here

Man and nature are far

In thought and deed

In music and dance

In laughter and sorrow

But

Here

Earth takes a bath

Keeps herself clean

And man is cautious

Not to offend earth.

7/8/2013 Trondheim

Wonder Children

We grew on orphaned kenkey

And physically impaired kalami

But the dawn 

Never died in our dreams

Once we were the hunted turtle

Whose every cell made our predator

The master of our clan-

Maiming souls

Crippling spirits

Quenching hopes

Shuttering lives,

Long ago

We were the mineral rocks

Broken to extract the wealth

And dumped on the offshore,

We dwelt among pigs

Dinned with birds

Slept with mosquitoes

So long ago

We were the last desires

Of a world growing

On blood and flesh

On bones and marrows

On tears and chains

But dawn came

Restored the smiles hidden

Under the scar of yesterday

So they now see us

The Wonder-children

The Hippo Overturned Our Canoe

(Tribute to Professor Kofi Nyiᶑeʋu Awoonor)

Nyiᶑeʋu meᶑea keʋu o

The hippo does not overturn
The canoe with sandload

Nyiᶑewu meᶑea keʋu o

This hippo overturned it
This hippo overturned it

We are the snake
Whose head Al-Shabab caught
We only wag our tails defenseless
The hippo overturned our canoe
But never it’s content
For the sand is too HEAVY to sink
Your voice, too loud to sink

In this corner of our common fate
Fire in a neighbour’s farm
Consumes all farm-huts
A dirge from a distant drum
Splits the tear-bag in our brains
The blast of toy-guns
Mold fireballs, dispersed across all souls

Indeed, yours is a great journey
So let not the children mourn
The transition of a pathfinder
And his voice, the path-adder

Rather
Let monuments rise
Lift up the anthems
Sound is mother to words

And let the great ancestor
March on into eternity
To remain
Eternal father of modern Ghanaian poetry

Nyiᶑeʋu meᶑea keʋu o

The hippo does not overturn
The canoe with sandload

Nyiᶑewu meᶑea keʋu o