POEMS: The Drunkard & Boastful Death

The Drunkard

How long will you continue it?

Yours is of a miserable lot,

Children run away from you.

Friends shun your company,

You are a scorn-deserving person

Put away your wine to save yourself

From social degradation and shame.

Oh! I have been trying to stop it;

But so long as tappers bring wine home,

I don’t think I can stop drinking it;

No one stops his own hobby,

For the fear of approaching death.

Leave me alone my good friend.

Now I see what you truly mean,

You have been created for wine;

But not wine for you.

Don’t you draw nearer to me,

Because your mouth stinks badly

Stay apart whilst we converse.

My friend, go your way as I go mine,

Leave me to bath in my wine;

But not wine for you.

Don’t you draw nearer to me,

Because your mouth stinks badly

Stay apart whilst we converse.

My friend, go your way as I go mine,

Leave me to bath in my wine;

You prefer chasing women of all kinds

I prefer drinking wine of all types;

I am afraid, I will not stop it unto the end

No one dare restrict my likeness.

                                                                                                              DIANA KONTOR-BIRAGO

Boastful Death

Ha, ha, ha!

I am the great one,

I am the fearful one,

I am the honourable one,

Ha, ha, ha!

Ha, ha, ha!

Kings fear me,

Queens also fear me

All fear me,

Ha, ha, ha!

Ha, ha, ha!

I am the respected one;

Kings answer my call,

They all lie prostrate before me

And kiss the dust to hear my orders,

Ha, ha, ha!

                                                                                                                                M. K. KYEREMEH

POEMS: Foetal Protestation & A wish for Peace

Foetal Protestations

When you think of doing it again

Remember,

That in my beginning was her end.

Your metallic clang of forceps and scalpels

Jarred on my blood when you accomplished my murder.

But I was too weak to fight back, to protest, so I took her along the path you sent me.

When you think of doing it again

Remember,

That I asked for no life from you.

But in one brief moment of carnal ecstasy,

You initiated my being, but feared the responsibility.

So you laid me flat with concoctions potent—

With cold shiny steel you forced my evacuation

Like a man caught in armed conflict.

When you think of doing it again

Remember,

That I am a necessary part of your act—

The spasms of joy that run through you are not without their consequences,

So when you think of doing it again

Remember me

Before you take the final plunge into her veneric depth.

                                                                                              SAM ANTWI BAADU

A Wish for Peace

I wish I had the voice,

A voice strong enough to tell brothers

To unite to be a strong family;

Oh, that I had a voice,

That appealing voice to urge nations

To live at peace with one another.

I wish I had the voice,

 A voice persuasive enough to ask makers

To stop making deadly weapons;

Oh, that I had the voice,

That powerful voice to command peoples at war

To put down their arms.

I wish I had the voice

A voice assuring enough to bring all dissident nations

To sit together and talk peace—

Peace as it is meant to be—

As brother loves his brother—

Peace in its practical nature—

As nation helps nation—

Not as the mare meaningless word

The world now knows it.

Then brother shall not fear brother,

And nations of the world can live in harmony,

See and enjoy the sweet fruits

Of perfect peace.

                                                                                                H. AUGUST ENNINFUL

POEMS: True Love, A Proposal & Lovers' Meeting

True Love

Love me not for beauty

But love me for my deformity

For beauty may bring misery

And my heart knows no treachery.

A body so ugly

May hold a heart so holy

So love not for the beauty

But love for sincerity.

Love me not for good qualities

But love me for faults and follies

These, your love will make better

 And life-union sweet.

For those who hoe for perfection

Hearts do not get their satisfaction

So love me not for beauty

But love me for pity.

                                                                                                                PATIENCE YANKEY

A proposal

Try me,

I am hard and true

As steel;

Forged in the flaming tongues of fire

Of love;

Weathered may violent storms,

Yet untouched;

Suffered great disappointments,

But unbent;

I am willing to try yet again:

Will you have me?

                                                                                                                         SAM ANTWI BAADU

Lovers’ Meeting

They met by the light of the moon

Under a leafy tree with a silvery sheen

They consumed each other to satisfy their hunger

In the immensity of their passion

They lost baptism of fire in action

And the two were one for the nonce.

                                                                                                SAM ANTWI BAADU      

POEMS: A Portrait of Love & The Epitaph

A Portrait of Love

Love is a gift

From the heart

Viewed with beauty

By the eyes that saw

And it beheld it.

Love is a child

Of the mind

Bred by the heart

That cherished it.

Love is seen in the eyes

Of the beloved

Love is a wondrous treasure

Stored and hidden deep

In the hearts of lovers.

                                                                                                                                ANSAH OFEI

The Epitaph

The seed. . .

Embedded in a vessel

Contaminated with vice; misdeeds

Fluid more evil

Satan’s deliberations

The pleasure securing itself.

Germinating . . .

Cuddled in a cradle child

Sucking and crawling

An approach,

A spectacular gaze

At the bewildering sea of time;

The invisible realities.

The plant . . .

The fantasy, delusion

Dreams, reverie—play

A beautiful flower

Sparking . . . smiling, laughing

To the sun

Life a fabulous alluring prospect.

Time; moments

Age; days and nights

Facing the realities, the if and nots

The leisure of slothfulness.

Fruits . . .

A gay tantalizing flower

Withered and dispatched

Frowning and sneering

Disgust at the wearing of time

A leaf falls

Finds a place to dwell

A foot treads on it

And it bristles

Somewhere a golden fruit is moulded

Plucked and munched.

The Epitaph

The moments are already gone

... irretrievable.

An Eye for an Eye, a Tooth for a Tooth - Part 1

                There was nothing particularly appealing about Afua Mansa. She was the ordinary type of woman; none too beautiful; none too ugly. She went to the riverside with the other woman, she gossiped with them. She wore ordinary-looking clothes. She was in every way an ordinary woman of Tama.

However, there was one reason why that must not be; a t least, as far as the laws of society and indeed of the village were concerned, Afua Mansa was married. Married to Kuma-Duo. She was third and youngest wife.

But Kofi Atubra was not a man of scruples. As far as he was concerned everything would be all right if only he could win her over without being caught. Afua Mansa’s own disposition would make things easy. After all, everyone knew the type of life she led before being married. All would be well, he told himself.

Indeed it was not difficult for Atubra. As soon as Afua Mansa consented, they weighed the situation and fixed their date. She could not come to his house because Atubra was married too. His wife was Serwa; a friend of Mansa and also a shrew. She would have no such things  in her house; or it would be hell-come-to-earth. She would scream and tear the house down to shreds. If Atubra and his new found lover did not like to be discovered and splashed with shame, they had better discard such ideas.

He could not dream of taking her to a friend’s house either no matter how close, for morals were revered in the village. 

There was only one course left. He would have to go to Afua Mansa’s house and into her own room. Mansa, although married, still lived in her parent’s house. Her husband visited her at night but not every night. Whenever he went to the choral singing practice on Friday and Sunday evenings, he preferred sleeping with his second wife whose house was close by the chapel. Only on rare occasions did he break this habit.

Thus every Friday and Sunday evening Kofi Atubra deceived his unsuspecting wife that he was off to the local Bobobo dance. Afua Mansa usually half-opened her window as a safty sign for Atubra. While the Bobobo played itself out, Kofi Atubra danced to its tune in Mansa’s soft bosom.

A month went by without accident. Maybe Mansa was intoxicated with her extra-marital life, or she was just a gossip extraordinary. Soon she was leaving vital pieces of information that alarmed those who had her husband’s welfare at heart. News always had feet and walked on them to whom it concerned. So it happened that Kuma-Duo heard of the illicit love affair.  Though at first he did not believe it, he decided to verify it all the same.

He visited Mansa everyday of the week, but he found the rumours untrue. As he always went early, whenever Atubra came on those two days and found the windows closed, he knew there was danger, and scuttled away while the going was good. Kuma-Duo decided not to question his wife about the rumours lest she got alarmed and warned her illicit lover.

He met Kofi Atubra often at the local palm-wine bar; they drank together, talked as usual but it seemed to him that he stated at him too long, as though he would say something, but no. However, he was sure he could discern a frown in those staring eyes. Or was it suspecting him of having heard of it?

One Friday, the week after Kuma-Duo heard the news, he got a bit drunk and when after bathing he lay in his lazy chair,  he dozed off and slept quite deeply. When he woke up the moon was up. His choir-mates might have ended the singing practice long since. Then he remembered his decision. Wearily, he fetched his cloth, picked up his torch and started for Mansa’s house.

He reached the house and walked to the veranda. He heard the creaking of the bed and muffled human voices coming from within. He tiptoed to the doorstep and applied his ears to the key-hole. So it was true after all; Mansa had a lover. For a minute or two, absolute numbness of unbelief kept his anguish at bay. Then the blood surged within him. He longed to crash the door and jumped on whoever had such audacity. He would shake Mansa violently. But wiser counsel soon took hold of him, and studied his trembling limbs. A better plan was formulating itself in his head. He abandoned his rash instincts and tapped lightly on the door.