A Poem-Love In Toto

Akonoba (Love daughter) I love you basabasa (bad) Anapa bosuo, anapa wi (Morning dew) Ahomatea (Tiny String) Ma akoma mu tofe (The sweet in my heart) Shaped like a guitar My morning star Ashanti queen Your grace is something to behold I seek attention of your heart Don’t give me a hurt Saying no for an answer Not to me, not to me I have vomited you (Grown love sick of you) Come and vomit my mouth (Kiss me) Akonoba Ahoofe obaasima (Ideal beautiful lady) Don’t bewitch me With your wicked furtive glances I see love lancing And dancing on your cherubic cheeks Black beauty I love you basabasa I love your awosowoso (quivering buttocks) Which tremble like a guy in fits Or water in a brass tray Balanced on the head by a black beauty, On her way from the river, When I set my sights on you I see a royal presence Your comely eyes Are those of a dove They are pools hiding ancient love potion These days, you are rarely seen, Sometimes you hide behind the Mununkum (clouds) And for a while, My world is cast in utter gloom Then from behind the darkness You oblige us temporary with your regal radiance That outshines the effulgence of seven suns, Oh, edukromu nsuo (holy water) Free me from love torture And handcuff me as your prisoner I shall willingly serve life sentence In your courts And be at your beck and call Ashanti queen Akonoba Akonedi komfo (priest of Akonedi) Come imprison me my jailor Be my executrix cum executioner Wont mind dying in your bosom Then, like your pet opossum I shall lick your dainty breasts Before I am put to rest, Then add me your prize hunter To your priceless prizes on your counter Fa me ye (take me do/apply me) I love you in toto I love you basabasa Akonoba Who am I Who am I, son of a modest cocoa farmer To propose love to Philosophy Mother of high leanings and learning, Eminent philosophers, Likes of Socrates, Aristotle and Plato, Even in their best intents and gorgeous garbs Woefully failed in their entreaties To espy a glimpse of your fairly form, Oh, who then am I To fathom the beauty of this Venusian Conundrum, Philosophy, the quest of ages, Nay, the zest of Sages, Again, the confuser of nitwits and pages, Oh, Father Confucius, come to my aid Philosophy, your fair form Frustrates and bemuses your Valentines They surmise you a mother of controversies, They conclude you were conceived In contradistinctions and contradictions, How then not to confuse your admirers Who queue up to worship and proselyte At your altar of sophistry At the Eleunisian heights Where initiates baptize And dabble in the deep bellies Of Aristotelian eudaemonism And Socratic syncretism – Neophytes evince glimpses of Philosophical constructions, Abstruse abstractions in intricate worded Semantic complexities There they imbibe Platonian absolute universals And succumb to suckling Einstonian Relativity at low velocity, Oh, Philosophy, your tutorials Too convoluted for a farmer’s son to unwrangle, I’d rather die an unlettered classical folk Then suffer morbid torture of eclectic elusives Syllogisms and semantic elocutions, Perhaps, Philosophy’s megawatts electrocutes Poor souls like me, What tortuous and amorous homilies and argumentation Proselyting under your tutelage, In the lofty courts of your majesty, Queen of all the Olympian tripos – Philosophy, political economy and mega mathematics A poem The shortest verse is the best Put the rest to the test They ramble on Till they come to nest A poem, a telegram- Compact in its detail It’s self-contained It addresses the issue Without wasting tissue Sport on, its language is terse Oh, how I love verses short in text Apt they are No contest Sometimes, it depends The theme and mood of the bard May bud, Out the window Goes the words – Concise, curt, succinct and terse, In comes copious superfluity A celebration of words Till the issue is laid to rest In no small unrest Afcon 2010 – Ode to Togo African Confederation Cup Competition in Angola, Soccer glitch outside the playing pitch 2010, Media hype, football fever in FIFA fiefdom CAF raised it to fever pitch, It ran the Togolese into a ditch, Assassination of two delegates in a nasty glitch 2010, Dark history year for Togo and African football, To go or not to go, Dilemma for Togo’s team, After dastardly ambush and ambuscade In Cabinda, Oh what a tragedy to the Togo Team, They lost their steam Rebels rained bullets on their convoy Dirty politics crossed the path of Innocent soccer enthusiasts outside the playing pitch A bloodbath in cold blood Nasty Cabinda rebels Acted cowardly to type, Like castrated bulls, They acted savagely like menstruating goons Leaving blood behind their trail They must in shame lick their tail Adieu, Togo soccer delegates Africa and the football world mourn your loss May heaven’s dew moisten your grave with moss The Mouth An idle mouth will say things Things need to be said Talk the talk and free yourself An idle mind, idle talk The mouth has no reins Where I come from, They talk their talk They talk the small gossip An idle mouth will say things They mind other people’s businesses, Yes, your business is everyone’s business People talk and talk From morning till evening From dawn to dusk They chatter and jabber Idling away the time, Where there are few jobs The mouth will not sleep hungry It will talk and feed on gossip In Ghana, where I hail from, There are professional chatterboxes Go to Makola Market in Accra, It’s a big talking shop They churn the rumours To feed the grapevine, Tune to the milieu FM stations, There is chatter galore, You’ll go deaf with the deafening din, Info overload, Accusations and counter accusations There is no economy of words They stretch the truth To chat all day It’s convivial and gay Welcome to Ghana Akasanoma Kasapoolo Our Elders Damirifa due! Our elders They came to do some Not the whole lot They climbed mountains They descended vales All for our sake They made us dwelling places They gave us education And fought for our freedom Our elders They came to do some Not the whole lot They did what it takes And left us much in the stakes You and I can see their legacy Not in mansions nor treasures But in the upright life The ideals they imparted The wisdom they guarded The path they charted, Yes, they came to do some Not the whole lot but they did a lot Our elders, Damirifa due (rest in peace) Oil Curse In hunger Ghanaians hankered for oil find No sooner was oil found It turned an albatross of a kind Our national character was in a bind Greedy gluttons spoil to fill their purses Onlookers rave and rant with curses The oil looters range themselves for a brutal brawl On which side will be nurse spouses, Seeing it is the politicians and their Thieving ilk in a tangle They raise hullabaloo and politicize Every wee issue Issues better left to bud in their pregnancy How I wish in my anguish There was no oil find To raise this media excitation And incommodious commotion Threatening like a fiendish incubus Waiting to copulate over national corporeal Edifices What an oddity of an odious Odium – Oil commodity – Bunkum! ENDORSEMENT Prosaic poems Endorsed for your reading pleasure Do so At your relaxing leisure Pieces you will enjoy beyond measure In them lie Generous gems and a treasure Let yourself go Without a seizure The thrills will entice you without frills Some pieces will sound shrill But not to worry Ride on and read on Though some poignant points will prove peppery, What is the point in agreeing with all the points? After all, we all have different viewpoints Essence of writing, to raise a kerfuffle Continuous writers will raise controversy So far as poets, essayists and novelists (PEN) abound They’ll deliberately muddy waters and ruffle feathers Some writing may prove supine and deemed Gutterly vulgar Yet, exactly what they want to opine, You may raise the bar But they think they’re above par, Truth be told Writers are gleeful to spar, For the feedback to them is mind fodder To chew on the cud They enjoy titillating the udder To maintain their own equilibrium and order A copious flow of ink To them is cherished milk They care less About those who are not their ilk Smoothly as silk They ride on and write on Never outdone by the big guns, Not even the Sunday Suns Great Disappointment Story And he came Hoping she was a dame And good enough to be tame Alas, he went away lame Low and lame in spirit In the love game, Yes, it was a great disappointment He walked away worse than he came Crestfallen, he concealed his shame And reminisced, ‘What is in a name? After all, dames are all the same They’ll disappoint and guys will not be the same, Even if they are calm and sane, They can grow insane Swollen and sullen-eyed, He looked dour and sore His spirits flagged They could not soar Every nectar and fruit tasted sour Drenched by his tears and in sudden shock He had experienced firsthand the rape of the lock The boar had been gored by a silly sow A billy goat had been bearded by a silly bitch Both were headed for a hitch And were dangerously careering into a ditch Oh, what a love game full of glitch Disappointed Dismayed Disaggregated Dismembered And disarmed by the rude shock He walked away empty handed The love he had nursed and nurtured Was a sham and a mock To him, the dame deserved a sjambok For making him drink hemlock, Before the midday sun His love evaporated like mist, Soon, he was on the run Hunted and haunted by his own amorous failure; She in turn, regretted and wished to be a nun, None the worse for the fun, In atonement, she fasted and will not touch a bun The riddle of their love fiasco graduated into a pun Till this day, unrivalled and unraveled by none Only in years bygone, It was Sophocles Antigone Then, Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, All love duels in contralto duet Yoruba Beauty My yawo Yawo dudu Yawo okorii Yawo gidi gonn ni Oremi Pataki You are my enamorata Yoruba beauty exempli gratias Come to me, my valentine My own, come to me The love inheritance of my elders My love, one love, undivided love Come to me Yawo alagba You vend to put food on the table You are big market madam I vote you President of all women You are my President Oh, yawo dudu No love surpasses yours Dance kokoro dance to me To fire up my insatiable love I want to gourmand you, Everyday, I take communion from your altar Yes, everyday at your love altar Oh, administer to me the holy waters To douse the mighty conflagration Coursing like flaming petrol in my veins Yawo dudu, What have you done to me, I cannot have enough of your love, Come to me, my yawo Dance to me, yawo dudu I have not boarded Citizens, I bring a case Nothing to pacify my intestines My abdomen is burning My intestines are grinding My intestines are rattling and melting My hand has not knocked my mouth Yes, yesterday I boarded up and slept I woke up on an empty shell I have not bitten into the baby of a corn grain I have not bitten into pepper I have not taken my hand from it I have not grinded dough I have not made dough My hand has not reached my mouth My stomach has ebbed I have not pinched fish I have not done myself well I have not put my hand down Water has not touched my mouth I have not ground pepper I have fed on air In short, I am hungry That is how we Akans say it in Ghana An Ideal What is man but a fleeting breath Our duty, to give the world our all To muster our lot for upper call Service first to our Creator Then to all mankind No objective ever so sublime – Check all religious ideals They do converge despite their clime ‘Do unto others what you would they do unto you’ This golden thread runs the gamut Across the religious divide It invites Hindu, Moslem, Buddhist, Christian, Zoroastrian and all To the great invite Duty to the Supreme Deity Duty to all A universal constant It applies to all sages In time and space Rather than wallow in the abyss of ignorance, I will freely a Christian gladiator be, Or gleefully gravitate to the Holy See To don on a garb of a gated monk Than sinfully sink and grovel in the quagmire As an unrepentant punk Dancing erotically to junky funk, The latter’s upward soar they will flunk And nosedive perilously into the broiling sea And get sunk when drunk In their sated intoxicant life When they are bored, gored and their sins rife No sin ever sinful Than self-centred conceit Only the sick in spirit Kowtow at the altar of self love And worship erroneously as they self destruct To all intents These kindred stand more naked Even when lavishly clothed In fine feathered satins and silks Than the simple-at-heart And penurious peasants Who live in constant peril of material poverty, Yet spiritually they are saints, They sleep rough, half naked in the streets These have their kind hearts clothed By their good deeds and selfless acts Check the facts, they have no fat To suffer BP, They fart freely in open air They have a pact with nature, Living tough in a compact, they are Self contained, Naturally, they live as they wish Till they expire past their sell-by date Upstairs, they go to queue at St Peter’s gate Only Yesterday Only yesterday, Boys and girls were we, We horse played and did hide and seek Teenage girls’ boobs bobbed and weaved Pandemonium reigned in the pants of teenage Braggarts Yes, only yesterday Adulthood a dim and distant prospect Oh, how time flies It’s already today It arrives too soon Only yesterday, We pooh-poohed growing old Old people, we deemed skeptical and stupid We could run, climb and do antics, Only yesterday, we were lads and lasses Brimming with youthful impetuosity and exuberance Our utterances were brash Our actions were rash Impatience written all over us, But today, only a day after, Suddenly, abruptly, Old age creeps in like a thief Grey hair sprouts like silvery mushroom In unlikely places The young view us with suspicion Too soon, We are in the Afternoon of our journey Soon, the evening shadows arrive unannounced Oh, only yesterday The sun was at noon But today, it casts Its rays from a low angle Today, too soon We are elders At centre stage The limelight glows on our twilight Like a sex thief We are caught red handed pants down A Poet’s Motto A poem a day Will keep you awake In spirit and intellect No need to surf the internet Unless it’s poemhunter.com, You cannot go astray If you engage intellect In liberal poetic pursuits A poem a day Will keep you out of mischief You engage in self-cleansing As you write and ride on, Mental cogitation sends you to purgatory To wean self from dross And flush your mind of gloss Of self aggrandizement, Then like stained teeth, You receive a floss Bad things Don’t say me bad things, Where I come from, Saying bad things is a taboo Such things are better said in the public loo It is believed the loo stench From the pit latrine trench Cleanses the spirit of bad sayings Don’t say me bad things The mouth that eats pepper and salt Has power to curse, Where I come from, You will pay a goat fine To the village Odikro (chief) If you badmouth me Odikro will call witnesses As if to prove a thief If found guilty You will pay a fine Of a goat, a chicken, a small fee And a bottle of Akpeteshie (local gin) Badmouths pay many fines That’s why many are refined In my village where I come from They don’t say me bad things If per chance I fall ill, To the jujuman we shall go The oracle will fish out a curse Fixed on me by a badmouth, To reverse the curse, Sacrifices will be made to the gods To expiate the malevolent badmouths My brother, my sister Badmouths are loudmouths They can devour human flesh My brother, my sister That is our tradition, Don’t say me bad things Unlike me On a sad note I choose to write not This is but a note I don’t want to write a lot Please take note Don’t on me dote I will put a dot When the pot is hot I will put a dot When the pot is full And I’m no fool I mean what I say I say what I mean I am what I mean I am not mean That’s the worst part of me I try to balance To arrive at the mean Let me sit my somewhere I see people go I see people come Is there anything happening hereabouts or thereabouts? Oh, let me sit my somewhere, It’s no business of mine To nosepoke into fires in the hearth In other people’s homes, That’s bad manners, bad manners So we’ve been told, They could be roasting a toad Or they could be smoking a roach But then, none of my business to encroach Oh, let me sit my somewhere Let me sit my somewhere But the scent from a burning toad Wafting the air just across the road Could be sickening, Oh, my belly bottom is retching And ready to implode I fear my belly will cave in if I throw So nobody can tell me something? Here I am, sitting my somewhere I see them go to the Airport To and fro They go To and fro They come Just like visitations to the hospital Yet, there is no dokita (doctor) around Nor do norses (nurses) abound I see strange strangers I see weird ladies in fine laces Crime is writ 3D On their faces I smell a rat cooking in a cauldron, Or could it be a python simmering In a gargantuan African cooking pot Strange scents evoke fanciful imaginings Of the goings-on and the goings-under So, nobody will say me something, Anything juicy to quench my thirsty curiosity, But I get Krokro eyes oh, And I get pin-pricked ears oh, Only my mouth fit shut like a clam To and fro Fro and to, They play seesaw with their entrée And exit; Like the tides at the shore Ebb and flow, They reap but do not sow; To the Airport they go to and fro But these don’t work at Airport Neither do they work anywhere, Yet they drive German posh cars, Eat Russian caviar, smoke Havana cigar Drink French cognac, Scotch Whisky And Italian wine They eat Hungarian sausage They strut about with lazy bone girls, Girls who dunno how to get a life They fit no sane man’s criteria for a wife He-men adorn their bodies With satanic tattoos They wear expensive garb and habiliments Fit for kings and queens Yet, their dressing taste is a distaste – Chains, rings, jewellery of sorts Adorn their ears, noses, necks, fingers, Perhaps, toes, navels and genitalia, Above this riot, The never missing high society perfumes Suffuse and gag the air They shit expensive shit oh, Oga Yet they jealous my simpleton style My brother, my sister, Nowhere cool oh, I bet, they envy my unsung stool! Today is party day They blare funky rap music at the loudest The way it happens all over the city When there are funerals So, are they partying or holding Their own funereal funerals Before d-day when the storm breaks? They dance the dance of the uneasy rich They fake fake happiness Oh, my brother, my sister Their inside no cool at all, at all oh They drive on the suicidal fast lane of life Abi, but me, I dey my corner oh, Let me sit my somewhere One day, yes it took only a day Their secret leapt out of the gate A kid brought from up country Spilt the beans It was like a bird’s whisper ‘You know, they cook magic powder Day and night They sell to throwers and couriers At Kotoka Airport perimeter in Accra We count dollars in wads and rolls, Oh, you can smell the dough in Our house ……. Blah, blah, black sheep ….. Oh, so magic powder is their secret Cocaine they call it? My brother, my sister Let me sit my somewhere No where cool oh Cocaine is cooking and brewing a storm When cooled, They will eat and shit, The scent will create a stench Soon, they will swoon and ‘quench’ With BNI and FBI on their trail They will shrink and desist from drinks, Tails will shrink between their legs They will gnaw at their fingernails But me, they think I’m a snail, Yet we all go reach our destinations oh Oga, let me sit my somewhere oh Where I see them go and come To and fro, to and fro With my own krokro eyes oh, Oga, no where cool, Let me sit my somewhere I don’t like myself trouble oh I’m no son of a gun oh’ Nna them be! (It is they who are) Speed Limits Reach late Don’t be the late It’s better to be late Than the late to be Put less joy On accelerator plate Pump less your right foot You won’t be late Better late an appointment Than an appointment with death, Speed kills But it thrills Careless driving can rill Don’t hesitate Observe speed limits Don’t a road menace be Save some savvy sense on the road Save yourself a messy load Other road users may accuse Be in your road sense The road will be less tense Good sense, drive safe and pense Fear Man Fear you man’s guile He is vile His every move interpret a wile Be on your guard all the while Life’s journey, a long mile Never despair, conquer with smile Thereon, you will triumph over the pile False Accusers False liars They lie standing up They lie lying down In falsehood they lay the charge It looms large They seem to be in charge You stand small, heavily accused Your innocence, no one believes False liars False accusers Sons and daughters of Satan They are the guilty You are their guilt They better quit Or they’ll wilt Before the shining throne of wit False accusers will tumble into their own pit Then they will have no bit To bite into In the dense den of their damnable desecration, Then, only then, I will seek my own consecration