Voices of the small small, Accra 2016 – IV

Before leaving for Accra, I had searched for Ghanaian poets online. When work was done, and as I was about to leave Accra, a friend took me to a couple of bookstores where I found a few books by local poets. And after coming back home, I searched online for some more. Here is a small sample of Ghana’s own voices, in verse.

I discovered Aquah Laluah (1904 – 1950) online after coming back home.

The Serving Girl

The calabash wherein she served my food
Was polished and smooth as sandalwood.
Fish, white as the foam of the sea,
Peppered and golden-fried for me.
She brought me palm wine that carelessly slips
From the sleeping palm tree’s honeyed lips.
But who can guess, or even surmise
The countless things she served with her eyes?

Here is one by a contemporary poet, Kofi Anyidoho, from one of his books, “A harvest of our dreams”, that I found in Accra.

Newspeddler

Last night newspeddler told us how
at last they picked the venom from our voice
into stainless tubes well corked with seals of state

and we will glide through life with all sorrows
transformed into beatific visions of excessive joy

so help us Dog!

And here are two from another contemporary poet, Tawia Tsekumah. His poems are almost Kabir-like in their directness. The first one is from his book that I got in Accra, “A crown for the baboon and other poems”.

Freedom

All life is but a battle
Composed of captors and captives

Mothers who hold their promising sons captive
And fathers who hold their favourite daughters captive.

Employers who hold their most hardworking staff captive
And Parsons who hold their most devout captive.

Husbands who hold their wives captive,
And wives who hold their husbands captive.

Freedom is not something you ask for - just take it.
And fight with all your strength to protect it.

Better to be free and hungry,
Than to be well fed all your life in a cage.

And this one I picked up online:

The World Mirrors Like A Calm River

My good friend,
I can't keep sugar-coating this anymore:
You are the world,
And the world is you,
If you deceive the world,
You deceive yourself,
Your world is you,
And you are your world.
The whole world mirrors like a calm river. 

I end with the last couple of poems I wrote before leaving Accra.
May 27

The history of words, of private
Worlds standing in communion

With the worry of dawn & the
Flight of joy, the semblance of

Meter & the line of hate, the
Past as prejudice & a little

Late; the history of verb
As it acts on pawns of being

Known; the history of you and
What is not you given as the

Word splits infinity.

The Obroni's burden
is a heap of cheap dyes;
wool cast in the lead of
black wounds; overcast sky
and underrated wish; the
burden is a
          sin; an acknowledgement
of a woman waning
   a son wanting
   a rite repeating
   in vain.