The Shrine and the Mosque

They stand on two junctions,
 each other with a jawbone to sneer the other,
 at the tip of the descent into the distant valley of radiant selves.

Light and smoke blow over stained waters to set the gush free
Of bile and fire trapped in the corners of her mind.

Let me be wafted to Paradisé,
Like sweet-incensed song in the heart of a newly-wed 
devotee

Leave me be with wings like childish dreams 
with lofty destinations like Canaan and Mecca 

Lend me a secret path to Dahomey to see the Khaba,
to pray to Fatimah.

15/01/2018  11:42 (From Casablanca to London)

COLOURED WINGS

I am guilty of your lips, 

                             Abr)nomaa,  

                        Caller of innocent songs.

You owe me a tail feather, 

                            Abr)mma, 

                        Red-tailed beauty

Bringer of the dawn of sacrifice.

THE AFRICAN TESTIMONY

I have heard that name enough to last me four lifetimes. It was on every wall, wet and dry; on every lip, young and old; in every joke, sound and lewd; they would even love to hear his name in church. When I would sit at the back of the old ‘trotro’, held at the seams by rivets, he was the centre of every gossip; when I wanted to hear some rejuvenating ‘adadamu’ from my transistor radio for a change, his name would be in every news headline. All of a sudden, he was the world’s most famous human being, and his name sold faster than ‘Kofi Brokeman’ or the hitherto unequaled ‘Graphic and Times’. Before you could say ‘Jack’, and add whatever, his name would have been spelt out in full: Barack Hussein Obama. Maybe, just maybe, some children might have been named after him: Osama Bin Obama, Saddam Hussein Obama. Obama here, Obama there, Obama this, Obama that, Obama Says. ‘Maaba?’ Obama! ‘Namo ji lε?’ Obama! ‘Mini yaa nö?’ Obama! ‘Mini nε?’ Obama! I have been silent on this phenomenon that rocked the whole world, but finally I break my hymen of silence.

The Invited States of America (ISA) had to go to the polls. The old 'Bush' was on fire and almost reduced to ash. We had to officially retire the old order, to give room for the transfusion of fresh blood into the veins of our multiculturalal body; a new lid to be placed on top of our intercultural melting pot. Beside this exercise, everything else was second rate.

Above the tug of two political ideologies, parties and personalities, I saw two worlds and two generations, striving for dominance. After all those years of struggle, Father Africa, as part of his Image Reconstruction and Enhancement Programme (IREP), managed to confidently present one of his sons as a prospective to our common throne. Africa versus the rest; this promised to be a venture worth our historical while.

Today, we know the outcome, and there could be no better time to be who we are, proud sons and daughters of Father and Mother Africa. We rule the world at last, but my joy would even be sweeter, if those kinsmen sent away in 1914 and down the years, whose blood and tears and sweat fertilized the egg of struggle which has hatched our glory and made our voice heard, could witness this moment: Nat Turner, Du Bois, Luther King Jnr, Nkrumah, and Garvey. 

'Indeed, a child is nothing, it is only the glory of his forebears that the world sees and tolerates in him'...(Wole Soyinka...Kongi's Harvest)

 Now it is clear that something good can come out of Africa; that we have always been a bright continent in hiding, for this appointed time.

I wonder if the best still comes from the West. A river forgets is source soon dries up. Our gold and timber, cocoa and labour, made their glories possible. United States of America, still from Africa, ‘Obaa ma’ spiritual illumination, economic redemption, and political direction – that is the African testimony and miracle, Obama!

FIRE FOG

Kente is a metal forged in the riddles of the loom
Sold at the market of nine moons
Basic to the piano
Played on the eye.

I would not pay a bard to sing this riddle, lest he miss a line

Of the weaver’s cold dreams

Harvested from the starless sky of his roof

The bird of dreams perches and raises this song:

“Pass it here and stick it there

Kro-kro-kro w’ate?” (kro-kro-kro, have you heard?)

Then the helms water breaks

And cock calls his boast

Kokrokoo! Kokrokoo!

The master weaver starts to dance
And loses himself in the dazing steps
“Kro-kro-kro and again pass it here, stick it here and over again”
Till the songbird stops, and the dancer is dropped from the realms of dreams.

Kente is a metal that graces the victor’s shield

Whose story is yet to be ended from the beginning

The blood of the weaver

An African statement.

ALBINO

Do not keep my greeting for too long lonely wanderer

It will grow cold

Send it swiftly to the door of my patient mother

She waits through the rigour of the night and outlasts the day too,

Holding fast to her lantern of hope.


I left home on an untold day

Before the cock could find its voice to raise the alarm

Mama came to my hut to wake me up,

Only to find me, prey to the wind

Maybe she screamed for her neighbours, or she searched for me first

Maybe Mama shed tears and seemed inconsolable

But know this for certain that she sat in the dust in the middle of her compound,

Beat the earth three times with both hands,

Placed them on her chest and

Smiled.

Nana Asaase © November 22, 2011

SOJOURNER

I came to new country

To find my place at home

I saw many shaded faces

But this one stood out.


Like the nimble tip of a lit candle

Gentle like a feline purr

Welcoming

Like the unbroken surface of a pool

I hoped to sit on

Water;

That too would be a miracle.


My heart was rent around this time

But there was a promise of warmth

In the arms of the door

Soon to fade like chimney smokes.


Dreams are the preserve of the chosen

This flicker will glow on another brow and yet another

Till )teasefo) will find rest in the bosom of )d)fo).


Leave this one here on the wall beyond touch

So )kwantuni will pass this way and see

That the road of love is tortuous to the summit

But remember also that

Nkakra nkakra, abrewa b3foro b3p) akoduru soro.

Nana Asaase © 23/12/2011

LOVE CHORDS IN ABSENTIA 3

Golden sun balls ruled the days

When our hearts first met on the junctions of limbo.

Gentle breezes blew the nights

When we sat alone together on the swings of joy

Shedding our burdens on each other’s shoulders.

It was bliss, it was joy, it was love.

Nana Asaase©

LOVE CHORDS IN ABSENTIA 2

Me d), Naana Serwaa,

Sing that favourite line of our secret,

Captured in the clouds,

With the paints of the wind,

On the canvas of the sky,

Through the eye of day.

Nana Asaase©

LOVE CHORDS IN ABSENTIA 1

Tell me again, Obaa Amponsah,

Those mellifluous lines you swore to my love on that night we were caught up in the embrace of our shadows,

separable only by a hair’s width.

Nana Asaase©

MOMENTS OF SOBER REFLECTION 4

MY SALUTE TO THE 'WLI'

In vertical waves the Wli comes down,
Chanting its unending chorus, together with the bats,
Snoozing in the crevices.

The ripples make for the pebbled shore,
Only to be replaced by others.
To the right, the water finds an escape,
Snaking its way through the canopied forest,
To bring its tribute to the mighty Volta.

With crystal conscience, the pool shows its entrails,
The eternal shower sprays life.

Furthermost above West Africa,
From a little crevice in Afadjato,
Does the virgin find her strength.

MOMENTS OF SOBER REFLECTION 3

BY THE FOUNTAIN IN AKUAFO HALL

I smell the fragrance of the showers
I hear each note of the song:

‘Life is hard, but life is good
Come and wash your cares off’

The farmer and family, relishing the pot on the island in the pond.

The sun passes in silence
The grass and trees stand in audience:

Many have and more will walk this stone ring.

This scene may stand as long as I can’t tell.
The water may soon dry up.
But this poem lives in my heart
And the song is in the pond.

MOMENTS OF SOBER REFLECTION 2

A THOUGHT ON WOMEN

In my nineteen years on earth
I’ve seen and said and done many things:

I tried maths; it was difficult.
I tried science and though it just too boring
Though my French teachers like me,
I found them confusing.

Preachers are good people,
And teachers are strict.
Politicians are garrulous,
And the list runs on.

But women are beyond adjectives;

Predictable as chess,
Unpredictable as a programme line-up.
As complex as a labyrinth,
As simple as The Lord’s Prayer

MOMENTS OF SOBER REFLECTION 1

I will build a stage in my bedroom
On which to commune with my maker
When the world goes to sleep.

I will listen to and write every message he hands down to me:
‘Father,speak, thy servant heareth.’

The world will wake up to receive
Not caring about the giver or how they were received
Just savouring and applauding and observing to do.

LAZY BREEZES 5

He stopped in the middle of the street
And looked down at his feet
What his eyes did meet
He was least prepared to greet.

He rubbed his eyes and again and a third
They were golden bangles and a bundle of ribbons.
Those were odd out there
All the same, they looked dear
Looking closer, he found them rare
They looked like those of a lady so fair.

So a day passed and the next
Then he went back to the street
What his eyes did meet
He found it ever sweet.

She sought her golden bangles
And the bundle of ribbons.

LAZY BREEZES 4

The untamed exuberance of nature surges and rests in my stubborn head
The hot blood of youth drives all care into my old years
My masculine ego blankets all voices around me.

But I fear! I fear to say I fear, but I do
I fear my potency, the virility of manhood
Give me a basket of sorrows to hold my tears.

LAZY BREEZES 3

This song is not for ghosts to dance,
This poem is not to touch their hearts
How would life be without you?
How would the world look in your absence?
The sun might have fallen backwards
But there would still be light.

LAZY BREEZES 2

Odomankoma breathes gently against my skin;
I can afford a smile.
I hear the birds gossip.
The spotless sky, a sculpted cloud, a loud riddle-
The sun has fallen into my backyard.

I got this tongue from Obibini
I learnt this song from Agbenoxevi,
The ever-young song bird of the market place:

‘It is only the man who sits under the tree, who knows the intensity of the breeze-
Life is hard but there is hope in the flatulence of the bee.’


The young are teachers of the old.
So mother hen knows the juiciest worms.
The tired birds are lured into the embrace of the evening sky
But they will only find rest on the arms of Agbeti.

Ask Anaanu the spider, the crafty one who lives at the diagonal junctions:
Who sees farther, the swift hare or the slow tortoise?


I yearn for the dew to soak my heat
The toads to drown my ears
I will lie on my back and wait—
The moon and stars will soon be here.

LAZY BREEZES 1

The webs of life are spun on the looms of Oboadee,
The all and ever-seeing one who sits above the sun.

The silver arrows of rain are held in His cloudy quiver
And released with crafty precision.

He makes the sun to dim brightly and flaunt its radiant cheeks,
And when the clouds can’t hold the overflow,
They pour His tears of love on us.

The melodies of the breezes are composed in the compound of the dawn
And blown on the whistles of the day.

If you wonder why the sun is loud today,
The night just delivered the new moon.

Let the winds breeze through and renew the gossips of yesterday-
The stones will stand the test of truth.

THE NIGHT BEFORE FREEDOM COMES

(I)
The cock crowed at noon today
I will call our song of sorrows in the house of the moon
I will rub my palms in the face of the sun and…..
He can do nothing about it;
This is a riddle----

Virgins were broken at night
Sons were born by day
The frozen insolence of Akwasiada
Desecrated our (sacred) altars.

Ours was the last story

We lifted our songs to the red womb of the sky
Our shoulders hummed dirges of our guilty innocence
The golden black ivory had lost its shimmer.

(II)
AT THE CAPE COAST CASTLE

They prided in the drab white walls of their citahells
And locked them up with the cold stony faces below.

While they chanted halleluyahs to their unknown God,
They also stared at the blank and motionless sky for hope,
From their gods or nowhere, which they knew might never come.
They sang songs of sorrow and recounted stories of their free selves outside these walls;

Of home and and family they would see no more in a long time
But today, through the eyes of their hope.

They mocked them with libations of holy water and drove them,
Shackles and on all fours, through those doors of no return.

But we have walked through these doors of return
We who are the glory of the heads bowed and backs broken yesteryears ago.

(III)
WE WILL GO

We will go 4x (decreasing in tone)
O my brothers draw near and hear, weep no more on your mats at night when you lie on your breaking backs and look intensely at the blank sky of your huts; sleep on the hope of morning,
Our glory, shrouded in impotent smokes of uncertainty.

Do not despair for the sake of the heartless kings who cling on to straws of immorality, their days will soon be spent or else they will wake up that morning to find our shells empty, let them then rule the chattels; we will be freer men than we dream to be – We will go

(Repeat song)

Today, we honour the living memory of the great dead. But tomorrow, we shall be told of in word song; we shall be remembered as the heroes of yesterday. We shall look back on the lands we tilled and the edifices we built and take pride in our living memories and the greater deeds of our seed.

These great ones have laboured, let them enjoy their hard – earned titles and thrones and rest; when our tasks are done, we will also go.

(Repeat song)

Yes indeed we will go home to beyond the horizons of this place, to the welcome of our forebears, to the drumbeats by the ancestral fireside – we will go.
(Repeat song)

(IV)
Inspired by Prof Kofi Anyidoho – History Dept. University of Ghana 08/05/09

We will go from this place, when our days are spent
The memories of our footprints will outlast our age

Big, small, all the way to the gates of that ‘beyond’ of no return.

Survivor

I sing this song afehyia pa
With all of you in mind
May the wheel of life spin again
And meet us on good luck.

You who taste salt no more,
Safe journey into the eternal unknown.

You who are yet to arrive,
Have a beautiful sojourn.

You who keep the pots alive,
The next harvest is yet to come.

Uncertain clouds are carrying the rains
We may be found on either side, dead or alive

Afehyia pa!