FACES INSIDE

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Houses reveal faces inside
Smiles giggles and friendly frowns
Sun breezes
Sun flowers
Grasses weeds twigs
As butter flies bring beauty
Death passes away.


Hope truly an eternal spring
Life is hope
To hope is to live
Life and hope
Siamese twins that live within
Every Tom Dick and Harry too.


We live once but twice we die
Death begins at the death of hope
Death begins when death begins
Life and hope, eternal twins.


Hips conjoined with all else
Yet never at once but
Panyin thence cometh Kakra
Hope, the seed that brings life to life
Hope is life and life…….
Is hope.
Houses are paintings of the faces inside.


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BURIED THAT YOU MAY LIVE

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You were not wrapped
In linen

Neither were you laid
In a coffin

We thrust you in dirt
With clothes of nakedness

Buried,
That someday you may live

No one wailed
There was no ceremony

We hurried with it
We went on our way

Yet water we did give you everyday,
After all, thirst is everyday.

Who sends water to the buried
You ask?

I bid you wait,
Tomorrow is answers for today

Days gave birth to months
Weeds overrun where you lay

We pulled at them
But they just would not go

Tired of this game of cat
And mouse, we let them be.

Then one morning
With the sun on your heels

You broke through dirt
Opened up to the heavens crying
I’m alive!!

Folks,
My ode to a mango tree.

GOSSIP FOLKS

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Remember that man?
Oh you know the one.

The one with a
Frown so eternal.

Always gets the dog yelping,
As if it had just sat on its balls.

Oh darn!
Do you always need a spoon?

Listen carefully,
Offload the wax in your ears.

I’ll tell you this much,
But just the once
Lest I be called a gossip.

Shh……
Darn!
Now where was i?

Oh yes!
That man.

He got run over,
By the baker’s bicycle.

Broke his cane
Right in two!

No, wait
Broke his eyes in two.

Or was it rather him
Who broke the baker in two.

Heck,
I best be on my way.

A minute,
Where did I say I was off to again?

IN SEARCH OF HOME

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I’m on my way,
But where to?
Probably home,
But where is home?
Who has seen home?

So many forks in the road
I’m confused,
Which way do I turn?
Like a broken compass,
I fail find true North.

Its afternoon
Yet I Walk in search of daylight.
At night,
Darkness gives my bit o sleep
Sleepless nights.

Like the hands of a clock
I move to the rhythm of tick tock
Going through the motions
From dusk till dawn

Then today,
You wake my consciousness
Like wind straddling that sleepy
Trapdoor on crooked hinges.


Right there and then,
As if on cue,
Pen meets paper
I begin to write.

I smile,
Wider, becomes my smile
Like a child held in
A mother’s arms.

You are home,
You’ve always been here
Home is pen and paper
Home is peace
Home is when I sit to write.

TALES OF HARMATTAN

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That perfect orange,
Haloed by a lighter shade

At half past 4
Till barely 6

Roaming the skies
Overlooking the smouldering savanna

Downed powerlines
The corruption of wooden electric poles, charcoal

Listen to the tinder
Dry shrubs

Listen to the
Thirsty trees

Dry grass in tears
The planting season has passed away

Dust in flight
Across the plains

Married to shoes
And parched soles

Listen to blind lanterns
Listen to parched lips

Listen to the dry land
Listen to tales of sands

Rain clouds eaten
Alive in their mother’s womb

Tales told by empty spaces
A constipated sky

Cemeteries of cornfields and
Cowpea litter the earth


Farmlands lost in dreams of
harvests gone by


A healthy helping of coughs cold
Itchy eyes and runny noses


Double bolted rabbit holes
And still-borne watering holes

Cows barter water
With buckets of milk

Barns and silos
Imprison grain

Hush….
Listen….
Listen…..
Shhhhhhh……
Just you listen,
These are the tales of harmattan