LONE HEART (by Sarfo Kantanka)

LONE HEART
I've been through the cold streets of poverty
I've known what it feels like to be the oddity
Sometimes it's better to.  pretend to be the wiser and totally
alienate the world; go ahead and damn them to eternity
Success is always close but never seems to get me out of being the anomaly
It's hard to find a friend
It's hard to be myself
It's hard to understand my person both for me and them
It's hard let me go just so i can be part of them
The world is a nice place only for the people who can afford to be a part it.
When I'm outside looking in at all the people who were perfect enough to be a perfect fit
I start to wonder if my dreams are really mine for they are the ones living it
Was I made wrong or are they just being stupid
Either way it doesn't end well for me

©Sarfo Kantanka

QUEEN OF CHOCOLATE

Queen Of chocolates
You smile
You show your teeth stained brown
Queen of chocolates
You deserve the crown

Chocolate made from a blood-sweat mixture
of the slaves who nurture the
trees pods and beans in the thick greens

If you, my Queen, take a bite
remember the plight
of the twisted waist that sowed the seeds

Of the soil-soiled hands that transplanted the
seedlings
onto the land cleared by the colloused palm

Of the sun-baked back that weeded around
and the bleary eyes that plucked the pods----
eyes licked by they sun's flaming tongue;
eyes beaten by the rains
of go-to-hell

of the fingerless hands that split the pods open
hands scarred by cutlass cuts
and the shortened neck and bent spine that carried
the beans
from farm onto the aserɛnɛ, from the aserɛnɛ to the
shed

And help me curse the
Greedy clerk who
Reverses the scale that a bag of cocoa weighs
three feathers
And the choco-royal who fails
to do what I ask of you

My Queen
I wish the choco-slave could
taste his own sweat and blood
but his pocket cannot reach chocolate's height

So my queen
when you clear the path taken
by the chocolate with water mountain-top cold,
belch a wish that
my wishes came true
©2014 Sarpong Kumankoma

WATCH NIGHT

WATCH NIGHT
Three humanoid tiles
Adorn the dusty floor
Their blanket
The dimly lit night
Embroidered with cold

The tongue of the spirit lamp
Sluggishly licks the laterite wall
Leaving a saliva of soot
Mama's eyes are
Yet to taste sleep
On her bed of thorns

Whiles three
Siblings snore in innocence
They know not
What is meant by papa was stolen
By a dark cloud

Clouds gather in the sky
Tears gather in Mama's eyes
Thunder roars
It echoes in her heartbeat
She sighs before the
Storm does......

Papa's wildest dream
Was to seal the burrows
Rust dug in the roof
And to strengthen the legs
Of the hut whose dance
Moves could be used to tell wind direction
But death was indifferent

Wake up Kwaku Kwashiorkor
Wake up Yaa Beriberi
Wake up Kofi  Rickets

Wake up let's move
Out and be spectators
Of raindrops
Under the mango tree

before the storm begins
To chase after the thunder

©Sarpong Kumankoma

Baabi Dehyeɛ

~BAABI DEHYEƐƐ~
I walk barefooted
Dust sewed to my feet
These socks for the journey

Flies follow my occiput
Singing my wretchedness
To the whole world

My nakedness
Dances in my rags
Like a big fish
trapped in a net

No sweat on my skin
Thirst is all I have drunk

Strongly
Hunger drums my belly
My feet dance
With inebriated steps

There are eyes
All around to feast
On my plight
There are lips to hurl
mocking cackles
at my shameful head
There are ears to be tickled
By the thud in my fall
But no hands to help me up

All the tears
In my eyes 
I have spilled
If only they could  hold their
Laughter in their belly
And lend me their tears

They would know
Where I do go

I am a royal in that
Palace at the end of the road
Built of gem and gold

Ahenema--
Is what yearns to kiss
My feet

Beads rest on kente
Waiting to embrace
My skin

They would see
The endless table
Adorned with colourful dishes
Each singing an invitation

Let them laugh
Their last laugh
I am crawling to my home
There stands the 
Never drying fountain

©Sarpong Kumankoma

BORNGREAT

BORNGREAT
I was only a wanderer
In an unknown realm
Seeking to enter the world

It's not my fault that
The door through which
I passed led to the pauper's
Home----

I was lying in innocence
Under the uterine shed
Safe, secure, happy
Developing flesh and
Bones from my sperm-egg
Mixture----I was only
A blood clot!

Then came the news
Which robbed me of
Joy in my temporary place
Of sojourn
Mama heard the news
swallowed it reluctantly
And had her blood poisoned
Same blood that nourished me
I felt Mama's
Heartbeat missing the
Regular rhythm----

Her tears flooded
her womb------
I could not help drowning
So I lapped the tears to
Keep my home dry

A thousand thoughts
crawled like
Soldier ants in her head
They bit painfully in my
fragile heart:

A merciless wind has blown
Her roof off------
She has been forced to
Surrender to the torments of
The weather
O he whose spirit covered
Her children
has followed the
Dark trails of death into
Asamando.....
Her hunter-tooth
Has been lost!

She has has six
Bellies to fill
That she cannot do
The seventh born need not
Come into the world and
taste the bitter life
That has clothed her home

Is it my fault that
No amount of concoction
And broken bottles
Or the quack doctors weapon
Could eject me
From my home?
It wasn't my choice either
To be firmly rooted in
A home vibrating in sorrow
To drink the tears
Of a grieving mother for
Eight months.......

I saw much pain
Before birth
It's no fault of mine
That I was born fatherless......
Is it my fault that
I was planted into
A roofless home
To grow amidst
Piercing thorns of a society
In which riches is
Ticket to self actualisation?

Is it my fault
That I dream to erase
The saying that
Paupers beget paupers
That I can grow into
That roof my home lost
And and save my home
From the torments of grief?

O Why? Society why
Are you trying to
hold me back
From stripping my rags off
To put a golden gown?
I believe HE Who planted
Me there shall
Surely let the apocalyptic
ballad HE wrote about me be fulfilled
All you do is in vain!

© Sarpong Kumankoma