LISTEN COMRADES
Listen comrades of the crying country
to the keen clamour of the masses from Buchanan to
Monrovia
they have killed Tarpiah
as they killed Tweh,Coleman and others.
Or the peasant down there in the thick woods of the
Puta Range
he held in his look comrades
the warm faith of a heart without anguish
and his smile despise agony.
Despite the wounds of his broken body
kept the colours of a bouquet of hope.
It is true they have killed Tarpiah with his mens sibi
conscia recti
who several times pour for us milk and light
I feel his hands on my shoulders
and the violent tremor of his breast
and I am lost again
like a plant torn from the maternal bosom
But no!
for there rings out higher than my sorrows
purer that the morning when the cock wakes
the cry of a hundred people smashing their chains
and my blood long held in solitude
the blood of a child away from home
rediscovers the fervour that scatters the mists
Listen comrades of the crying country
to the keen clamour of the masses from Zwedru to Bomi
it is the sign of the the dawn
the sign of brotherhood which comes to nourish the
dreams of men.
THE VICTIMS
you are the aggrieved nests
in which the migrant bird lay no eggs
in which it never enters to brood.
You are the victims of a premature revolution
hatched by bastards and sluggards
parading with their ill-gotten dividends;
you are the unfortunate victims
in your brick-made bungalows
reckoning the lost they cost you.
You are also the victims,our dead ones
buried by installments in makeshift caskets
in which ants and termites carried out the post
mortem.
You are the ill-fated victims
body and flesh lacerated by medical dogs
making spectacle of your scapula,patella and zygomata
You are also the victims
young sapling torn from the maternal bosom
yet commodifying your private partys
Victims!Lamentable Victims
jettisoned from the fatherland by civil brouhaha
hard core whores on the shores of Accra,Lagos,Lome
etc.
The victims are many yea multitudinous
interlopers at internatinal pactum nudums
They are messengers of rift and criminal in disguise
casting dice over positions
orifices through which they could syphon the coffers
while the death toil snowball at home
They are the migrant praise singers
singing the songs of equity though gold diggers they
are
hastening the land on its via dolorasa.
The Day Will Surely Go
The day will surely go
the day will still go by,
though millions you stole
and pocket it across the sea
though you ravage the nations coffers
and store your your treasures in far away places
the day will slip and slid away
the time of the locust will pass
like sorrow or pain.
The Resolve I Made
I will talk no more
I will listen to nobody's talk,
I will wait no more
I will plunge into the deep
though several hurdles athwart my path
and the sword of democles hangs over head
I will move,go and do
On citadel of learning doors
I will knock aloud and gain entrance;
Of the manliness of courageous men I will read
Of the ancien regimes I will read
I will sweep the dust from ancient scrolls
And,going after the Golden Fleece
I will move,go and do
I will navigate the world
and eat from the bowls of men and their thoughts
assimilate their juices in my belly
to make myself a glorious scholar
imparting knowledge to old and young
knowledge of their place under the sun
for these I will move,go and do.
Monrovia
Monrovia,I have long been away from you
migrating like a hebrew in the desert
but every time while lonely
amid the horrors and terrors of being in a distant
land
and the malice of solitude
I feel the warmth of your breast.
Fosering mother reaching out to your sons
we with our varied facet of hopes
but all boasting that you are a caring mother
despising your image but working to redeem it
because you have become a disgrace to mankind.
And now in this year of my odyssey
my heart becomes a receptacle of anger and pain
I am saddenen to write a story of your life.
I am saddenend by the news you sent me,Monrovia
that you are what I left you
a city lying in squalor by the Atlantic
a city full of your own offsprings-cheats and thieves
your uglified picture haunts me like a spectre
your news is nothing to write home about
your citadels of learning arte hungry and empty
while your medical centers are but anachronisms to
reality
Your news hauants me like a ghost
but amid all the plunder and squalor and anachronism
you shall again like the historical phoenix rise up
and pass terrible judgement on those rascal
who ravage ang pillage your coffers
their aristocratic cult and system shall wither away
and there shall be regeneration,Monrovia
The Odyssey
We travelled a long journey
through the sparse grassland of Lofa
crossed the high pointing Wologisi
whose snowcapped peak smiles languildly
as if dispirited the the shattered glories of her
ancestors
We traversd the dark forest of Sinoe
through the deflowered National Park
whose canopy wrinkled her face
as a repentant prostitute looks at her first client
We journeyed deep into the Cavalla are
meanderedthrough her rich shores.
There we met the lady of the land
the custodian of the secrets of secrets
the harbinger of peace ang light
And we young travellers she took to her sanctum
sanctorum
the sanctum of mystiques and knowledge
and there with our naked eyes
we saw the dieseases that trouble the soul:
that homini lupus homo
that the dumbs don't tell lies
that the blind can't be peeping- toms
that true friendship grows when tested
that the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the land
that the ancien regime was in itself a negation
that churches and lodges were tributaries of the same
river
She again took us in her bosom and unrolled before us
the ancient
scroll
therein we saw the names of our unsung heroes:
D.Tweh and Juah Nimene and Albert Porte and Blyden |
