For April 7th...

I know, I don't want to forget about tomorrow so let's start living it now...

My Ghana is blue

My Ghana is blue

like ink

floating

on a burnt British Flag

sweat flows

from the forehead

of a schoolboy

selling charcoal

blue like

air inhaled by taxi drivers

in the cracks of harmattan

black like tainted oxygen

that shreds bullets of war

My Ghana is blue

like the voices in the sky

walking away...

There is so much joy knowing what you like and knowing what you don't. I like being able to express what I want to say but I don't like being questioned for what I believe in. I believe in Ghana but don't ask me why.

April 6th- Betrayed

Betrayed

if rage could be dipped in butter,
and melt in a frying pan,
I will be that heat in glory
steaming to burn the life out of you.
The lies you told me crippled my eyes.
I felt the coldness of your mind,
and the knife you held close to my heart.
Truth be told, I always saw your hands
dripping of cold sticky blood.
You washed with water from the purest valley,
but the scent of life remained fresh.
Now we stand face to face
You wound me.
You rip my love apart.
I bleed dark hatred.

I wrote this poem because I was so very angry. It wasn't a break up or a guy trashing my love. It was a friendship that had been mishandled. Maybe I was taking things too seriously but at that moment I felt betrayed and the excuse was just not good enough. I am grateful for the experience even though my friendship with that person is not as strong. However, I have learned to walk around with forgiveness in my pocket...

April 5th-West African Paradise

West-African Paradise

My West-African paradise

stands behind peach bars.

A mango tree folds

its arms

but throws down yellow beans

when whipped.

High in the dirty violet sky,

a pale pawpaw tree hides

treasures of soft pebbles

but spits black seeds

when whipped.

The blind vampires

chew the purple

Indian almond,

licking the seed dry.

The leaves of the yam

hug the fufu pistol.

Blushing red tomatoes stand

beside excited carrots.

Mild green peppers sweat.

A forest green snake

guards my grandmother’s jewels.

I wrote this poem because I missed my home in Ghana. The only thing "unreal" about this poem is possibly the vampires. Of course they were only bats but sometimes exaggerating ideas makes life more interesting.

April 4th- There Are No Spoons In My Kithcen

There are no Spoons in my kitchen

There are no spoons in my kitchen.

We cleanse our hands

of the black dirt,

washing away the skin.

When we eat,

hands feed the tongue,

sucking sweet marrow

from the legs of the quivering goat.

Hands dig out yams,

wipe the sand off its skin,

and hold the knife that breaks

it into white chunks.

The hand greets

heat, leaping out            

of soups, flowing                                                                                                                       

with pink garlic strips.

When we eat,

we talk with our lips,

swallow with our tongue,

taste with our hands.

Obviously, there are many spoons in my kitchen but I prefer to eat with my hands. I think you waste less of the food when you eat with your hands. Eating with your hands does not mean you are"uncivilized or incapable of using a spoon, it just means you are connected more to the food. So I wrote a poem that allowed to reason out loud and share with the rest of my class..culture/ethics/life.

April 3rd- La Belle Femme

La Belle Femme

In my middle school
a young long haired girl
stood erect
banging on a wooden desk
pink palms slapped surfaces
like belts that
embrace a tired mule's back
the shrill
vibrated through her uvula
beating
ear drums sore
she moved
her evil desk aside
an explosive breeze
bounced off her chest
She jumped up
blocking the eerie silence
of eyes with red palms
that soil grey square tiles,
a bleeding rose on fierce
white sand
 body
shivering, swaying,
she picked soft hairless
spiders from her permeable pores
The only way to flee
was to let eyes
see webs wrapped around
brown epi-dermis
baby spiders crack from shells
in her skin.




La Belle Femme. I wrote this poem last year when I had started taking French, hence the title. The poem is actually about a friend from middle school who went "crazy" one day while we were all just listening to a class lecture. She was a simply beautiful young lady who seemed to have no problem at all. I was genuinely scared by her attitude but also worried about her. How could you see spiders chasing you in the afternoon? I don't know if she ever solved that problem but I hope she did.

So What Happened?/ Poem for April 2nd

Hello all,

I know, I said I would be posting a poem a day for the month of April but I was caught up in so many things that I could not even have the time/internet access to fulfill this promise. I had to attend various conferences. For one,  I listened to smart intellectual African women speak. For the other, I had to present my own work and also listen to more smart African women and men speak. I would have to talk about that experience later but for now, here are the five other poems I should have posted.

 For April 2nd, I offer you "The Murder of Poetry." Why am I trying to murder poetry? I am not quiet sure. I started taking poetry classes hoping it would be easy but it wasn't at all. I was actually tired of writing short stories and thought it would be simpler to write poems. I had difficulty being "poetical" because I wanted so badly to sound like Shakespeare but had never lived in the middle ages. The result of the struggle...Rachel murdering poetry. Poetry is powerful because it is sometimes unconventional and moves people in so many different ways. It is wise then for me not to think about murdering poetry... right?


Murder of Poetry

I tried to stab it in the heart
piercing, penetrating the sharp
knife through its essence.
I held it down with my legs
Firm
but it lay there in the silence staring at me
it starred through the  hole of the gun
but didn't cringe as I shivered to shoot
Brave
it sat up cleaning itself of the dirty lines
I swung a punch to the left
and straight towards its stomach
but it stood up in its full bloom
Victorious
it offered me the hand I
stepped o,
the eye I wanted to shut
the passion I wanted to dissolve
I offered death to poetry
but it gave me life

A Poem A Day..Apoem/April

Happy New Month!!

I am so excited about April since it is the month that brings a lot of coolness and sun. My mission for this month is to upload a poem for each day. Unfortunately, I don't have 30 poems stacked under my bed but I will be writing them. I'll start with this one. I wrote it for a poetry workshop and thought it would be a great way to start. I honestly don't recall what I was thinking about when writing this poem. Aha! I lie, I had a crush on this guy and wanted to write about him without giving him too much attention. His name is not Zaan. Zaan is a pseudonym. Well it didn't go any further if you're wondering about the crush but I'm glad he inspired such a poem.

Zaan

The sound of his name

reminds me of

the palm-nut fruit

falling from the narrow arms

of the palm tree.

The small red berry ,

filled with red hot oil

heals the wounds

of a porcupine.

The moon bleeds

from the cuts of

the sun rays

as the stars suck

the icy blood

from the dead sun.

The grass pierces  

through the black soul

as the  swaying wind tosses out an egg,

and the vultures wail for their loss.

He is not a warrior

rolling in the dirt of the forest,

guarding the iroko tree with his feet,

thick as the blood that cools

the nerves of the brain.

He is an owl without a tongue,

using his wings to whisper to the moon.

A tiger stripped off his black spots

rolling in the ink of the zebras.

He is the wind without water

A desert without sand.