ALEWA V

P.O. Box 1904

Sharkmellon Avenue

Creativity Street

Accra-Ghana

18th August, 2012

TO:

THE PEOPLE OF GHANA

W/A-AFRICA

Dear Sir/Madam,

SPECIAL INVITATION TO-

 THE PRESTIGIOUS ALEWA SHOW AT THE SyTRIS BOOKSHOP, OSU-ACCRA
(Powered by: PEOPLE OF EQUAL THOUGHTS AND SPIRITS)

Let me use this opportunity to invite you to the Fifth Edition of Alewa which comes off right here in Accra at the Sytris Bookshop inside the Mark Cofie Building on SATURDAY the 15TH SEPTEMBER, 2012. Renowned Poets will treat you to riveting and sizzling Poems with Music on LOVE. 

You will be inspired to love again and by love, you will rise to the top. Indeed, it is not enough to wish and hope. Be bold. Take that giant leap and make society a better place to live in.

Need I say Love is a universal language despite one's socio-political, ethnic or religious background.

I have taken these few minutes off my busy schedules to inform and invite you and I hope you take advantage of this. Remember. Do not push till morrow what you should do today for 'TOMORROW NEVER COMES'

Signed

Sharkmellon

[Poet~Author~Actor~Director~Film Producer]

'the nation that forgets it writers shall soon be forgotten'


Cc:
H.E President John Dramani Mahama, President of the Republic of Ghana
H.E Vice President Paa Kwesi Amissah Arthur
Honourable Speaker of Parliament
Honourable Members of Parliament
Honourable Members of the Judiciary
Honourable Ministers of State
Minister of Education, Ghana
Director, Ghana Education Service
Chairman, National Youth Council, Ghana
Minister of Youths and Sports, Ghana
Chairman, Ghana Association of Writers
Chairman, Pan African Writers Association
Members, People of Equal Thoughts and Spirits
Members, Poetry Foundation Ghana
Members, Ehalakasa
Members, Mode Concept
Members, mZone
Members, Mental Pictures
Members, Sharkmellon Productions
GTV
ETV
Metro TV
Yfm Ghana
Choice FM
Peace FM
OK FM
Corporate Organisations
All protocols observed

MY SONS ARE NOT

Drums don’t beat anymore

The once noisy night has gone dumb

so our hearts

The town is as quiet as a graveyard, even

Jimmy Jimmy the drunkard has gone to sleep

Where is the youth leader? Nobody knows

Has he travelled to visit his in-laws? No

Has he gone to see his concubine? No

Has he gone in search of our enemies? No

 So where is he? Where is she? Nobody knows

Fathers cannot find their sons, and mothers their daughters

There is no one to go and bring firewood

They have gone to the city, says Dzifa the village gossip

Who will go in search of our men and tell them of our dying farms?

Who will leave his plantation to go in search of our missing sons?

So mothers sit to eat

They eat the bread of sorrow in tears

Humming songs in limbo

They know all is not well

The men don’t know what to do

Fireside stories no more drips from the lips of the aged

Fireside stories today sit in history books’ corolla

The dusty market square is beseck with silence at night

No music is heard, no one is there to sing and dance

The place of the chief linguist is vacant and exalted with dust

No one will take his place; No one is there to take his place!

Elders know all is not well, they sing the same chorus

Where is my son? Where is my daughter?

Fathers cannot find their sons, and mothers their daughters

There is no one to go and bring firewood

They have gone to the city, says Dzifa the village gossip

Who will go in search of our men and tell them of our dying farms?

Who will leave his plantation to go in search of our missing sons?

So mothers sit to eat

They eat the bread of sorrow in tears

Humming songs in limbo

They know all is not well

The men don’t know what to do

Fireside stories no more drips from the lips of the aged

Fireside stories today sit in history books’ corolla

The dusty market square is beseck with silence at night

No music is heard, no one is there to sing and dance

The place of the chief linguist is vacant and exalted with dust

No one will take his place; No one is there to take his place!

Elders know all is not well, they sing the same chorus

Where is my son? Where is my daughter?

Copyright (C) 2012

All Rights Reserved

MY LOVE

Play the flute of love

Let me alone dance to its tune

  

All night, till daybreak exposes the dove

You are my love; Poetry, my dearest love.

First written on the 18th October, 2011. 
Copyright (C) 2012

DEATH THE EMIRITUS EMERITUS

Many have heard your fame

Yet none dare sing your praise

or mention your name in public or in pews

for fear you’d appear with a certain bad news.

You pay visits to homes

Without their permission, you follow jealously like A shadow

You bring families together just to cry like babies,

Uniformed mourners to hone their skill.

I would define rather than call out your dreaded name.

The stranger with ice fingers 

Are you in search of shelter?

You smile and we ponder why

So daily as you plunder; your victims so mock

For I see them all in obituaries smiling.

Copyright (C) 2012

AGYA KWASI AND HIS GALLON

Dangling to and fro across a busy street

Like the large old bell at the Vatican

Agya Kwasi toys with life, his own life

The one he borrows daily from the grand architect of the universe hangs
loosely
to the half-filled gallon

Horns blare but Agya is lost 

His hips move to the rhythm and sound of dancing feet

A driver is in dilemma...

Hit!run!? - swerve!crash!?

Both will make headlines, he sticks with the first

Copyright (C) 2012

THE BLACK TREE BOWS IN HALLOWED GLORY

A mean cloud has passed over this coast-

over this humble soldier.

Our feets now sit in stiff agony as eyes wallow in grief

The angel of death suddenly found our door post and 

The Black Star lowers his head at will.

Our children are in tears, and asking, what is happening?

Who shall break this news to them? I ask no one in return

A nation has been hit in the head.

The brown cocoa leaf has withered in winter, before morning came

See the town crier, he stands in gusto!

His weaponry, the gong-gong lay still in his room corner.

Songs of sorrow tears our hearts apart!

Beating our chest among equals, we can’t find that vigour to

The first man at the gates to the coast has fallen-

In the battle of life and death

A black day we see.

Fresh corn has ripened before its time!

Cry no more, with tears welled up in our eyes! Who shall console us?

Weep no more Your Excellency Mills for yours is eternal joy!

Now, who will listen to our endless plea for water, light, food and gold?

And tell us of a better Ghana.

I wonder what he saw which many did not see,

Of a future for our kids to read and write,

And study about our people from a classroom with roofs.

Daddy,

Did we cry too loud in your ears?

Did we sing songs of doom at your feasting?

Dis we fester your wounds to hurt and pain?

Only, if only!

Today you resigned unto an heavenly assignment-

And resigned us to national gloom...

So Ghana is clad in the black cloth with nothing but a song of gratitude for your time well served.

Obrempong bi esi niti ase!

Fare thee well in this heavenly sojourn

Fare thee well in this glamorous exit

Fare thee well to the place where all must in the end gather

Fare thee well as you fed (fared) us well

His Excellency John Evans Fiifi Atta Mills! (If you can hear us)

We say Ayekoo for you bowed out in hallowed glory!!!

Dedicated to all Ghanaians this day the 24th July, 2012.

The words here are the inscription of tears.

Damirifa Due, due ni amanihu. 

Copyright (C) 2012

THIS I PUT TO YOU

Ghana, our priced possession

Shall we not keep her as a scarcely priced treasure?

Must we let her go, like fish off the hook?

Or bird out of hand

This, I put to you.

Must we stop her from etching her greatness?

From being the eagle of the continent

Whose strength, others seek

This forbearing nation

This, I put to you.

Today and tomorrow, challenge your conscience

Must we shed blood in honour of our freedom fighters,

Must we destroy that which our hands built,

Must we negate the course our forbears trod,

Must we tear down historic monuments and symbols,

Of Unity, which we stand for

Are we clones of beasts?

Or pigs who rejoice in mud?

Must you hate a fellow for power

And shed his blood to pacify your greed

Shame on you, heartless brother

Who ripped off your once kindred heart into pieces

For pieces of silver, to exchange.

This, I put to you.

Brother and sister

Diplomat,

Lawyer,

Farmer,

Consultant,

Youth, aged, old,

Black brother.

Let us preserve our costly ideals

Let every worker sweat and enjoy

Let Ghana remain the golucosi, the haven of cocoa

Let every child keep hopes of singing ‘twinkle twinkle little star’

Let the unemployed nurse his hopes of a job

And the blind won’t take his life for God’s sake

Remember, guns don’t kill, men do

Knifes don’t kill, men do

This, I put to you

You seek the reins of power, albeit manipulatively

Should it be so? NO

Let us remain for the rains that will pour and water our fields

Is that no evidence of freedom, and independence?

Or do we need to be freed again to be truly free?

If we really needed to be free, then, were we ever free?

I rest my pen and paper

May I find it again where I placed it?

After the elections, hoping there is no war

For then shall I write the next chapter

‘Ghana’ will be the first word to be written.

This, I put to you.

Copyright (C) 2012

A STRANGER FROM HEAVEN

Once upon a time

Time was nowhere to be found

Found only as words in books

Books on wooden shelves

Shelves ready for auction

Auctioned under stringent trade laws

Laws made by man

Man to abide by man’s laws

Laws; hard and fast set in tablets of stone

Stone made a god

God of a man so born

Born in due time

Time before birth

Birth before child

Child becomes man

Man and time

Time wasted doing nothing

Nothing in essence being something

Something least worthwhile

While the world remain in tears

Tears from the heart-

Heartbroken

Once with us, now is no more.

Copyright (C) 2012 

IVORY HORN OF AFRICA

Ivory horn of Africa
From which wine is served
To young and old, has become a commoner
In the city of her ancestors
She has deserted the land of her birth
Enroute a path, unknown to her folks
Destructive, o route, misleading.

Listen!!! O people of the world, of Africa
Children sit helplessly till sun sets and moon emerges
Children, living within tired bodies
Who shall overturn this curse?

Africa must not die like the hero who dies in battle.

Africa is the epitome of Beauty
beauty with a name, nature exemplified
The place of peace and freedom,
Freedom to explore possibilities,
Possibilities so divine.

Let the weak arise!
Let the strong hold them up!!
Let every piece be picked up; every worn heart!!!
Every man his own
Let us rise again
Our flag must not go down.


Copyright (C) 2012


First published at http://www.poetryfoundationghana.org/index.php/theme/social-poems/item/123-ivory-horn-of-africa
*Some lines have been edited with my permission

TO MY ARABA

Araba!
Days come and nights go, 
I roam the streets in search
Of whom to greet and shower my love upon
My face now wretched, I hide in regret
More engulfed in this dilemma than Ananse in his web
In the shallows of your heart.
News travel of me – they say ‘your lover is mad’ and you bother not.
Instead of paying for your hairdo, I am the poor fellow carrying that weird look
Torn skirts my roofless shelter amidst the tease
Spending and straining their muscles to call; them passers-by and your friends
‘The wild pet’, as wages I receive mockery.
Araba, to you my all gave and you left me to fall...
Araba, to you my time gave and you left me no dime...
Araba, to you my love gave and you returned me a hard shove...
Araba, I need an answer...
What excuse shall I give God for this decision to depart the face of living mortals?
Till then
Your love, Kofi. (##ontopofSilverStarTowerBuilding##)

Copyright (C) 2012

THE STREET CHILD

I see hope in that street child, a young lad
To whom all seems bad
Whose life devoid of hope
Without a future, to gain
To him, life seem but a restraint
Nothing but white and black, good and evil
But, I see in him that glimmer of hope.

Once beautiful eyes, now tortured by poverty and his broken home
clothes tattered, bare legs kiss the earth all-day
Walking on weak limbs, I see his day ahead bright
A brighter morning, a new day
When the sun will greet his burned face and
The breeze will blow anew his skin
This hope greater than despair, I see.

I see him walk past the limits of his predecessors
Past the regions of hopelessness
Into a new future, we hold-
Blazing torch of opportunities
Today, the street child makes his mansion under a bridge
Tomorrow, he leads the team that constructs bridges-
And all these would have been simply history.

Copyright (C) 2012