The day for beating the chief

The ewes!, my next favorite people apart from the Ga’s have a proverb… oh wait a minute, this is no ethnic bull shit thing, I will be the last person to serve a bowl of ethnocentrism on any day, besides I am neither Ewe nor Ga but then again I am Ghanaian which by my definition makes me Ewe, Ga, Fante, Asante, Dagomba, Guan, Nzema, etc etc…. I mean who knows who my ancestors, loved, kissed... actually did the thing with heh? And so I am everything and these days, I have been speaking Ga papa, I won’t tell you why, my dear kokonsa friends…;-)

So, I was saying, the ewes say, the day for beating the chief never comes so when a tsetse fly lands on him, you hit him hard!

Ok, here is a confession; I have no idea why I am quoting this proverb. Obviously, I like it but shouldn’t there be a point to my quoting it? Give me a second I will make up something…

Ha! no luck.not at all...uhm let’s try this, I wanted to teach you a proverb. Do you buy that? Oh keep your “No”, if you don’t buy it, see if I care! I am not even selling, anyway!…:-(

(hitting my lips with my fingers, looking up at the sky, thinking oh why didn’t god make me a hiplife artist? people actually like their nonsense! god, the woman with the big boobs, had to make me a writer, a fumbling poet…. now I am just humming, of course not a hiplife song! how do you hum that?... *snap snap*)

E-PI-PHA-NY!! E-PI-PHA-NY!!!! I am a poet! I have poetry, yep, yepiiiiii!


Moonlight or no light

Sixteen hands on one calabash
we sip pito on Wukuada
savor palm wine on Jufo,
Afelika will taste asaana today

gathered lore whispered clues
to broods by-the-fireside

In our light
each one of us to a glass
coca cola and pepsi and sprite
we splinter vows of ancestral pots
talk long winded talks
to induce what we are not

we bypass blood without a word
erase childhood games
elude first light songs
exclude twilight proverbs
misspell royal names

In our light
we do not know fibers of our kente
rhythm of our music
lessons in our dance steps
nutrients from our earth pots
life from breath, death from corpse
Hogbetsotso, Akwesidea, Hommowo and Damba

In our light
we thirst for water
along the Boti falls
dash to the next settlement
to find nothing

In our light
we call on bats to lead the way
upside down they watch our pot


“And so therefore”, crop rotation is a system of farming “whereby” omg!, do they still make students write shit like, lol! very entertaining. (seriously I can’t believe I passed through that system, yesu!)

And so therefore, the day for beating the chief never comes so when the tsetsefly lands on her, you hit her hard!, whereby you read a poem, now there is the connection!, catch me if you can!…;-)