Category: Poetry

LOST COMMUNION

Poetry by David Agyei-Yeboah There are people dying If you care enough for the living Make a better place for you and for me Michael Jackson   You and I are not so different We house crimson streams and brittle matter Yet you choose to tear me apart every waking...

WATER FROM EWES

Poetry by Henrietta Enam Quarshie   In these parts, with dry winds and relentless sunshine. Where bare feet slap red earth where hearts are full and smiles aplenty, we will welcome you. We will bend low in homage by the earthen pot. We will fill the calabash. We will get...

MY COUNTRY BROKE ME FIRST

Poetry by Tawiah Mensah My country broke me first. Days before you left, you asked me about the things that make my heart ache. You always wondered why I’d never been able to stretch out my scars, watch them cower beneath the sun so I can begin to be whole....

LAGOS

Poetry by Yewande Akinse Lagos. I hear your name as Parisian clouds hover around me your scented air hounds my fondest memories as I, am a nomad on pilgrimage I remember you – the congestion of your borders, the scarceness of power and the erraticism of sanity I have wandered...

A SELF-PORTRAIT TOO DEAD

Poetry by Sarpong-Osei-Asamoah A self-portrait too dead At high noon on June 28, 2021, Nasiru Yussif and Murtala Mohammed were shot and killed by security personnel at a protest in Ejura, Kumasi, Ghana. A country made of pins & needles sharpens its teeth on our teeth. We were molten birds quiet as...

AGORKPANU

Poetry by Joshua Enam Semanyoh Agorkpanu I cannot write a poem about home and forget the land that raised me Sugar - how can a place I left for years linger on my tongue so? The liquid in my heart still flows there Pour me water to drown this thirst...

RESIDENT NOSTALGIA

Poetry by Afua Awo Twumwa at Suhum there were no curtains all the years we let the wind come & go how it wanted to we watched curtains pulled apart in the Philippines the screen filling our eyes & we thought the luxury of not needing air outside of yourself...

IN POSTERUM

Poetry by Sedem Appleh He can be a bully sometimes How he’s able to overwork and overwhelm me with my own thoughts And wonder if this very path can create for me the life that I imagined   Uncertainty. Unpredictability. Uneasiness Three fine words that summarizes the way he makes...

Talitha

Poetry by Henrietta Enam Talitha And he took the damsel by the hand, and said unto her, Talitha cumi; which is, being interpreted, Damsel, I say unto thee, arise. —Mark 5:41 KJV   This damsel, I always wonder— Was she surprised at the reversal of her journey? Did she arrive...

WOMAN LOVE

Poetry by Grace Wood Woman Love The first woman I loved, Was a slumber party dare. Giggling, we faced each other, Bare-faced and clean In bright floral checked pajamas. Her lips parted soft enough To touch mine, And my skull went glittery. I hardly slept that night, Wrapped awake in my...