AFRO WOMEN POETRY- Six Poems and Videos from GHANA AND UGANDA

Courtesy of the Afro Women Poetry Project

GHANA

 

MAAME AFIA KONADU SARPONG

Melanin Ambience, 6’3 , broad chest , well defined
arms, wet round scarlet puckered lips, enlivenly
gleamy eyes.

I looked at him as he walked my way,
The appearance of the earth in the galaxy, like a
band of light seen in the night’s skies, formed from
the stars which cannot be distinguished with the naked eye.
I tell you, he looked like the Milky Way.

Then I stood still,
As if the library’s ac turned into a chimney,
I was sweating and panting , my breath cut, my
heart rate read 379 bpm, I had dyspnea with no
history of asthma, I was diagnosed of supra
ventricular tachycardia with aberrant conduction.
An electrical impulse moving from my atria to my ventricles
See I was not sick, there was a turmoil in my heart..
-love

He then spoke to me saying “I like you”
Tension held my butts together so tight, I could
literally feel my ass crack.
His words churned up my thoughts like the alikoto
More like my neurocrine secreted too much ADH
from my hypothalamus , my mind was in a whirl of
sixes and sevens- I was confused.

My face read skepticism,cos each time I looked at
him all I saw was egotism and narcissism.

In the lonely street of my heart i always felt ,
That my looks were not enough to make an ice melt.
I’d often wonder, how real is love?
Is it something I’d ever have ?
Is it as beautiful as the sabbath sounds, as of a dove?
Until this unanticipated day he missed his way into this dark street.

Love is a bastard; it has many fathers but let me mother yours.
They say love is blind but I won’t bother wasting
time regaining my sight from love at first sight.
His words, to my heart like healing herbs.

But if you’d ask me,
Love is cos x -cos y =-2siny( x+y)/2(x-y)sinx
You see, love is inexplicable, unexplainable,
indivisible, despicable but admirable.

I felt him kiss me and my cheeks moved to my
zygomatic as if they were hoisted with ropes
and pulleys, I mean I smiled…

SUDDENLY, I felt something
I opened my eyes only to see the same old 55yrs old
face of my mother waking me up to do chores!!
Aaaaarrrrghhhhhhh so it was JUST a dream…..

 

 

 

MILLICENT ANUMAH

The river

The unlimited water
The beauty of nature
Dark in the night, blue in the day but am colourless
How well I have been shaped
How soft I have been created
Bigger than water, but water in smaller quantity
I consume smaller things like pin, but carry bigger things like ferry
Am welcoming
I create power but, reject power
The river is my name
Those that befriend cross me with
Those who wish to know me learn to play with me in joy
Some hate me but can not do without me
At the comfort of my home, people despise coming closer
But I end up in every home in smaller quantity
Plants can not do without me
Man can not do without me
Fishes can not do without me
I am a home for others and a help to others survival
So please do not destroy me

 

 

AMA ANIMA NUAMAH

 

Have you been lonely before?

 

Cheap perfume
Misted over greying wool
Lightly pressing against his chest
Concealing that grizzly form best

Sculpted around those not-so voluptuous
Muscles rounding his gentle beastly self

Do you ever sleep with eyes wide open
Wake bright and early inflated red-eyed

Do you ever imagine shadows marching on the walls
Wake ankles toes wobbly between the sheets

Do you stay up fighting back tears so hard
Wake weary hands waging war on a battlefield

Strange women bustling nights
Cropped shirts tiny skirts lacey tights
Parade fiery long limbed damsels
Kinky hair makes me smile no longer
Whisky grows sharp on the tongue
Swirls of wine don’t tickle my fancies

Have you been lonely before
Tightly tenderly cuddled your pillow

Mangled strangled breathless
Have you been lonely before

Starved of love and warmth
Memories barely all you could afford

 

 

 

 

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UGANDA

 

BEATRICE LAMWAKA

 

Nyeri

I almost became that man’s second wife
I twisted my underwear here and there
I hynoptised myself that he was the one
I always thought of him.

Whenever he sent me a text message
“I suit you like the cover of a jerican”
I would swing my hips to his tune
he was my man.

I waited for him at the roadside
my heart excited every time
and my mind would let me down
I would only think of my beloved.

At night, I thought about this man and his wife
whatever they would be doing
I winced every time I thought he also called her, latona
I turned here and there with no sleep
I looked for traces of him in my bed
Only emptiness welcomed me.

I waited for my intelligence to return
My mother did not teach me to be second
I am a good person
What is happening to me?

This man has sent me another text message
“my world revolves on your heart”
Today, I will hold my heart in my palm
Squeeze it to give it some sense.
I will not do what it wants
I will do what my mind wants

 

 

GLORIA KICONCO

Take me to the river

We say “take me to the river”
but what the river wants is the body of a stone
the kind of stillness that can be worn.
It runs from its destructive nature
and we run to its healing waters.

What the mouth wants is wetness
a torrent of forgiveness
to baptise flesh with abandon.

We sing of the rivers of Babylon
and on your skin my fingers babble on.
When the choir takes to the pulpit
my eyes flutter into alternate timelines
suspended in anticipation that is timeless
and so we meet again
and so we meet again
and so we meet again.

What the flesh wants is excess,
A spiritual lust that is endless
where the source of every flow is ecstasy.
My eyelids capture every fantasy.
This is how I mean to possess it all.
This is how I mean to possess it all.
Like eyelashes capture dust and filter light
I hold this pleasure up to light
separate finite from finite
teach the body how to swim spiritual
show the soul how to drown physical.

What the heart wants is freedom
to relocate itself on the body
today on my sleeve
tomorrow on the cliff of my clavicle
sprung free by your tongue
which sings “take me to the river”.

 

 

HARRIET ANENA

 

A nation in labour

 

 

The Republic is in labour,
screaming
pacing the political ward,
cursing the colonial midwife
for telling her to push.
Her head is spinning,
vision blurred
mind inside out.
She drinks a cup of counterfeit morality
& blubbers a prayer of hope
for the stillborn baby.
The Republic is a headless chicken
with a body that can only flip
& flap in labour.
She curses the future
for coming too soon,
clings to a grandfather clock
that’s out of tune,
hoping it’ll correct a future
that’s gone askew.