The Village Court

they come here
with problems
they used to solve
over a quick drink

and leave here
with new troubles
they did not have
in their simple days

what they seek
is alien to their ways
who they come before
does not think like them

On Closing Car Doors

Mother courtesy-trained you to hold a door by the handle, and shut it with good grace. That is how Breeding shuts the door. Many dumbly decided that Mother meant a door to, or in, a house. So, when they evacuate a car, they grasp the portal by the flank or edge, and fling it to a vulgar close. I really hate that.

Blip, Be Gone!

A blip on my radar
You almost never happened
A purposeless invader
You picked a shameful end

Gulf

TV3 is airing pithy promos for its premier sports programme – SPORTS STATION. They are bruiting about marquee sportsmen and women to catch the fire in people’s minds. On Saturday, they advertised a game of GULF. I know! It strongly suggests a curious contest in which the duellists bivouac themselves on opposite coastlines, and try to pilot petit, pockmarked balls across. Interestingly, they allied such a strange sport with a certain TIGER WOODS, who already governs the popular game – GOLF.

God's Real Presence

Seekers of God in a church room
Your ignorance may be your doom
For God lives right inside you
But you don't have a single clue

Public Bathroom Floor

This public bathroom floor
Was so messy and poor
To catch the 'animals' with proof
I went tracking each hoof.

The Cultural Cant of Itchy Palms

Please coach me on how many ‘clectic cultures are ’caroused’ by itchy palms. I would have placed it with the pilfering proclivity, but, in Ghana, it promises deluge-Dollars and endless Euros. To put the passé theory on trial, would you say that the S.O.L in straitened slums do not catch cacoethes in the palm? Or try asking the Makola mendicant how many times an itch has crystallised in cash for them. So, I came to the realisation, this monsoon morning, that an itchy palm means ... there’s an itch in your palm; nothing more!

Mad-House Justice

There’s a wretched squaw in epic need of mental health care, vegetating on the ‘sacred’ street below the Supreme Court building. In the smouldering daystar, in the drenching downpour, and even when the legion is lagging home, she’s ’plinthed’ on the parched pavement with her napless, dirt-caked, gamy body. One long month has crept by; nobody tries to help, for it is someone else’s job. When I was leaving the courts today, she was fast asleep – or freshly deceased – in the afternoon rain.

Emmanuella – The Guinness Song

Last night at the office, long after working hours, Alpha Lion and Tiger 2 were spiel-sparring in the hackneyed ring of flying fuel prices, emboldened ex-girlfriends and pedantic politics. Tiger 2 was scoring Hiplife tracks via his phone mp3 player, as he’s wont to do, and dancing the Caveman Stomp. When “Emmanuella” began to melodise, Alpha Lion’s face fluoresced, and he delivered a dum-dum, “this song go go plus Guinness paa oh”. Ever since we grappled with gathering our guffawing bodies off the shiny office floor, I’ve been in travails trying to find a link between the song and the stout... beyond the reason that it is Alpha Lion’s preferred alcohol, of course.

Routine Reminders

Everything prompts a melancholy memory of you! Shall I jig up a jumble sale in my house? Or shall I float a flea market in my heart?

The Women Ask Too

Saturday evening; a tall, elegant police woman at the security checkpoint. Black military boots, blue-black uniform – hugging her gym-going long legs, torso-tight, topmost button open. She reminds me of the woman-in-uniform idolatry. She saunters towards me, as if we’re both expecting something to happen. She asks me why I’m “chilling” alone. I know she’s seducing for money, but I decline to infer. I flash a serpent’s smile and wink, and gesture the passenger seat, if she really wants to “chill”. She waves me on. She didn’t smile the whole time. She reminds me, also, of the women-at-the-war-front debate, although this situation had a little milk poured over it.

Yellow Slipper in the Street

Moseying along the Spintex Road, past the bumpy link called Flower Pot, I gained on a banana-coloured flip-flop poised on the cusp of the street. Street vendors huddled together in market-conversation on the dusty shoulder, as other observers eyed the separated Siamese (the slipper) as if it was a shrine, or the magical mules of a saint. An excited ambulance had just jetted past five minutes earlier. I think that a car had scythed the lone yellow slipper from its twin and their wearer.

Business School Doctor

I’ve first-sighted this curious case of a daytime doctor, night-time malcontent who’s disbursed a decade of his life in med school; the nearest two years stitching up broken bodies. Now, he’s so foully frustrated by his failure to clip a suture in the hollow at the pit of his pocket. He’s elected to refract his career path to business school, and then become a billion-buck banker. I find this haplessly heartbreaking.

Kim Kardashian, The Racist Test & Other Random Questions

Has Kim Kardashian already picked an engagement ring?
What, on Earth, is a Red Fox Labrador?
Will Kaka really go to Real Madrid?
Is Havard serious with its 'Racist Test'?

The Demons Who Betray

What are the social lines? In a small society, where everybody knows everybody else, can friends go after their friends’ partners? Can your partner guiltlessly go for your friend? Which would mean that marriage is the only sacred grounds? If the answer is ‘yes’, then please go ahead and tell me the difference between ‘friend’ and ‘fiend’.

Sacrifice

The highest point of Love is ...


...SACRIFICE!


Now I have discovered what this means to me!

Accra’s Angst in One Instance

Gravid Grandam, why do you furiously fling me the evil corner eye before the soonest sunrays have made the scene? I was just bundling into my car for work when I espied your tired trundle towards me. You seemed to be arranging to eject spittle in my general surroundings. Is it my fault that I scurried into the car? Why did you swivel and survey me from shocked head to shivering shoes like that?

The Song Life Plays

Silence...
Violence...
Silence...
Violence...

The Poison Hunters in Accra

They flip the top of each soda they buy, hankering hungrily, but not after the fizz and flavour. They fish for harlequin hints of paddling particles, damning drops of detergent or some alien allergy in the bottle. First, they’ll blackmail and menace the manufacturer. If that ship sinks, they curse and sue for devious damages. They can rent false injury at twenty Cedis per devil-dealing doctor.

Elementary Eye Care

My friend’s eyes were always crimson-sore – they looked like a dying fire. So, the obligatory oculist opportunistically ordered optical lenses. The ersatz eyes arrived, but the raw discomfort mulishly remained. Rather than return to the pricy eye doctor and risk racking retinal surgery, we ’wimped’ back to the ABCs. We discovered that if my friend laved his still-sleepy phiz at first light, then he didn’t drive his hands to his eyes. The soreness soothed, the burning breezed away, and into the bin flew the gainless glasses.