THE MOUNTAIN

1

Oh beautiful sculpture
Standing proud above the hamlet,
Above the hills and valleys,
Above whole rivers and rivulets

Oh Gods creative masterpiece
Drawing up grasslands and forests
Painting greens and greys together
Viewing fine pasture and hot deserts

Oh great traditional edifice
The guardian of our little hamlet,
Protector of our flora and fauna
And providing us with food and meat

2

Many are  that wish to

Climb you up from afar

Bend themselves over to take off

their shoes or even put them on

For they have not met a kind like you

Afadja; thick, tall, beautiful!

Let your beauty be heard in far lands

That they may wish to come applaud your elegance

O mountain Afadja!

---Oke Iroegbu, Fampah Coyish---

This is my  second collaboration with Oke Iroegbu, a poet from Nigeria. This time, we wrote a piece on Nature, and about a Beautiful Mountain called "Afadja" found in the Volta Region in Ghana.

SILVER SPOON

Many are, that were born with gold spoons in mouth

And some in old nest

And when they cried gold fell

That their voices were clouded,

and not even heard

we, we were not that favoured

so we, when we cried

 they shoved big rusty spoons in our hands

we were warned to hold them glued

for with time, they will grow into gold

or the nearest to it-silver

to feel we rocked shoulders

for blood will drain both, when cut;

this was to give credibility for their doing

but when cut, we knew one thing they knew we knew

blood will surely drain one to the graves

we were stretched to believe

we all have rights, and a reason to be happy,

amidst all odds

schooled to think, and feel, we are all equal

but whom should we rain blame on?

For we all never chose this life

We were just placed here

We grew, but when we grew,

our rusty spoons never changed to silver or gold

so we polished it with gold dust

to keep our pride without blemish

but they were only telling us

we shall take pride in the trade

in which we have been born.

---Fampah Coyish---

TIPSY DIRGES

This is not a song
cooked from the core of hearts

Not a tale told from
wild tortured thoughts.

This is a dirge,
of bravery.
A eulogy
of drowned aspirations.

A comfort for the
broken, sunken soul.

---Fampah Coyish---

DECEMBER TIDES

1

Tasty for the spoils of the dry month, we are

Dry air, dry waterhole, dry lips, dry paper

Moisture lost to the heat of the traveling sun

But our feet has got many options, wait or run

And today the breeze drives the wind to us

We savor, we enjoy, to you emissary we trust

You have come with the mighty Harmattan 

Your dry airs and heat has become our tan

2

Trees sway

With blur visions on sight

As a bonus for being alive

At the point of the year

Air so dry, with hot sun rays

You only bring us dry tidings 

Cracked foot, that hurt

But we the people of this land still loves you.

---Oke Iroegbu, Fampah Coyish---

I wrote this piece with Oke Iroegbu, a poet from Nigeria. The both countries of ours Ghana and Nigeria fall in West Africa, and enjoy the same weather and climate. We have written about December and her tide. Oke Iroegbu, wrote the first stanza and I have got the second.

December, Harmattan, Nigeria, Nigerian poet, Ghana, Ghanaian poet.

OCEAN'S BEAUTY

Oceans too crave for beauty,

The colour of the sky they envy

 deep within their bosom,

 they selfishly devour.

 If I ask you to bring to me a blue seawater,

 You'll see oceans never had a colour

Of their own.

A life of pretense they exude.

At the white shore,

What they are is truly displayed;

At the feet what they hide they show.

 A life so fraudulent, they live.

---Fampah Coyish---

MY DESIRES

    I am glad that you said to me; “I love you”

For these words are full of hope;

That I may not die in lonely

Sleep at night alone

   These are my heart desires

Let me not be poor in love

For most have been sick, died

Due to the malnutrition of love 

    I do not want to say

There isn’t anything as ‘love’

That all women are the same

These are my heart desires.

---Fampah Coyish---

EBBING INTO THE TIDES OF SILENCE

You paused your heart for me
but it was so much a precious gift
to be appreciated by me
here you lie as a thread
lifeless like a stone
but stones, even make noise when stricken.
every sound in you has gone dumb
you are deaf to my slaps.

Now you're definitely going to go
on the rough narrow road
where grand pa and ma
said they'll be waiting
tell them, I shall join soon
but then, not until grand ma
stops preparing her naked
ground soups with Banku
for the wife she found me
has given me ductile reasons to stay
bolted to a woman irrespective of her cooking skills

Tell her, it was her skills she learnt
which is keeping me alive for another century
and unlike her saltless soup, I've found
a beautiful reason to live while I may.
but soon, very soon, we will end up like grand ma
with dead taste buds stuck on my tongue.
---Fampah Coyish---

RESPECTER OF NONE

Life, a respecter of none

Favours not the ugly

Handsome, fair or dark

His whips he equally unleashes on all.

With hard work

His favour could be earned, not his trust

The determined he seeks

Not even the hard working in heart

Has won his trust

His test he serves to all

Today he makes rich

Tomorrow the rich he turns pauper.

---Fampah Coyish---

NUMEROUS BITES

It was a beautiful day

A day with leftovers

Of last night’s anger

Everyone bypassing looked

But could not look, so they looked in awe

With disgust in their strides  

I sat and cried

With swollen lips, and bleeding head

That day everyone was surprised

Men could bite dogs too.

Yet that day was not the first,

For a man to bite a dog

That day was not the first

For my wife to abuse me physically

Today’s bite hasn’t been my first bite

I have just been doing

What I was taught to be-

Strong (a man).

FOR LITERATURE~

Let's lie in repetition,
Let us lie in pun.
Let's lie in oxymoron,
Let us lie in diction.

Let's lie in personification,
Let us lie in euphemism.
Let's lie in onomatopoeia.

Let us lie-
Lie in literature;
Cover ourselves with comedy.
Put off the light of tragedy-
Turn the fan of romance on,
And use a perfect rhyme in our erotism.

Oh, let us lie in literature darling!
Far from the cares of this world.
Let's lie in fiction,
Let us lie in hyperbole.

For I want to be able to tell you;
I love you heads over hills.
Let us lie in imaginations me darling,
Where everything is happily ever after.
Let us lie to ourselves that things are fine
For the sakes of literature.
---Fampah Coyish---

©Fampah Coyish-Awoken by Poems 2017