Away Away

Damn you Nightingale!

Must thee plaint ev’ry darling morn?

Hush Hush Away!

Mi son still snore by six upon mi chest

Away away Migrate!

Flee far o’er mi window

For mi son’s pleasure grows height in sports

 Ay! Not in music!

 Away Away Flee!

 Hath is it been thee

Thou wilt murmur with thy awful beak

Away! Sing along the whistling air

Or seek Apollo and be servant

For music thy glorious boon.



     

©Awuah Mainoo Gabriel

      African-spear

Columbus; Soldier in Tear

Many times have I heard daggers rattle,

Along the frontline the justice stabbed too

The more the lust; profusely men bled

And cries and sobs; anthem of the day

And love and peace departed before warriors.



Behind the fallen men, justice stood not bruised

And honor and true victory went to men

Who preserved them swords unstained.



When the soul travelers had known remorse

The fire had already brought them despair and anguish

And sorrow pounded in their chest like the plague

And their heavy wails;

Chinking the inferno walls

And there cried Columbus aloud and aloud

“War is sour, war is sour,

Make I an advocate; lemme go preach the world the lie

That “War is foul, and hell, not a jail for a man with soul”



There and there the heavens quaked

Beside Abram’s throne a soul reproached

“Nay Nay―the road is one,

When you wish to be slain like fowl

You can’t refuse to yowl

The sword is word without push

It be true, war is sour, hatred and horror in ambush

Wobble, moan, groan; accept whatever war could give

See― a thin boiling cataract running down your cheek in despair

Ho, ho! Soldier in tear!

Should Thee spare thy soul,

Go tell the world war is vain and war is foul!”



      ©Awuah Mainoo Gabriel

                   African-spear

When death opines

When death opines

T’is solely Thee who grants

Folly of science might reprove

But ev’ry sound mind must know;

The hands that moulds is the hand

That know’st where and when to parch

And the season to dismantle

Healer! Fetish! Doctor!

T’is thee alone whom by grace revives a pallid soul

Yet thy little works doth heal too

But not when the hand of thee is diminished

He who restoreth Jairus’ rotten faith

Shall never make man moan

Thereafter triumphed beyond death, tribulation, indisposition

Do you?

Vain doctor!

Vain healer!

Vain fetish !

Vain vain!

Do not go with me

Poetry,

When I am sickly ripen

And this frigid being

Having its final uncheerful bounce

On my wooden foam;

That is when I can see my age

Sinking into the dry murky sea.

Poetry― do not go with me.



When I can see

I am the only shadow between sun and moon

And only mortality can hear me dumb

Poetry― I say do not go with me.



Since the creditor haven’t come for me yet

Let me scribe a happy goodbye as the unwritten dirge.

Let me confess through the stanzas

 That I once embezzled with the potentates.

Thereafter sought the light before this colossal grief.



Poetry

Tell my children through the gullet of euphemism

That I am leap into eternity,

Do not tell them I am gone back to birth.

And paradoxically tell me wife

That I’ll be coming again as the dearest child of her womb.

So poetry― do not go with me on this vain journey.





     ©Awuah Mainoo Gabriel

                  African-spear

Awake

Awake Ghana !

Feel th’ sunshine

The sun; no longer sweet after nine

Along cozy halls th’ sluggard gladly snore

Yet also a passionate Jamestown-folk

 Rolls his skiff

Yonder the bluish waters.

Up up sluggard! And yawn!

And quick ―Away to toil

Else you’ll grow long hands

Thy desert pocket as brown as harmattan roof

Morning fortunes sprinkles b’fore sun-hot

Go! Seek th’ world’s most gentle hustle

For th’ sun―a heartless beast after nine.


©Awuah Mainoo Gabriel
      African-spear

A shepherd’s song

And again eleven full moons hath tenderly dwindled

And th’ first tear of December

 Often comes with a certain boorish breath like winter’s

A green grass of green goes brown midst th’ ley.

Orr nay! Pasture folk

 Thou shouldn’t blubber like a donk― hee haw, hee haw!

Harmattan! You wanton phantom Duke!

Thou canst fade th’ world’s happiness; Nay!

 Thy term as short as mi damsel’s wink

Ev’n after thy death― and two moons and two after

Thou shalt miss th’ brilliance of nature in array,

Wye aye; th’ dancing of th’ motley molten mallows

And I, once again with a gleeful heart,

 Shalt gaze th’ flock graze amidst th’ ley.



   

   © African spear

 Awuah Mainoo Gabriel