For an undying second the fiery glow of the setting sun
Like the phantom of ancient gold dust
Lights the forest floor
Soon the full moon will scale the shadowed mountains
And the enchanting rhythm of African drums
Will once again seduce the village
The music will spill uncensored from the taut goatskins
Weaving tales of ecstasy, fantasy, agony, destiny,
Tales of life, of ancient thrones, of future doom, of death
Tonight secret doors will open and secret fires will be lit
Old men will take their fill from the frothing palm wine gourds
To rediscover rekindled cravings in their aging loins
The wine that will ignite tonight’s full-moon frenzy
Would have gushed from this very womb of mine
But here I stand withered and unremembered
A mere spectre of beauty long violated
My leaves hang limp in despair and shame
And the Palm wine tapper has forgotten my name
The day he first set his lustful eyes on me
As he gulped my splendour in one hungry sweep
I stood flirting with the noonday breeze
Bedeviled by demons of youthful yearnings
His promise of unending love I naïvely embraced
And yielded softly while deep into my maiden pulp
His curved metal blade he deftly plunged and spilled my sap
Around my swaying bosom dark an earthen pot he hung
And morning night and noon he milked my virgin juice
With embellished praise he called me Queen of Palms
But soon my strength began to wane and my leaves yellowed
And once my sap dwindled, so too did his charms
Two fortnights past, my ailing fibers wrestled in fruitless pain
But all I could muster was an acid lump of thickened gum
With disgust unmasked the tapper yanked his earthen pot away
And shamelessly turned his charms on my neighbour tree
Fresh verdant arms she flung asunder
and let him touch her heaving heart
And like many her kind in ages past
she chose to learn through pain her own
Life’s cruellest truths that many have written
with blood in sand and stone
— 2005
Sweet Land of Liberty: What Brand of Liberty?
Give me liberty to dream dreams and see visions
Of a nation risen from the filth of destitution
And not liberty to plan wars and bring division
Or pilfer state wealth and sanctify corruption
I want liberty to travail through painful honesty
To leave a solid legacy for Liberia’s posterity
And not liberty to pursue self-aggrandization
At the expense of my nation’s self-actualisation
Give me liberty to love and be my brother’s keeper
No matter his party, tribe, religion, pocket and creed
And not liberty to kill and be his body-parts reaper
In a shameless chase for power and fulfillment of greed
Give me liberty to nourish the youthful generation
To discover true values, virtue and self belief
And not liberty to drive them to hopeless desperation
To market their conscience and souls for quick relief
— 2005
STILLBORN
In my groins the fire of your passionate kicks
Still burns, though lifeless on my lap
Lie your little legs limp and still.
Last night I heard little footsteps on my wooden floor
They scurried through the open door and faded fast
On the wet wings of the monstrous darkness
Tailed by explosion of liquid light and thunder
That unnerved the firmaments and ripped my inside.
Now I know it was you leaving.
Silence sits so serene on your soft blue lips
That never learned to curse and lie.
Though you speak not I hear you loud
As I always have, when you flipped and tumbled
In your cozy water world deep in my belly
That became your deathbed.
What did you say you’d become?
A president, a preacher, pilot, piper, pauper?
It doesn’t matter now!
I’m content to know you were here—one of us.
And in your still little veins ran
The hopes and dreams, the passion and pain,
The frailty and fear that make us human.
— October 2004
What Happened to the Pepperbird's Song?
Blown like an old ship by the morning wind
The huge ball of dark shadows slowly drifted away
As the spirits of the African night in hurried flights dispersed;
Terrified of the soft rays of the dawning day
That threatened their arcane handiworks to unveil.
The light from Grandma’s blazing hearth
Danced tenderly on her age-etched face
That shone with unbridled ecstasy blown
By the long slow puffs she drew from her old clay pipe.
The smell of the crackling coal, heated ashes,
Roasting plantain and palm oil thickly blended
With the tobacco smoke that colonized the air
And deepened the mystery of the breaking morn.
I lay buried in Grandma’s unspoken love
Warmly cuddled by her strong but gentle arms
While the heavens gingerly midwifed the birth of the new day.
Just when the last of the shadows reluctantly slid
Behind the tall mahogany tree, a detonating festive symphony
Besieged the drowsy woods as the birds exhorted the sun.
Over the thousand notes of a winged serenade
Boldly spiraled the pepperbird’s song,
Deeply inflamed with passion for life and love, for joy and play.
“It’s always a song of a better day,” Grandma fondly said.
“The p’perbird never brings its worries to the morning ray.”
Grandma’s sacred words caressed my youthful heart
And carved in me the craving for dawns, for p’perbird songs,
For a full life of love and laughter no matter what was wrong.
It’s many years since Grandma went beyond the Big River
And the innocence of youth has long been kidnapped
When brothers in brothers’ blood chose their hands to dip.
I still yearn for dawn to savor the pepperbird’s song
But instead of the joy and laughter that once awakened
The woods, I now hear woeful chirps of death and dismay,
Of sadness and insanity, treachery and greed.
How I wish Grandma were here to whisper her words of wisdom
That once so freely flowed with the tobacco smoke
As it curled and whirled from her graying nostrils
Maybe she’d tell me what’s gone wrong with the p’perbird’s song
But then a voice in the morning winds softly whispered
“It is neither with the singer nor the song
It's with the hearers that something’s gone wrong.”
