FOREVER

Let us die in peace, let us live in misery

The stars can fade we will be shining

We hope for life but prepare for death

Is death coming for me today or never?

Whether we die young or at hundred

We don't have the faintest idea about the future

But we shouldn't stop planning towards it

We suffer and cry but

Life is a sharp knife we buy

We never know when it is going to cut us

Can you imagine a world where none of us die?

Can you imagine the joy on this battlefield

When we kill death?

Can you imagine a world

Where there is no finish line?

Well this poem is written by a blind man

Let us march to the battlefield

Some are going to die,

Some are going to live to write this tale.

Sooner or later,

The battle bell will be heard

And we shall know no longer and

Appreciate the human beings

Our enemies are.

In this life,

Some are the foundation

Whilst we are the superstructure

Whilst others are just the finishing.

We each play

Our part to make this music complete.

This music was composed by

A deaf man!

So many are the songs that couldn't be sang,

So many are the destinies that never came to pass

So many are the lives that never lived

Well this poem was written by

Someone who never lived

We await the melody from the bell

We stand ready to fight

Sooner or is it later,

A friend will perish by the legs of a passing horse.

Sooner or maybe never

This war will all end

The emperor will boost for having won the war,

Sooner or now,

Someone will die forever

With all un-sang song vanish into forever

We await the melody from the bell

We stand ready to fight

Sooner or is it later,

A friend will perish by the legs of a passing horse.

Sooner or maybe never

This war will all end

The emperor will boost for having won the war,

Sooner or now,

Someone will die forever

With all un-sang song vanish into forever

This poem was written by one that was never at the war

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 FOREVER COVER ART DESIGNED BY James N.Y. Cobbinah. Special thanks to Samuel Oteng Antwi

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TALENT

As a child, I may have had a skewed perception about what talent was (so I am made to think now). To me then, talent was one that was to amuse or to awe people – talents to me included ability to sing and rap well, dance, intelligence and a few I can’t remember now. When I was a child, before 14 years, I classified talented girls as those who were highly intelligent, those who weren’t easily intimidated by the fact that they were females and were much focused on success. Back then, I had no idea that a girl could be talented for being just beautiful (and to a large extent dumb). I happened to be in the “A” class back in my junior high school days and this class was noted for brilliant people; the girls were extremely brilliant and much focused on making it in life and to me, those were what I called talented girls.

 

I go to Senior High School and have to embark on a re-socialization process to update my mental faculty that a girl can be talented for being just beautiful even if she is last in examination (should beauty be all that she had). Hence, I was easily disgusted by girls who begged for respect because of their facial or body construction. I was equally annoyed by boys who demanded to be treated in a special manner just because their parents were rich, because they smoked or because they dressed in a provocative manner. I grew sadly to accept that the word talented had been pushed so low to accommodate a lot of anti-social activities.

 

Well I knew that a girl could be talented and beautiful because of what she had acquired through hard work and sacrifice. But the current trend suggest otherwise; women can now be praise and treated with respect because of how they look. This trend is becoming increasingly popular on especially Instagram, Twitter and Tumblr. I am for one person is not against a female because she is beautiful (it will be childish to do so), I am against one who behaves like the whole world revolves around her beauty. A female is worth more than that; a female is one who is ready to change the world she is in, one who is ready to sacrifice to make the world a better place for us – I only wonder how one can use just beauty to achieve this. “Beauty without brains”

Now, the music industry is now a safe haven for some people. It is no longer populated by people with talent. Hence, it is not uncommon to see boys rapping about being “dope”, rich and handsome on a borrowed instrumental. Most of these people barely know that music is not just about the heavy drums, synthizers and the noise they make, music was meant to educate or carry across a message. How on Earth does “I have money you don’t, I am dope, you are f**king n**ga” benefit the world? Most of these music cannot be played on radio – it is full of provocative words so much that if it were to be played on radio, we might only hear 10% of the words used in the song.

 

I maybe a bit old school but I believe talent is not all about having a beautiful skin, make up and provocative dressing. If you have talent, use it to help the world. I have been forced, rather sadly, to accept that a girl can be talented just because she is beautiful but I am definitely not going to accept the fact that a boy can be talented because he smokes or he has a knickers at his knees. I don’t see the talent in that, let us raise the standards of the game up.  

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Short Story: PRAYER; Life, death & nothing

Once, Sunday came calling and I responded by paying my maker my mandatory weekly visit. I was never an honest Christian – the reason why I frequented church was primarily to dispel the rumours that were flying about me and also to get people off my back. This Sunday was meant to be rudimentary – go to church, sit down, clap, give offering and most importantly fidget with my phone. Little is known however of what might happen the next second.

 

It so happened that whilst I was in the prayer mood, I felt a tap on my left shoulder imploring me shift to the right, which I obeyed without bothering to look at the person that tapped me. I continued praying with the conviction that God would hear my prayers. I was interrupted yet again, this time, on my right shoulder indicating me to shift to the center. I obeyed; not devoid of annoyance and some unexplainable feeling burning deep within my lungs.

 

I returned to my prayer sitting at a spot I disliked the most, then I heard something that shocked me to my core and left me more breathless than speechless. “Lord, please deliver me from this misery and take my poor soul from this world tonight” I heard it so clearly, there was no way I could have mistaken what I heard! Why would anyone wish for death? I asked but here I sat, frankly oblivious of what was possibly going through the narrator’s mind, still I wasn’t ready to look at the age of the narrator at that moment because I knew for sure that the prayers would end and I could get many a time to look at his face.

 

I regained my composure and returned to “my prayer”. Then I was interrupted yet again by a supplication which made me cry and emotional, “Lord, please give me more years to live on Earth, how would my family survive when with my demise? Although the doctor said, I am meant to die today I know you can change my destiny” he sobs “Lord, I know I haven’t told my family about my impeding death, I did so on the hope that you could save me. I know you would have mercy on me on the fact, I have come to you at a period where my heart is failing me.”

 

I sat down wondering what is happening, here I sat in the middle two people with diametrically opposing prayers; one wishing for death, one wishing for life and I not having the faintest idea of what I wanted. I felt so annoyed at the person on my right and sympathetic to the person on my left – why wish for death when all what everyone wants on this Earth is life? This is just grave insanity.

 

I decided to lift my head and finally look at my two friends; the one on my right was so young a man, I doubted if he was even older than I was. He looked glamorous, with one of these fashionable man’s hair style dressed in suit and tie with some highly polished shoe. The man on my left was an old, I wondered how long it took him to walk from his house to the church, and he looked so roughly dressed and had this appalling smell which cut my nose like a knife.

 

I couldn’t help asking myself, why someone dressed so fine who looked rich or at worse in the middle class wish for death whilst an old man dressed so shabbily and poor looking would wish for life. Then I asked again “how many more years does this old man want? He probably over eighty!” Then I asked myself yet again “After all, they know what they want in life, what of you”. I bowed my head down and continued to pray hoping that I would not again interrupted.

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Nativitate Dolor written by J.Y. Frimpong & Eden Akwasi King

 

When God created the world, all that there was,

Was happiness!

And as such man lived life in eternal bliss.

The warmth from the sun breathed on man

Like they shared affection of ninety three million miles.

The wind had this enchantment of bathing around man

Like her existence was to serve man.

 

The Garden of Eden pampered the foot of man.

To them, they were royals

Whose footsteps were blessings to keep warm.

God sat in the Heavens smiling at His perfection.

And it also smiled back at him.

Life was like a sweet wine which begged to be drank.

The bleakest memory of a tragedy to anyone

Was unknown to the imagination of man.

 

Shortly before creation,

The war which had sent the fallen Angels

Out of heaven was promised never to return.

It was then that the snake,

Cunning as he was wobbled to Hell to satisfy sheer curiosity.

The devil,

Seeing the epitome of himself come near him

Gently slipped himself into the soul of the snake

And journeyed back to the Garden.

He took some mints after licking some ixora sweets on the way.

His breath was like the freshness of morning,

His voice the soothing touch of purple silk.

When he spoke to Eve she was bewildered with glee,

Although she beat a thousand thoughts about disobeying God,

The devil said

"Oh gracious daughter of life,

You have begot the one truth that will set you free.

 Here I am."

 

After a short argument

Which Eve fought really hard to lose,

She took the forbidden fruit.

She bit into it.

Behold, the birth of Pain!

 

Dizziness and fear of sweetness

Clung unto Eve like the fins of growing yam

"Oh let me run to Adam and bid him taste this evil sweetness"

 

The taste of pain felt as much as the guilt of disobedience,

Which contrasted with the sweet deathly taste

From the same fruit to the tongue.

The snake began to offer support,

Ridiculing the folly he had made out of her

To unleash Pain unto Earth again.

 

Seeping through the air like an aphroditic aroma,

She stole the breath that hung in the nostrils

Of every living thing God had created.

All was filled with her sting,

Her touch, her soothe, her being.

Pain came to dwell in the world too.

 

You see,

When God created the world,

He had captured Pain and trapped her in the fruit;

Never to be broken, never to be bitten.

Forbidden!

And now, for all of life and time,

Pain has come to dwell with man.

 

Once upon a time pain was born

And for the rest of life, Man run away from her.

She was the reason they run; she was the reason they stopped.

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"I Am Naked" written by J.Y. Frimpong & Eden Akwasi King

 

 

To scrape a thousand shields off my body,

To break my skin into tiny pores

Is not enough to render me bare.

Though my clothes be torn, ripped and peeled off me

Though the darkness covers me

And shallow my shame to a million depth below judging eyes,

It still is not enough to render me bare.

You see,

The guards that came with me up to behold right and wrong, life and living,

Left me just before I could crawl my knees up to the stage of being clothed.

So I am naked.

Naked of life and of living

 

To betray me like I was an old blue jeans,

To leave my heart broken into a million stars by telling me lies

And naming yourself my best friend

Is just not enough to break me down

Though, I look lonely and miserable in the festival of love and friendship

Though you might have turned the sun away from me

And have left me cold like I was the Prince of Pluto

Is laughably not enough to make me bare!

It just isn’t enough to make me a hopeless romantic

You know,

In the evening I shall beat my chest and cry for your touch

But the morning will come and all thoughts of you will be gone

I admit I am naked

I am naked of your love

I am naked of your friendship

 

Before you sought my tender tissues

To screw in your arrow sliced heart

I was way low on smoothness

I was not prepared to be ravaged

But I was ready for spillage

Because I was naked of love

I was naked of warmth

I thought you could win a chance at filling in spaces

Nature and being, had opened...

Now I still am

Naked of love. Naked of warmth.

You couldn't render me any barer.

 

Before you came walking in the silent nights,

I laid in pain begging for a respite

But there you opened the doors to my soul

And stole it whilst I stood watching

I begged that you would redeem me

By being my savior for the night

Yet you said killing me was an exquisite joy

But it so happens that at times death dies

And the gates of Hades are thrown open

Like the parted red seas

I got you on your knees

And I will no longer live my life

Hiding and pacifying your greed

I might be dead

But I am naked of death, my bones feel younger

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