the story went as though
she'd always known the sea
and trusted in its depth
to mellow any ill, caress her
open lovingkind as in a dream.
and dream she would upon the waves,
having settled into floating reverie.
she'd close her eyes and inhale being
there among herself caressing only
ocean, only breath, all sunlit space
to draw her earthly trials gently out.
softened beachside noise would fade
and let alone her ears to hear
the water oneness dipping clear
and deeper in the troughs, for distance
from the stranded holidays,
the beachy noise of seaside frills
and bear her boyancy to rest
in lilting motion, peaceful cresting sleep
atop an intercontinental,
earthsize water bed.
her trust profoundly spanned
the trans-atlantic rift
and any rift to set apart her undulating
ancient ocean mastery. moon
and sun were kneading vastly where
her snores were lost in starfish whispers balancing
the tidal volume set
to always fill and keep afloat,
or otherwise to wake in
sputters and a salty throat.
her body settles into swinging comfort
napping over waves so deep the shore recedes...
... what bright, kind, clarity cascaded in your dreams?
what heart you had, embracing open quiddity,
never sinking nowness breath alert in lucid sleep
and water surface mystic skyward shallow course?
to merfolk gazing up in wonderment
you limply crossed their bouncing sky,
just another flight of fancy in a world of mystery?
did you dream you were a whalesong
sphering out to carry sadness sonorously? did you
school the many impulse-thoughts to clump and flee
the jaws of time? did you bask in light
and find a shining womb of self
to nurture once again and labor out anew?
did gravity make sense to you?
i float sometimes and live that question true.
sleeping far you drifted out and out and in and out of view
and whistles drowned in gathered drama fear
'my grandma! my grandma!'
screamed my cousin at the lifeguard
sweating ******* and leaping over stroke to spash
into your side a breathless shouting mess for you to calm
and ask 'what's wrong?' and angle slowly back to shore
in fits of giggles, bubble laughter at commotion's reach.
they blink in crowds, standing herdlike on the beach.

and now you swim your last,
another summer day.
like any other i awoke
and fed you eggs, so soft
     (at first it wrinkled my nose),
but taste is strange, and slimy works
just fine sometimes,
like in the absence of teeth.
she never liked her dentures,
     (she said she couldn't taste her food)
and gummed her frozen dinner meals with a smile,
like it was the greatest thing in the world.
     (in fact she'd often say, 'that was the best meal i had ever had',
     and with a force that made me happy to suspend my doubt)
and who am i, judging
that which you select? your pills,
your diapers and your vote,
your shows, your nursery rhymes,
your crown manipulation,
your age?
i use abjection well,
as something not unlike a whetstone for denial.
performing daily rituals i abhor
i retrain and edit, revising social eyes:
dilapidated fictions, safer norms
and mores tailored to a loan
with interest from the self.

she didn't call herself a 'nudist,'
though she lived beyond the fence
living **** for decades saying
'i'll never leave, i love my home.'
we played dominoes 'til noon
'another kind of indoor game, one on a side'
her interpretation of my being there
changed soon, like my aversion
for the liquid yoke she buttered with a spoon.
our neighbors loved her and i,
and to meander down our path,
lay their towels and sit
like all there was to do was visit.
lunched,
she hobbles from her plants back to the sink,
and filling the cat dish, stands
century-old arms akimbo
in the doorway, with a sigh to wake the sun.
being of caretaking was never so fun.
holding hands i help her over roots,
around the rocky sections, through
the easy path and level now
she hobbles sure, the cane a decoration
for her pride at being old and young
at heart and quick at stories overtold
in grooves to satisfy the sense of time.
greetings shower us with beaming smiles,
inching to the sandy edge. denuding,
joining everyone, we stand engulfed
in air. modern digambar to don
a vaster cloth of letting be.
skinny dipping grandma, and me.
the water slips around
her fraglile skin, human driftwood
knotted with a smile.
a grand mother slipping through akashic cracks
to undiscover friends their seeing core.
they wonder at the shore
of hoary plight
and wonder on, once we're gone.

The rainy season is at
The door once again,
And loneliness has
Brought me a new pillow,
But who is to defend
My repugnant soul?
Can it be the Gods?

Hear this! The rain has
Began knocking at my
Slammer door gradually,
Oh no, it is knocking
And wailing so heavily,
With his icy voice
Of storm and cold
Arresting my hearty dreams,
But I will retch at his smell
And hurry for my handkerchief,

Where is my lantern?
May be, the native doctor
Has the answer to the
Cylindrical jar containing
Her eternal juniper organs,
Indeed, it is my misfortune
To go about with the priest,
For even the child of
The priest even dies at noon,

Ah, I thought she was
Vigilant and ever-ready
To make the debtors
Chew the palm kernels,
But she became the
Portion of the exterior of
The *** that skin can cover,

I have lost my heaven,
Oh no, I have lost the
One whose neck is like a
Bunch of small-fingered plantain,
I have lost the whetstone
On which I sharpen
My thirsty sword to
Perform deeds of valour,

Let the Gods weep!
Let the ancestors wail!
Let the people of Africa,
Give me condolence of
The talking drums,
For their child is gone,
The wise woman who cut
Her thumb in order to get
A wise husband is dead,

Mother, the Okro full of
Seeds of children and literature,
Efua Sutherland, the queen,
The toad likes water, but not
When the water is boiling,
Send me something
When someone is coming,
Efua Sutherland, the queen,
You and I exchange gift.


© PRINCE NANA ANIN-AGYEI
Email: nanaspeaks@gmail.com

I went to turn the grass once after one
Who mowed it in the dew before the sun.

The dew was gone that made his blade so keen
Before I came to view the levelled scene.

I looked for him behind an isle of trees;
I listened for his whetstone on the breeze.

But he had gone his way, the grass all mown,
And I must be, as he had been,—alone,

‘As all must be,’ I said within my heart,
‘Whether they work together or apart.’

But as I said it, swift there passed me by
On noiseless wing a bewildered butterfly,

Seeking with memories grown dim over night
Some resting flower of yesterday’s delight.

And once I marked his flight go round and round,
As where some flower lay withering on the ground.

And then he flew as far as eye could see,
And then on tremulous wing came back to me.

I thought of questions that have no reply,
And would have turned to toss the grass to dry;

But he turned first, and led my eye to look
At a tall tuft of flowers beside a brook,

A leaping tongue of bloom the scythe had spared
Beside a reedy brook the scythe had bared.

I left my place to know them by their name,
Finding them butterfly-**** when I came.

The mower in the dew had loved them thus,
By leaving them to flourish, not for us,

Nor yet to draw one thought of ours to him,
But from sheer morning gladness at the brim.

The butterfly and I had lit upon,
Nevertheless, a message from the dawn,

That made me hear the wakening birds around,
And hear his long scythe whispering to the ground,

And feel a spirit kindred to my own;
So that henceforth I worked no more alone;

But glad with him, I worked as with his aid,
And weary, sought at noon with him the shade;

And dreaming, as it were, held brotherly speech
With one whose thought I had not hoped to reach.

‘Men work together,’ I told him from the heart,
‘Whether they work together or apart.’

It's telling looking through
the window’s eyes ; 
a room with a paling grey glass view
befogs the clouds reign inside the storm
Often feeling misbegotten regret
for the unfiltered passing glimpses,
whetstone honed and splayed ;
raw hues of a latent life exposed

There's an uncertain hidden shame
in the unheard truth
starving out in the cold;
dwelling in a petrifying silence
of a common hunger
the lonely do ache
  
Merciless hunger pangs
manifest and shake
with an unrelenting bitter taste ;
loneliness grapples and grips
like a silent earth quake
rattling a rib caged heart — writhing
as Autumn bares the trees
  
A jagged ambiguous fault line
ripples through the hollow echo ;
a bolt of lightning caught in a bottle
strikes — silently contained
swallowing the unspoken words
in a greater good

This broken merry-go-round
keeps turning round and round;
the great mandala spinning on
like a worn out hamster-wheel
without a conscious trace
of going anywhere out there

The place you come from
is gone when you leave it —
even if you really never
feel you were from anywhere
but a thousand unmarked mileposts
from out here somewhere adrift;
a pilgrimage towards understanding
why sometimes I don’t know
if I know who I am — or could have been —
waiting on a threadbare prayer

One-day the winds of change
will shapeshift — bye and bye ...

"When the light that's lost within us
reaches the sky"


Jesse Stillwater

November 2018

“ Master Blacksmith, I would like to commission a weapon most formidable. The mere mention of its legendary name shall strike fear in my foes. “

{ In Hephaestus’ name, I craft you this }

So I will hone your heart,
Set fire to your lungs,
And conquer all your unanswered prayers
Into a battle roar.

I will boil these tears.  
A stinging, blinding pool at the bay of your eyes,
Use them for crystal clarity,
To sharpen the mind like a whetstone.

I will forge a sword from your fury,
And the hate of your enemies.
Temper it with thunder,
Cut a path out of illusions.

But not before this:
I crush your spirit a thousand times,
Force you to your knees.  
I will show no mercy on your soul —
Not even if you beg for it —
Bleed it, wring the daylight out of it.
To your despair, growth is the cruelest devil,
And I its most loyal advocate.

But in time you will learn Strength,
And to heal;  
Through the growing pains and screams
Mend all broken bones,
Stitch up all the open wounds.
Dripping, drilling, stilling.
You will, you will, at your will,
Lace together the miracle, the magum opus: Your undefeated self.

No comfort or ease lies in death.  
But all phoenix bathe in flame and ash.
Selves and egos, they died for you to live
— So live!
Dance on its grave with manic abandon.
Honor it with your new life.
Transcend it, over and over again.

I am the Consumer
Not one of goods, not one of gold
Nor one of flesh and blood, but souls
I drink fear like water, engorge sorrow whole
We’ll see who’s the stronger one when that bell tolls
I betray Trust, blood splatters to rust
Beauty's a thing you call cinders and dust
I’ll build my shrine with hatred and time
Still alive in the muck, your spirit is mine


And I will eat until I’m complete
A satiated unstoppable beast
You do the math, there’s no going back-
To this world that we love once I’m on the attack
Money, my brainchild, nations, my stars-
In our fun little system of bites, wounds and scars
The borders they draw, like a hunter declawed-
Let me pacify them while they hem and they haw
Wealth’s worth more than life, how very sad
Death is encroaching, this earth has gone mad
And I am its true god, inside all of you
Division and pride, I am nothing new
Most fail to realize my myriad forms
Skin pigments, religions, when torment’s the norm
Strings for my show, your weak human traits-
Are the vectors of my blight while I sit and wait


I don’t want extinction, I’m full of love
I want global completion, I'm the eye above-
Pyramids of dead bodies and blank staring heads
The ideas behind them, they keep me well fed
No, I don't want death, my pleasure's your pain-
I'm insidious in dark parts of your brain-
Empathy is the whetstone, savage my blade
I am the tragedy where peace could have been made-
But the will of proud men wont let your hearts accrete
I am greed, but not greedy, I'm just trying to eat


This vision, my foe, I don't want you to think-
Apathy helps me forge my chain of endless links-
That will constrict this world till the fire or ice
Your whimpering fades while I steal paradise
Drugged minds that yet live drown in my river Lethe-
Dare to resist, you'll be crushed underneath me
But I'll keep you alive by a single hair's breadth
While poor dogs in the streets gnaw on themselves to death
And no, I'm not evil, there are worse than I-
My tools sold me this world as they watched children die
They’re the malicious, they gave their hearts to me
Counting the coins in which they put their beliefs
It could be anyone who thinks they are blessed
Because you're all the same, I have you fooled
Your children will be next
For I will eat
And eat
And eat

I recall the day, before she was five,
She asked to go, and play outside.
I answered, Yes, for awhile;
For I read his poem, about the road,
The travails she'll face far from home.
At our door I watched her play,
And saw the roads lead her away.

There'll be times she's on her own,
In a one-on-one, or in a throng;
In places where she won't belong;
Or find herself between right and wrong.

Yet, I untied the knot,
Dropped the tether; as a father,
I knew there'd be tools to hone,
Wits to sharpen, boards to carry,
An ax to edge on her whetstone.
There was work to be done.

If all goes well,
If I got it right,
It won't matter
Which path she roams;
She'll always know
Which lead her home.

War; absolute
This will be my macadam into re-assemblage
For if I'm not on edge, I'm taking up too much precious space
What wickedness lies beneath the surface of the skin?
I should know this place better than anyone
But my landscape has become mercurial
Ever changing, impossible to map
I am forced to navigate its pitfalls in ever complicating ways
It has become a desolate place
I alone should rule here, my sovereignty unquestioned
Yet I've become content to be complacent, and have allowed a sickly intruder to slip past my walls
They infect, demoralize: turn my skin to stone
They must be expunged; cut out, snipped from the healthy flesh like a cancer
As one removes a gangrenous foot to save the leg
Though my tools at the moment are blunt, I sharpen them daily with the whetstone afforded to me
They will not continue to expel bile into the bloodstream for long
My strength returns by the hour
They know this, and they tremble
I am the goddess to whom this altar is devoted
I am righteous fury, come to cleanse this blight with holy fire and flood
The war drums sound as the gate is lifted

The iron bell tolls -- judgement day cometh

Remember Him while you are young,
before your days and years grow dim,
before your time finally draws to a close
and you realise that life has ebbed away.
Remember Him before the sun burns out,
before the constellations are turned off
and the dark clouds remain after the rain.
Remember Him on the day the guards quake,
when the soldiers are doubled over in fear,
when the workers stop because they have fallen
and the faces peering through windows fade,
when the doors of houses are closed shut
and the whetstone grinds to a standstill.
Remember Him when people wake to silence
because the birdsong can no longer be heard.
Remember Him when people fear the mountains
and terror finds them wherever they walk.
Remember Him when the almond tree blossoms
and the grasshopper can barely drag itself along,
when all love and desire and passion wither away,
when the mourners come to wander the streets,
because you are reaching your everlasting home.
Remember before the silver ring is melted down
and the golden bowl is smashed into pieces,
before the water jar is shattered at the fountain
and the pulley wheel at the well is broken.
The dust becomes one with the earth again
and your spirit returns to He who gave it.

Nothing has meaning.
Everything is pointless,
an inane transient cloud.
A single breath of smoke.

In shallow slumber
Full in fight

Through the

Yearning

Through the night

A man apart
Of will and start

Reveals his open
Empty heart

He revels in the thoughts
That last

And never feeds
The famished past

For

Going
Home

Is this
his cross

to bear

And wear

Of earth
And air

So give to him
The proof of life

The going
Home
and worthy fight


worth
The owning
Of his plight
Upon
The heavens
And
The plains

Upon the sacred
Faceless names

Beautiful scar
I saw a chasm in my skin
A deluge
A mount of Venus
The angels took their hands
And forced upon my palm a deeper meaning
I saw it bleed
I felt the pain
No head line can account for this
No love line can amount to this
No lifeline
No imperfect star
Only knives
Sharpened by whetstone
And gleaming with meaning
As they steady carve your name into my salt
You were the razor
I was the skin
You were my love
I swear to god
Even the tears you shed found a way to cut me
Cut me deep
And I bleed your touch
My screaming nerves
my fragile flesh
My paper skin
I offer up
In all my wounds I know your heart
And as I heal I know your hope
It is a line on soft tissue
A forever
A beautiful scar