Vagueness encircled
Fragmented aspiration!
Vagueness crafted
Fadeout the dream of living!
Vagueness designed
Slaughter the humanity!
Vagueness contrived
Maneuver division!
Vagueness persuaded
Project masculinity!
Vagueness indorsed
Homicide creation.

You're a one night stand
But we spent too many nights
I lost count of it.

You're that unexpected kiss
On a drunken wasted night
Of vomits and *****.

You're that awkward hi
Exchanged by strangers who
Thought they both knew each other
But were clearly mistaken for another.

You're the bruise that turns blue
When I accidentally bump my leg
On the corner of the bed.

You're the scar that I never
Knew I had.

You're the bittersweet taste in
My mouth every morning.

You're the last thought lingering
In my head before slumber takes me
And you're the vagueness that
Haunts me in my dreams.

You're the scalding hot shower
In a cold freezing morning.

You're the boiling tea that numbs
My tongue for the rest of the day.

You're the obsession
I will never learn to let go of.

You're that person I will
Never get to call mine.

You're the one that got away.

I walk into the mirror box again and it’s as if my life
really is just an extension of my own metaphors.
I’m caught in the mirror maze, searching for something
in the mirrors at angles, but all I can see is myself,
my sad, stupid self, stretching on and on forever
with the same boring face, the same boring feelings,
again and again until I stop being able to make out the details.
Am I looking back at myself or am I looking forwards to the future?
Will it always be the same or has it merely been
the same since forever? I stare into the mirror tunnel
at all these selves repeating themselves,
forcing the years, the weeks, the days into the same strict patterns,
merely following the self that came before them, merely mirroring
the feelings, only doing it worse and worse with each new rendition.
It’s just me, I think, in the mirror box, caught up in myself
because I am selfish and horrible. I’m selfish and horrible
and I want to turn my back on myself but
how can I possibly do that in the mirror box?
I meet myself over and over, and it’s just me,
in all this vast, repetitive vagueness, just me in
this long stretch of lonely unsettledness that surely doesn’t end.
I want to smash my own face in, so I close my eyes
and try to think, maybe, maybe, maybe, because I don’t
want to be this grey-cloud self forever. I can’t be, and so maybe,
just maybe, somewhere beyond all these selves
there’ll be a day when I’m down on the shore
and the sea will be calm and the sky will be
faded purple. Love will not sink down into nothingness
because in the cool evening air,  my heart will be full
instead of gaping and my mind will be at ease
instead dwelling on it’s own boringness
or entangling itself in own self-created sadness.
And maybe, I’ll have abandoned my book
and its pages will be dry because I won’t have been crying into it.
They’ll be no mirrors, just the ocean,
glinting like an amethyst cluster in the half light
and I’ll rest my head on the shoulder of the girlfriend
I'll meet someday and I’ll smile in this beautiful liminal moment
and nothing will be tainted by the dread of returning home.
We’ll kiss – on the shore – and rewrite it forever and
maybe the stars will fall out of the sky when I shake it and
all my trains will run on time and all the wounds
in the world will heal simultaneously.
It’s a moment surely stolen from someone else’s poetry,
but I’ve got to cling to something to avoid becoming
lost entirely in all this dark, intangible vagueness.
There’s got to be at least one imaginary moment
that isn’t just me, reflected over and over.
There’s got to be one moment that doesn’t stare
back at me from inside the mirror box.

Can't sleep, it's always the same.
I get to my room, exhausted, lie in my bed,
Close my eyes and the Sleepless Fairy
decides to take the reins of the situation.

Maybe if I go to my computer and surf for a while
I could doze off. Maybe I'll go out and have a cigarette
to calm the Fairy. No, this insomnia is different. I can't fix it
with simple solutions.

This wakefulness is not due to the anxiety of an exam,
or the diffidence I have for that one girl I can't get out
of my head. This insomnia is that small sparkle of
uncertainty that has abounded my mind for a long time.
That feeling of vagueness, of yearning. Yearning of what?
I don't know.

It is simply that feeling that I'm missing something,
whatever it is. I go around the whole day in my mind,
what am I missing? What am I forgetting?

During the day I'm acquiescent, lucid, happy.
But come night... time to go to bed.
Time to perform the daily check for recent events.
Catalog the occurrences with different feelings,
accommodated to their respective memories.

But there's something missing.

I curse the Fairy and its 1001 tricks that keep me
awake and conscious about that which is in the
subconscious.

Will the day come when the Fairy shows up no more?

As long as that feeling is housed in me, like a parasite
clogged on its new victim, the Fairy will keep visiting.

I* leapt and dove into the depths of indigo
Night spilled carelessly onto my sky
Darkness smothered with tides of indigo
I almost drowned and whimpered a cry
Grappled with the vagueness of indigo
Out of the *blue, I'd emerge with a heavy sigh

It was there that we sat as summer simmered;
Autumn, a shadow off in the distance.
I slowly nibbled after a bitter quince,
as she sat in the shade softly,
a wicked grin upon voluptuous lips.

“Can you share it with me?”
What is there to share with anyone?
“The reason for your smile.”
But the smile is already shared.
“I want to know anyway.”
I smile because I hate him.
“You should smile for love.”
They are the same currency really.
“How exactly do you mean?”
The other side of the same coin.

The Brazilian sands became too hot,
and we strayed into the town for dinner.
Bosa-nova narrated our meal,
yet we departed earlier than expected,
our love turned suddenly brutal.

I sat alone in the orchard as fall lurked.
In the vagueness of twilight I saw.
I saw her feral smile while she sambaed.
I remembered her untamed laugh.
I shed a tear for her lost artistry.

Somewhere, someplace
I lost my way along
the way, searching for
the extraordinary
forgetting the more simple
things, the everyday ordinary
like the words for a bird’s
heartbeat, the color of water
in an estuary, the calligraphy
of the grocery list, an apostrophe
like an old man picking cotton
a woman long forgotten
drowned in the vagueness
of the ocean, a blind poet
comparing the sun to a rose
light slipping through blinds
hidden behind silk curtains
burdens born by mothers
worn and weary, left alone
the name for vines that grow
on silent children’s stones.

The if and then
Of now and again
Has waged a war in words
Of joy and pain
The sadness reigns
Though nothing has occurred
To beg and plead
Yet not succeed
Can break the strongest heart
Though they tease
The subtleties
Enhance the miles apart

I heard practice makes man perfect,
But I knew practice makes
A man slave to his skills
I saw evil behind the gates of Tapa,
But I knew that was my fellow man,

I saw a man conspiring
Against his neighbour,
But I knew a demon was more
Sympathetic and intelligent than man,

I thought I had giving  
All my love to a woman,
But I knew I had become the greatest
Fool that nature has ever invested in, 

I sought knowledge with insight
But I knew I had wisdom without favour,
I sought wisdom with might  
But I knew I had  Tweaduampon on my side, 

I sought Tweaduampon  
Diligently by his favour
But I knew I had enough
Life to fulfill my destiny,

I sought a peaceful and enjoyable life,
But I knew I could not live
Life to the fullness without a woman,  
I sought a beautiful and a wise woman,
But I knew I had found the
Curse of my destiny,

I fought the curse of my destiny
With the same woman,
But I knew a woman  
Could never fully be trusted,

I sought my greatest enemy in life,
But I knew my power
Of choice was the enemy,
I decided not to choose again in my life,
But I knew I had lost
My senses and will power,

I fought against death,
But I knew the more I fought death,
The more I hated life,
I went on a long journey of righteousness,
But I knew my resting-place
Was the very evil in my heart,

I sought prosperity and success,
But I knew life on earth
Was based on time and opportunity,
I sought the opportunity to succeed,
But I knew I did not have
The time on my side,

I found the time lying idle,
But I knew the opportunity
Was far away from me,
I failed the test of life,
But I knew that was a pass of death,

I found the meaning of life,
But I knew that was
Exactly the meaning of death,
I found the essence of life,
But I knew whatever I termed
As real did not really exist,

I sought the relationship
Between life and death,
But I knew life always hate
What death loves most,
I found what death hated most,
But I knew that was
Exactly what life loved most,

I found something else
Interesting about life
But I knew life always keeps
What it hates and gives
What it loves to death to keep,

I decided to hate death,
But I knew that the ultimate gift
Life can ever give to nature is death,

I loved death instead,
But I knew death is the ultimate,
I found sickness as
A messenger of death,
But I knew life is where
Sickness only works,

I found that both life and death
Cannot be fully trusted,
But I knew the phenomena
Of life and death
Have little disagreement and
Are with one purpose,
They both seek to enslave man.


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