On the strings
Binding mortals together, you lay your dagger
And set apart,
The centre that holds us together…

You set
Our household in despair
And unending
Tears and sorrows, you fill our souls and hearts with...

You are...
Yes, a silent murderer, surely, you are:
You invade the joy that fills
The household of mortality and leave endless mourning songs on our tongues...

In your presence,
Where is the refuge of mortality?
In your eyes,
What is the value of mortality’s breath on this earth?

From nowhere
You have stepped your feet in our territory
Draining breaths
And raiding souls...alas, you plant the seed of fear in our hearts...

You fill
Our thoughts with forts of weary
And crush
Our hearts with dagger of fatality…

You set
Deafening quake and pains in our souls
And wane the survival
Of mankind on this shore with your arrival…

Ebola—
You, innocent faced murderer
Who has found
A niche in the home of strong-but-weak mortals...

Ebola,
Many you have set on that Voyage Of No Return¬¬—
Their wails, alas,
We hear in the silent night as their bloods smell on your arms…

You are
A scare to our existence
For life is death
And death is life with the arrival of your presence…

Ebola,
You’re but, a thief of souls...
Murderer!
Ebola, O’ yes, you are a silent ******—

You are
The silent murderer reaping our souls and setting down our household—
You are the murderer
Yet, feared to be approached by even the 'mighties'…

You are
An unseen beast; you’re a barbaric stranger...
You are but,
A silent murderer in our home...

We wholly
Hate you from the depth of our souls—
Dark or white,
Ebola, yes, we truly all hate you!


Oswald Okaitei
(World Poetry Theatre Ambassador from Ghana Project)

From WHISPERS OF A HEART
(C) 2014

In their blind bid
To become westernized,
They lost touch with reality
Created shadows of themselves
Despised their own intrinsic values
Embraced a twisted dress sense
Of fallen pants and revealed underpants
Idolized everything they're not
The good, the bad, the ugly
They birthed dual personalities
Picked up foreign accents
On ****** home-based passports
The American Dream, they call it,
As they wear winter jackets
In scorching African sun
All in the name of fashion
Trading our simple hues
For complex shades unknown
Bleaching skin and hair
Trading natural black for artificial white
Unaware the very gods they adore
Are tanning theirs to look darker
Insecurity drives them mad
Inferiority complex overtakes them
As they ban mother tongues in offsprings
Placing exotic tongues on pedestals
At the expense of our cultural future.

This is not an attempt at poetry
This is wake up call to Africa
Be bold, be proud, be black!
You are BEAUTIFUL!!
You are AFRICAN!!!*


© Raphael Uzor

In my weakest moments

The ant always has the greatest comments;



Take it as a stage

Or a story and hurry the page



If only I had the mouths to spill

My horror stories will the world fill



A tooth that will break, does not need a vigorous shake

It can embarrass the rotten banana by falling without a brake



People believe our parts are pre-scripted

The sooner you take it as it is, the sooner your path will be corrected



Worries, like a swam of bees, whip to their fill

Before leaving the scene where their intruders try to ****



You are the brick, you decide to burn strong

Or be weak and risk not lasting long"



Just these words make me

And the path clears for me.

Amoafowaa Sefa Cecilia (c) 2014

He sought to break

What he could not shake in its fury

He sought to beat

What he could not fight at its strongest

He slacked when time slept

In its weakest moment

He forgot to fix the cracks on his happiness,

To ruin the battle of his sorrow,

To beat the taunting teeth of hardship

He watched as champions

   Amoafowaa Sefa Cecilia (c) 2014

The mighty pen
Pulls me into his den
At the count of one to ten
He makes me the woman among men


He asks me to on him depend
So he can the words contend
He knows I love to myself fend
He helps me to a lovely bend
      Amoafowaa Sefa Cecilia (c) 2013.

Aren't they supposed to be people, too?
Pigment is really that important?
They are not *****!
A separate restaurant,
Drinking fountain,
Theater,
Bench,
Everything!
Because you can deal with "different" people.
They had "rights,"
But if they were considered people, the segregation would not have happened. They had no choice.
The conditions were worse.
How is that fair?
Hardly any jobs were open to them.

And I know you know exactly what I am
Talking about, but I never said once
That almost everyone called them that one despicable word:
******.