corruption is dead

What nature have you created for yourself?
You back-stabbing, sleazy fraudster;
Your temperament is tainted, and non
Wants to be publicly associated with you,
Yet, your features are embossed on souls;
Strange, you imprison a nation and a continent.

You have not an ounce of honour, nor dignity;
A blood vow to usurp sincerity and wisdom,
Your siblings’ are greed and gluttony,
Acquaintances with misdeeds and negligence,
You perpetrate greed and egoism in men.
Pranks and a hoax you played on my people.

How did you achieve such a dramatic feat?
You bait my people with mirages of wealth;
Entangling an endowed continent in your web,
Hunger, sickness, famine, poverty and death –
You unleashed. You have humiliated justice
And freedom has lost its footing on solid ground.

How proud and boastful you have become;
You have given power to fools and sycophants,
Wise and frank men have to bow before them.
You even control the hearts of those who speak,
Against you, and royalty squirms in our presence,
Your snickering angers me.

You have caused men to isolate honesty,
Humiliated and crippled, she is mocked.
A trap for candour, have you laid in his misery,
Hoping to cower him into submission,
But the thread of light at the end of the tunnel,
Is hope for sincerity and faithfulness to sprout.

Like Romulus and Remus, I’m distinguished;
Genuineness was my nurse and confidant,
Truth taught me oratory skills and guts,
Boldness helped me take my first steps,
And Integrity has being my best pal.
Now I’m all grown up and I’ll crush you.

I plucked the first fruits of faithfulness;
Inspiring candour to rise from his misery,
Virtue is in the pink, smiling with a grin,
And values, is visiting homes evangelising
A formless campaign strategy to box you in,
The message – let us eradicate corruption.

Your tricks laid to bare, disgrace is snarling,
And humiliation has shown it true character,
Corrupt men have regrets written on their faces
They hate themselves for buying your lies,
Their hearts and souls, have we won back;
A changed people, an enhanced perspective

They understand the harm they caused others;
Pardon us, forgive our injury, they pleaded,
And the aroma of forgiveness filled the air.
They are giving back to society what they stole,
A hundredfold, a thousandfold and more,
They are conscious of their actions now.

Come, let us rejoice; for corruption is dead;
And prosperity, has returned to our homes again
Our ancestors twitch no longer in their graves;
The distorter, of our adult and youth is no more.
Her reign has been toppled; her ashes scattered,
A new queen, Integrity, rules our hearts and mind.

religion is sick

O Religion, you are very sick!
Filled to the brim with deceit and greed.
You lend yourself, the umbilical cord,
For the poor, the frustrated and the ailing.
Aren’t we all under the weather?

An invisible entrepreneur, you are;
In the howling storm, you offer relief,
Intangible products, displayed on your shelves,
At prices that leaves our pockets empty,
And yours full, it’s your little secret.

You are in bed with politicians!
The very virus causing our ailment?
Irony is a shaggy dog story,
No wonder, your profits are not taxed.
A charity? The richest industry, I say.

You make more money in a day,
Then weekly transactions on the stock market.
Through sermonization of prosperity;
Your congregation question not your objectives,
For fear of offending God.

You shout your goodness from the roof tops;
Materialism and consumerism has replaced your love,
Respect amongst men do you seek and ask for.
Compassion has lost its place in your heart,
Dining and wining amidst the suffering of the feeble?

The old way of worship is no longer fitting,
Tis the season when we enjoy the fruits;
Of our fathers’ labour, your homily delivered.
Give, believe and you will receive;
Truth twisted to outfit a selfish generation.

O Religion! A miracle we implore for thee;
You no longer trod the long narrow road,
Because you are so fat, partially blind and lame.
Your celebrity status is costumed by arrogance,
You have found solace on earth.

O Religion, in your affliction, you forgot;
The very canon you have preached for centuries,
Tis miracles you demand from Onyankopon-
How sick you are, testing the Lord God?
Implore His mercy, and turn away from your sins.

the african dream

A very long time ago,
On the shores closest to the centre of the earth,
Chunks of gold littered the coast line;
Of the land, where the people smiled, and laughed.

It’s been a while, O, how fleeting time is.
A people so colourful, they made the sun smile;
And the moon smirked with such pride,
That, the stars wish they were humans.

O, the people, they had contentment:
Each was for all, and all belonged to everyone.
Paradise, their land was;
Their culture made tranquillity look sadistic.

Where slaves, were family.
And royalty, flowed in every vein;
Every family, a part of the governance.
Tis where democracy learned its tenets.

Home their land was,
And oneness, their breath;
That unity became unemployed.
And greed, took a vow of chastity and celibacy.

Happiness learned from the people,
For they had learned to live.
The will of Tweduapon, they manifested in their lives,
And love blossomed with their every touch.

Until that fateful morning;
When the strong south eastern winds,
Steered the ships of the men from afar,
Who wanted the gold that littered the shores.

Gifts, they showered on those strangers,
Have the best that our land offers, they pleaded.
For their godlike nature, made them carefree
And sharing was their merry.

As they made merry, evil watched with anger.
And vowed never to rest, until it destroyed them.
In the hearts of the strangers,
It sowed its seeds, and nurtured until it grew.

Lies the strangers peddled,
Your way of life makes you sick and poor.
O, how stupid we have been,
Thus began a new education – indoctrination.

As they learned from the strangers,
Evil permeated their thoughts.
And greed filled their hearts,
Like cancer, it spread through their land.

Wail, wail, cried the mothers;
For their eyes were opened,
And they knew greed from moderation.
O, what new language they learned.

Yours, mine, ours, theirs, we and they;
Happiness aged and greed broke its vow,
And fear sprouted, with terror as its leaves,
Like the sun flower, A new dawn began.

Our home have become homes and houses,
The aged we chide, for the advice they give.
And our children, we left them to their own fate.
Seize, amass, deceive – a new culture we adopted.

O time, one moment it is here, and then it is gone.
Why did we let go? It is too late they sang,
And they forgot “Sankofa”.
Because, they had become emotional.

Where hast thou gone, Oh Rationality?
Come, come for my people have lost their senses,
And they have stopped dreaming,
A lost cause, our lives have become.

We have replaced organic with artificial,
Modernity and development we call it.
And poorer have we become,
Because we no longer care, for our young and old.

Each one for him or herself; and God for me only,
That is the new religion.
And Onyankopon wept with pity,
What grave have you dug for your selves?

I gave them everything, He thought.
Why have we replaced gold with paper?
Modernity it is, my Lord they answered,
And we will survive it.

What happened to dreams?
They are distant thoughts and impossibilities,
We will savour the present,
And leave tomorrow to fend for itself.

Dreamers, are visionaries and they are not welcome.
They set targets impossible to achieve,
Why should we toil so hard?
When we will be gone tomorrow.

We want to be like the stranger;
But we do not want to put in their efforts,
It makes our back break,
Their ways are harder, but it is too late.

Sankofa, where art thou?
Teach us the ways of old,
When we used to care for the earth.
Our home is broken, and our land in a peril.

Dream, my children dream;
Dream and visualise, the future is in your dreams,
And your children will be proud of you,
And your fathers will bless you.

Your brother’s keeper you should become;
The earth you cultivate, are the remains of your ancestors,
And they give you food to eat.
Do the same, for the next person, male or female.

Your strength lies in my courage,
Your faith in my belief,
And your peace, in my harmony,
The future is our dreams put together.

Come Africa, let us dream;
About a future so bright, the sun can retire,
And our children, they will preserve our memories.
Wake up you sleepy creature, and lay the world at your feet.

A new paradise our dreams will create,
Assume your rightful duty, as co-creators with Oboadea.
And today can be made better, tomorrow best.
A new dream, the newest dream, the African dream.