POETRY
K. Asare-Bediako
SHRAPNEL IN A TOWN
For the dead to come back to life,
a new war must broke to splint a bullet
on my body
and ransack a brothel town into
the cranium of the wind,
leaving notes of lost debris on every door.
It is not so long after we harness bones.
The violence is not gone and forgotten after
my brother visited with a
bullet stuck on his back.
The maligning atmosphere after a troop
converted the floor into
a weary magma
that melted the foot of the knight god.
First, it was a pretence under a heavy moment
of rain when mother
could only fill the tanks with blood,
it was under the pretence of old
calendars with grey
walls telecasting the women on weary screens who are dangling
their beads towards
the odwegyi festival.
Before this moment, my half brother only knows how to slaughter
the fur from a hen.
Peeping through our worn window,
he sees his fellow boys practicing mortal
combat with their
father's cutlasses.
Even before this moment,
I usually retire myself at the playground
whenever there's
no scuffle between two
interracial siblings—a routine, peacefully
before justice wakes up from the dead.
For the dead to come back to life,
justice must die for another crime of war.
Lately, the rain does not fall as before.
I did a little supplication under my pillow,
these engraving ones are martyrs
that hum for a freetown.
My fingers shriek like ghosts.
I reminisce a piece to crane
the heavens
and I bow under the beetles of a god—sunshine.
A shrapnel falls on my neck.
History is a benign resurgence
so I manage to transcend their unfulfilled
wish into a theory for the future.
MO(U)RNING
That which we usually greet
Under a baobab shade—a routine
Look into the well dug in our eyes.
Like a string, we pull together to
Gather consolations, a hunter
Whispers tenderly—strength-
Aging word. Butterflies swim.
Dirges split ways. A heaven is
Mourning. Heaven is morning.
Beneath the pillow that houses
Our grief, beneath the women's
Yard that knifes a soft heart to
Flame. To be perish, we rather
Garner the clouds of manifold,
Soldiers, match unto a bitter end.
God, here lies a spectacle,
Another fading existence. This,
We never asked to persist.
This ritual must be another
Routine of the past.
Asare Albert Kweku writing as K. Asare-Bediako, is an up and coming Ghanaian writer, teacher, coach, poet, philanthropist and a legal aspirant. He chose writing as a therapy to aid him breath away thoughts of his invisible father. He is a diverse writer of colour and mostly centres his works within the crannies of the African continent, with works published/ forthcoming in both local and international magazines. He is the author of the microchapbook, Portrait of Many Colours (Ghost City Press). He is either singing or learning song, sleeping and watching TV when he gets away from writing.
He tweets, @Asarewrites
Instagram, @asarewrites
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