Tag: Poetry

Meet Maame!

Hi people!
Permit me as I introduce a VERY talented young lady in today’s post. Her name is Hazel and is also known as “Maame“.
Well, the heading on her blog says a lot about her: “Adorned in African beads and riding a kangaroo, I am an African Australian“. To be more direct, she is Ghanian, but was born and lives in Australia. 😉
Besides her poetry she is also an aspiring Public Health Practitioner; Her hobbies are dancing, coloring, drawing, reading and writing; She loves kids, pets and traveling.
One of the many things I admire about Hazel besides her wide smile and cheerful nature is that though raised in Diaspora, she constantly holds on to her African heritage; You can even tell from some of her poems 🙂 … We communicate on Skype, and I can tell you that it is ALWAYS  a thrill when we get to chatting in Pigeon English 😀
Meeting Maame on WordPress has been a blessing as I have found a friend and an online African Sister in her 😉 … I’m glad that she is very much in love with the color of her skin and the many cultures it encompasses.
Below is one of her earlier pieces, which I still find  very intense till this day:
Ramblings of Children in Diaspora – Binta and Yataa

Ramblings of Children in Diaspora:
“War”
Pa,Pa,Pa that is a noise of war.
The sound of a shotgun killing the acquitted.

Ta ta ta that is a noise of war.
The sound of a man’s hard leather boots.
Moving across the wooden floors boards in our abandoned house.

Sh,sh,sh that is a noise of war.
The sound of a young men luring innocent girls into their dungeons.

Hm,hm,hm that is a noise of war.
The sound of a mother worried about the welfare of her children.
As she drinks dirty polluted water after giving her children the last bottle .

Can you hear our cries? Can you picture our lives?
As we run, we run as far as our swift small feet can take us.
We pray as we sleep the dirt of the earth becomes a blanket.
But when we sleep we can still hear the noises of war.
They are a never-ending soundtrack that replays every day in our heads.
As we awake from our nightmares we are forced to a life of confinement.
Refugee living.
Our mother died from cholera. We prayed and prayed for god to save her.
But she didn’t survive.
Our father shot by the soldiers and now we are orphans of war.
Without parents we sit and wait for someone to take us to a distant place.
As we wait,we pray. As we pray, we lose faith.
Week by week.Hour by hour. Day by day.
Finally we are rescued by a long lost aunty.
My sister and I are taken away to the promise land.
Memories of Sunday school in the village fill our minds.
Surely God had remembered us like the Israelites.
We thought we were  going to be so happy.
We love eating bread and jam, milk and chocolate cake.
Truly Living life in London is a blessing
But war still haunts us.
We still see the soldiers who killed my father in our dreams.
The rebels who defiled our lives and robbed our sacred  pride.
This scares us and we feel like the living dead.
walking amongst the people of this cruel world.

Drip,Drip,Drip this is a result of war.
I am a young child, Binta 12 years old
Yet I still wet my bed every night.
In fear for my life.

Shake,Shake,Shake  this is a result of war.
I am Yataa, A young teenage girl who cannot speak English
on her first day of high school.
I have been stigmatized , ostracized and traumatize.
since that day I have never been the same.
I find it hard to talk to strangers often get scared of  the slightest noise surrounding me.
I am  just a small  girl yet I have viewed more than most adults have ever seen.
We hope one day that war will cease to exist just like our childhoods were diminished.
By;Maame Afrique

For more of her work please check out her blog at “Fairy Floss Fantasies & Sugar Coated Dreams” (Yes its a link, so click on it! :D)
MUCH LOVE!!!! 😉

The Death of Six Degrees of Separation

(culled from wikipedia)

Social networks draws close the distant stranger,
Once “Friend of a friend”, Now “brother and sister”
Six degrees it is no longer,
You need just sit back, “Click and Enter”.

©2012 Festivalking

INTERMISSION

These blank pages lay empty,
I yearn to fill them with love, hate, joy or melancholy
But expression weighs thin, while desire to fill each page burns feverishly within.
My voice is trapped within fear’s cage,
I am as an unsure artist, paralyzed as I take the stage.
These sheets are naked,
I yearn to clothe them with my emotion,
to bathe them in “self” with each stroke of ink
and bear my soul’s devotion; to let my heart speak.
But I am hunted by barren imagination born of caution’s defeat.
Like a rain cloud, I am pregnant with word,
but the fear to birth them keeps a voice unheard.
…Anxiety seems to stifle this song bird.
I sought approval from an unseen audience,
I suppressed “true self ” and lost “true vision”
Bringing death to many expressions from fear of rejection,
This, the cause of a long-ass intermission.
From fear’s cage I now break free,
I seek my voice’s redemption; my Immortality….
Throwing caution to the wind I allow these words unwind.
No longer will I let the audience my words define
For these sheets, these pages… they are not their space, they are mine…
©2012 Festivalking

 

Hi guys! 🙂
I am SO sorry for the long silence, but I think this piece explains why I sort of went into a shell. Missed you all and am hoping to get back into the groove of things 🙂
…. MUCH LOVE! 😉

A Valentine Thought

Valentine’s Day…

A day of pampering and pleasure,
Its February the 14th!
The day all lovers treasure 🙂
When love is at its leisure,
Husbands! How DARE you NOT remember 😉
The insignia for the day- “Heart shapes in velvety red”.
Chocolates, cards, flowers and gifts are shared;
Candle lit dinners;
Rose petals on floors, sheets and pillows spread.
Eros flits about and from his touch no romantic heart is spared.
On this day some look to get laid; 😉
Others seek to have past love replayed.
Friends laugh; Lonely hearts cry,
The words “Happy Valentine’s Day” is offered to the passer by.
But to me today is a day like any,
Earmarked by gifts, cards, cakes, love’s crest and candy!?
For this reason I say this prayer earnestly,
“Dear Eros, keep Valentine’s day tattooed on the hearts of many”
For we needn’t await 14th February to celebrate Love in all its glory….
©2012 Festivalking
…HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!!!!!! 🙂

An ode to Crude

Rich filth,… that from which nations amass wealth
Your existence, a fuel to the beasts of men.
From you births the many substances that drives the nations
Father to momentous wars and mother nature‘s ebb and destruction.
Refined and used, you belch abuse into Gaya‘s atmosphere,
… yet we would seek you out and bring forth your flare to air from land and sea.
O woe is man for drawing earth‘s black blood and making of it a demigod.
They kill, steal and lie only to have control over the land from which you are bred.
Energy from the relics,
Power and Poison …,
A wicked jewel that I would rather name “the devil’s piss“,
I pray our addiction will not rest with you forever!
But until pigs fly I for Gaya will shed my tears, as man’s lust for you is unending…
For what are we without our fill of “Texas tea“?
©2012 Festivalking

Cold Eyes

Eyes cold as they stare into space,
Cloaked in pain a shattered heart,
Memories of what were and broken possibilities,
Reminiscence of sweet words of a former love,
….The harshest blow rendered is “goodbye”.

Eyes cold as they stare…
Heart, heavy; Mind, lost in torturous thought.

“He is gone; he is somewhere but nowhere I can reach.
Perhaps another takes my stead… someone, something or some place?
For whatever reason the prize is mine no-longer…”

Without tears, …2 eyes, cold and staring into space,
They seek to draw Eureka from thin air,
will cognizance of what went wrong and who was at fault bring them rest?
It changes nothing! a heart is broken and a whole is still made half.

I pray you cold eyes cease from the nothingness of space
and set your sight on beauties unknown…
Assuredly, no solace will you ever find as you stare away,
Let go the gloom in your past and look to the future in technicolor…

©2012 Festivalking

HEART BREAK!!!One of the many hazards of romantic love.
Been there! Grieved! …and still I rise 😉
If you are a romantic like myself then there’s a probability that you will one day (or may have already) become a victim, but always remember that what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger… and that He/She is the loser for walking away and not appreciating the gem in you 😉
LOVELY DAY! 😉

My Lady Onion

Bundle of complication,
 Passionate; Rich in flavor,
 I could swear you be Cancerian by your mystifying behavior.
You are many layers; one core,
 Peeling at you leaves me sore,
 Wanting you is torture but the treasure of your spice I cannot ignore.
Lady, wild and free,
 Let me tend to you in my garden without fee,
 Let me have you for my own and savor your gifts, I alone.
O Common and yet Rare ingredient in my course of life,
 I long to keep you and have you for my wife.
 So in tears I'll patiently strip away to your center;


 Knocking on the portal to your heart till you 'gree me enter.
 And though you may be complex and sting for a time,
 I know Lady Onion, someday you'll be mine...
©2011 Festivalking

Hahaha! 😀

Just had fun with this, but I guess you can tell by now that if I was a guy I’d either be very unromantic or maybe just love food more than my woman …. :D….Nice day!!! 😉

Beggar Girl

Different lives, different locations;
But sharing that same condition… A beggar girl’s destiny.
Born into penury, her pockets she fills with her plea

“Oga gimme change na!
Madam help ya daughta!
Daddy I beg hep me!
Mommy gimme wata!”

As a child her innocence is her might,
Her youthful smile and laughter her charm,
With pure resilience she disarms her passerby,
Attaching herself to her prospective financier
this small frame with teary eyes lets out her angelic cry

“Oga gimme change na!
Madam help ya daughta!
Daddy I beg hep me!
Mommy gimme wata!”

She grows older; begging her career
but the older she gets, the less her financiers
Her innocence is lost with age, a woman is on the rise,
Not many pity a wondering girl in her teens as she gives off her daily cry

“Oga gimme change na!
Madam help ya daughta!
Daddy I beg hep me!
Mommy gimme wata!”

In some stories, on the streets she becomes a woman begging for her bread,
And where begging fills not her pocket, her body is often shared.
Her story is told in most corners of the world,
She is different colours, shapes and sizes yet a common “Beggar girl”.
Her call for aid is made in different languages and most mother tongues,
But here, these are the words I hear so often sung

“Oga gimme change na!
Madam hep ya daughta!
Daddy I beg hep me!
Mommy gimme wata!”

©2011 Festivalking

Words for a Hurting Heart

Past reception to love has ended in torment;
the heart has been struck hard!
It will not trust…only to gut does it cling.
To new love the heart speaks,
“Me thinks I will play pretend and wait out this episode’s end;
Surely this love that so runs amock will soon under life’s pressure get stuck!”
It waits for the snags, the mistakes, the hiccups;
To hear the words “I’m sorry”, a preview to the Breakup.
Pessimistic this once beautiful heart has become…
But can it be blamed?!
From break to break a once virgin heart aches, and is now undone.
Casting feeling aside, calculation it applies to reduce the strain of impending disgrace.
Settled in mind, “THIS is the path!” the heart decides.
Dear fraction of being, where emotions weigh strong;
Delicate, Vulnerable, yet where will is born,
I see the path you take is of despair.
The fear of feeling a stranger’s love and in turn yours share,
Is that not my friend true despair?….
Someone said “what is yours shall surely come to you.”
Trust me dear heart, these words ring true… be strong;
After the hurt, in time permit yourself heal…and when you do, please dear heart,  without reticence …LOVE that someone new.

©2011 Festivalking

Expressing me

“Good and Sad writing, Sad and Heartfelt, Good and yet painful to read”…. These are a few of the comments born of my poetic seed. It makes you wonder the sort of woman I am, but I couldn’t agree more with these observations of men. My work is sad and yes, sometimes painful, still it gives me great joy when on paper I engrave them.

Though a good number of my expression is cast in shade, from a jolly heart it is made. Known to be quite witty, yet rendering no real “Laughable Moments” in what I poetically enunciate.

So what is my Muse and what drives me? … Call me a Back-Bencher if you will, but I have always preferred to blend with the backdrop of life’s scenes; I observe human interaction, and note response to emotional stimuli. From the outside, looking in, I write what I see.

Grim as it may seem, I actually find it easier to translate human confusion, lust and sadness; I resign to reach into the depths of others, probably because I am too scared to explore my own darkness. I stare through the windows of their emotion and create an impression of their feelings; the actions of even a stranger will give my words meaning.

Unfamiliar with the art of poetry, besides nursery rhymes I recited as a child I bear little interest in the works of T.S Eliot and Oscar Wilde. Happy as any surreal artist with words to say, more than willing am I to bear the title of “Sad writer” if to some accidental reader my literary inscriptions may relate.

©2011 Festivalking