THE BOABAB

The great baobab tree that stands
Upside down,
down up all the way round
Leaves rich with vitamin C
As pronounced as can be
Stand ugly yet so beautiful
Caterpillar infested,
Bats nested.

The great baobab tree
Many roots for a plant,
many planting roots
So beautiful yet stand so ugly
Transplanted to England in the 16th century
Died out and your seedlings still in the nursery
Africa was your only root
Even when you traveled good

The mysterious Baobab tree
Slow to grow but thrives in weed
The traveling bees make holes in your stem
Promise you honey in the next realm
Perforated hope
Sapping visions
Known to be the largest succulent tree
Yet you stand dead, dry as can be

This is a cry by a little bird from the village
Who nestled and feed in your embrace
From mothers peak to first plumage

That arise for you are its heritage

REMINISCE

I wanna love like it's 1999
Pre-Y2K, no "bugging"
Teen love that mean love

I wanna feel like it's 1995
Repatriating back to Ghana
First time I felt mother Africa

I wanna play like it's 1998
Young heart legs full of pace
No wages yet food on my plate

I wanna go back to the days
Late 80s, 90s and mostly 2008
Where we ate and still had the cake

I wanna go anti-clockwise
Take time back, just unwind
Reminisce one day at a time

MAPPING

I ain't bargaining
I'm window shopping
Examining price tags
So I ask, what your price at?
You really worth the trolley?
The push and pull to the car lot?
I ain't down with the promo
All I'm out looking for is the Logo
Cut the marketing this ain't a freak show

Good things need no advertising
That's what mum says
But a good meal can still do with seasoning
That's what the chef says
So I'm cooking up a storm in a tea cup
But you keep putting your umbrella up
What's up?
I ain't good with games and moves
I have been stuck on Mario Nintendo, so I refuse
To duck, slide shoot and miss...

So I wanna learn your heart
And recite it back to you by....heart
All I'm getting is bitter spleen bile
We can go the distance with this
Let's (w)rap this up 8 mile
First lets work with the numbers
32-24-32 and I don't mean your dimension
But I forgot to mention
I'm only asking for direction!

FORGOTTEN ORCHIDS

We are the apples that fell far from the tree
rattled and shook,
The fruits that rose from the diseased seeds
the ones the grower forsook,
We missed the farmers harvesting season
but here by hook or crook,
So our difference is grave treason
much talked off lips and books

The late comers
The trend setters
The pace setters
The dream makers

The obvious circles out of the boxes
Alternative, divergent and reckless
The next label is what your guess is

I speak for

The late comers
The trend setters
The pace setters
The dream makers

Wormed up apple fruits
survived poison and the uproot
Made bitter sweet and sour good

Keep pruning, I keep growing
These weeds you see in a cemetery,
dark and morbid,
It's a forgotten orchid
From an apple that fell far from the tree.

STUNT ARTISTS

Fall in love without a parachute
Rip your heart for another with
no surgical training..
3-D movie with fine scripts
Everyday anyday stunt artists

Adrenalin junkies
Emotional monkeys
You expect to fall without landing?
Gravity brings you to Earth
A thrill and a pain's worth
Stunt artists....

Ringing people to own
Animal farm...
Old Jones tagged...
But the beast will out
All but animals on two
Stunt artist

Expect love but don't love
Aim high but deny the one above
Pig's in dog kernels
Sex is all you selling
Welcome to the largest brothel

Investing more in the stocks..
While at home you lose the plot
Kids gone bad mother's fault
Daddy gone sad marriage salt
Stunt artist

Would have fallen off a flat world
But it's round so Karma comes
to roost...
once and every blue moon
Stunt artist,
the World is a circus

Bushman - Fire Bun A Weak heart

BREAD CRUMBS

Can't butter these crumbs
Need to bunch into lumps
Small pieces don't slice even
Many bits very misleading

Need to knead my dough
Banking from bough to bough
I gotta run this bakery
Be a source eventually

I gotta get that rise
Survive the heat and demise
We won't burn just tanning
In the end we'll be in the tropics,
toasting!!!!

COLOUR OF LOVE

What is the colour of your love?
RED Valentine red
Flowers that the growers bred?
BLUISH BLACK eye line
Scars and rings of time

What is the colour of your love?
BROWN nappy brown
Change and dust him down
GREEN Benjamin green
Cash flow the dollar dream

What is the colour of your love?
YELLOW fear future unclear
Daily play truth or dare
WHITE peaceful white
Blessings in disguise

What is the colour of your love?
GREEN youthful green
New beginnings machine clean
ORANGE traffic orange
Cautious steps into the strange

ANECDOTE

I feel pain man cause I can't speak on them
that's why I write so many poems so you can sleep on them
scars for tattoos to keep yesterday's setback driving
pain is not the only thing my black skin is hiding.....

Rhyming stresses, life sentences...
Poetic occurrence, life concurrence....

A man is but a few puffs
A life is but a short laugh
Live to live, die to die
A tear drop is just a teasing eye

Love came to swoop feet
Hate maimed
Pride shamed
Still love gained

I ain't cried because tissue's make organs
I can donate my heart and spare a lung
If my chest puffs air, it means I work well with pressure
So pain becomes a drug which i inject to get by

SNOW DREAMS

I am the son of the Sun
with Snow Dreams
So I die in Winters
and get birthed in Summers

But these hopes don't melt
with the snow
They blossom
at the first glow

Filled with African folklore
educated in a Western bookstore
To grow, work and get more
so my brothers will leave the "One Dollar" store

I carry white dreams on my black head
So when I am colour blinded by the blizzards
i do not hibernate even cold, I wait to
cast long shadows in Summers own

READING AND WRITING

So I told my brothers and sisters move on
Turn the television off
Get a better coverage
They only broadcast to the average
Because the truth ain't televised
It's in books on old shelves where cobwebs dwell
Not the TV guides with the critics critiquing.
In the Bible, the History books they deleting.

So I urge the youth to be young yet old
Don't be gullible like a mind on coke
The truth is always in the print
So even the message on the box is a gimmick
To a soul smoking its last stick
Reading and writing saved slaves...Word!
So my pen never left a page blank
Now I dribble on PCs and Macs

So I tell the eager mind to search
Search high,low, space and Earth
Knowledge is infinity laziness terminal
Ignorance before sunset is abominable
So I am cursed with the gift of writing
So my mind under a spell of letters
So I spit it out raw uncooked and true
You can put them in books or...
in your favourite song hooks.

LION PAW

You can't squeeze a lion's paw
You can't mute a lion's roar
Take a walk in my Pride
This beast cant be denied

You won't see a lion fall
Four mounted feet of awe
Take a stand in my ground
This is where courage is found

You can't scare a lion off
I stand South and look North
Take a glimpse of my vision
This is poetry in motion

You can't tame a lion
It does as it will
I will scratch, bite and roar
If you try to squeeze my paw

SHOPPING

Son take a list when you go shopping
Walk through the isle do the mile
The best products are on the top shelve
Top quality is top racked, mostly needs help
The most colourful ones are near the counter
Bright and vain they speak loud the latter

Son think twice before you buy that ring
It maybe good for the moment, one night thing
Love is not found on one warm horny night
Know a full course meal from a casual bite
Some relationships build you up, others only might
Temporary bliss, out of mind out of sight

Son be careful when you go shopping
Know your budget before you bargain
Some women are cheap but very expensive
They come with dear tags and no warranty
Non-returnable goods leave you a divorcee
Do not follow the magazines and the catalogues
Keep your judgment safe and sound,
and you won't go wrong!

GOOD LENSES, BAD FRAMES

Good lenses, bad frames
The darker the frame more shady
So we out there trying to shine
The world out there sun blocking
My sisters melanin infested
So their skin needs correcting?

Some tried to wipe it brushing
Chemical doses some call it bleaching
So it is cool to get a tan
But cruel to stay tanned?
We from the land of the sun
But we been in the shades like noon
Blacked out midnight waiting on the moon

Sad is not the colour of my forehand
Sad is the beauty my sisters can't see
Traded that jet nappy black for the weave
I am old school, afro, bubble butt and gap teeth
That shea butter and palm oil aroma,
As she walks in inducing coma

The dictionary has been telling white lies
So black is the perceived hue of demise
So literature literally wrote a race off
The bets been out we lost the toss, full stop
And every brother is stereotypically another
So we throw our hands up and scream " why bother?"
It is important my understanding is understood
But more importantly, understood in my neck of the wood ( Africa).