Yo vibro

Sonrisas como flores

vida como muerte

en el medio

yo vibro

Bonita, oh bandera linda

en el ritmo de viento baila.

Su oscuridad me quedo

fresco viva abajo.

Yo vibro

como pesos fueran del mar

como cabras en campo de verde

Dos continentes viven juntos

para realizar única causa yo trabajo

Yo vibro

A ti que te gusta cuidar el planeta

de donde está la bandera: verde, blanco y rojo

Y en el medio el águila come el serpiente

Contigo yo trabajo

Yo vibro

               

Vibro pero muero a tu lado

Muero porque para vivir

comemos y dormimos

Y qué … y nada mas

Ya no vivo

no te mates

la planeta para salvar

a tu lado

Yo vibro                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

Fight your fears

No more be a silent corn

thrown in a fowls compound

Nor run away, a frightened chicken

at the mercy of a hungry hawk

Fight your fears when they come

even the fastest hungry hawk

your grounds stand

Fight it even If you die

like an angry mother hen

at the sight of a predator

@ Emperor Leander David.

Made accessible to social media pages of
Walk The Talk Group/ JP International (Jubilee Projections International)
and their allied pages.

You are a failure when you do nothing about your failure.

Watching the sea

Silent as the rock remains

at the edge of the sea looking onward

White foamy waves embrace

to drown in a rage boisterous

But silence, dumb founded

overshadowed by their invasion

Solid turned liquid but a moment

Rock and water losing impurities

Rock losing all the water but in puddles

Till they meet again in a clasp

Guess what?

Sunny the sky with flowers ready to bloom

smiling their white like wool

as they show sets of teeth

Guess what?

Before the clouds thick form and they wither

brewing burning hatred

hot red like scarlets on the faces

meandering their separate path full of thorns

beautiful were the hands which held her waist in the lock

Fount Of Love

If I must sip but once

and quench an inevitable thirst,

where will I go between two clear rivers?

In onward wonder a river will keep me;

deep reflections of regret, another.

While each step meanders,

thou fount of love

through me that will flow

do find me quick

that perfect outlet slope.

For in weakness I bear this hold

so strong to let you show.

© Emperor Leander David



NB
Dedicated to a fellow traveller, Ruth.

Who Has The Hammer

 

Eugene Edzorho (b. 1986), Untitled "Governor III" 2017,Rocks from Galamsey sites, Dimension variables

Explosion

                Break asunder

Chipping the pieces to collect

Washed to refine

To pollute the lot

In your bosom Oh nature

We ruin

We no more drink the ancient waters

The waters of our fathers

They stink

And our catch on the surface motionless lay  

 Whose untimely death our actions caused

Fallowed earth

We’ve lost

We’ve ruined

Like rocks though in pieces

Left to hang above

On our waiting heads will stray and fall

We say aloud and paint them around

“Foreigners  foreigners” as if they did them all

Not locals who in turn their living made

And now join the crowd to hoot and shoot

Our own lurks around while they, we soon deport

Say no more if you can’t punish them all

“Foreigners foreigners” as if they did them all”

© Emperor Leander David

Prince Oduro (b. 1996), Stop Galamsey, 2017, Mixed media, 4ft by 4ft 

NB

In support of “Orderly Disorderly”

Ongoing end-of-year-exhibition held by blaxTARLINES Kumasi

Open daily: Monday to Sunday, 8am - 6pm

Closing: Friday, 1st September, 2017.

@ Museum of Science and Technology, Accra.

Made accessible to social media pages of
Walk The Talk Group/ JP International (Jubilee Projections International)
and their allied pages.

MATILDA

Matilda my love and Empress

A virtuous woman who will get

Together our paths have intertwined

In love inseparable from the deepest depths of the soul

Laughter, long life, abundance and good tidings I wish you

Dearest love that will be bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh

As long as I live; so let it be..

© Emperor Leander David

NB:

Written for Michel

a dedication for her Love, Matilda on her birthday

which fell on 29th of June 2017.

Angel en mi sueño

Oh angel

bastante brilla

me iluminas la noche.

Al cielo me toco

cuando cierran mis ojos.

Ver te espero

en tu elemento

una ola fuerte

que me llevará  

arriba cuando salto

y miedo no tendré si caigo.

Porque sé que estarás

alguna parte, toda parte conmigo

aun en mi sueño

en mi trampa más oscura. 

I Won't Drink From Any Again

I longed and desired

when I got lost in your rivers

which carried me not away

but washed the shores of my soul.

I asked to keep a part of you

a part I would have thrown away

but I still have.

It’s right by me now.

Oh I won't drink from any again

than from the calabash I took from you



© Emperor Leander David


NB

First publish by 'Our Empire' on Google blog

Made accesible to social media pages of
Walk The Talk Group/ JP International (Jubilee Projections International)
and their allied pages.

Choruses of Thunder

How can I wear this linen white

and parade this groaning arena and streets?

My motherland burns in mourning

no ashes leaving.

How can I point out at those hands  

which have on them these innocent blood

when they conspired with a voice from home?

This candlelight I must raise but when

and on which stand

so it’s not hidden?

Should the water god still leave along the curvatures of its shores

where the waters clasp at the end of the rainbow

its pot of gold?

I know I shall see the elephant

taking its gorgeous turn, surely when it does

opening up the heavens to break forth

in choruses of thunder.

© Emperor Leander David


NB

First publish by 'Our Empire' on Google blog

Made accesible to social media pages of
Walk The Talk Group/ JP International (Jubilee Projections International)
and their allied pages.

I have found you

Oh pearl washed clean by the lonely brook

Our only gold covered by the blowing sand

On the meandering path

The last grape still left on the dying vine

Where are you?

Hide not from me while I come

I searched in the harvesting time’s sun

And found not your bloom

Speak no more of looming doom

But how a heart responds to a call

When miles away beyond the seas.

To love is to care

To care is to understand

To understand is to make better.

I search you my love

A precious gift I will die to keep

Pure and spotless I know you will be

Sweeter than sour when all is lost

And I am the only one standing.

Many times I will not spit I wish

When your deeds

fill full my lonely tongue

to bite and to bleed it.

I search my love

I am here!

Where are you…

.. my pearl, my gold, my grape?

I’ve found you.

Viva los novios!

N.B:

Dedicated to Ema 

her wedding present.

Samuel Barnor

Samuel Barnor

Short and few

My memory recalled

Shocked the news

My ears recount

While I bow my head

Not in shame but respect

To a heart of gold

A tongue of angels

A life loved by men

Even in your death

How has the crown fallen off our heads

And our sceptre now laid low?

Behold thy glory:

Seven Great Princes Academy’s 1998 year group

Dissipates within our high places

The dew of doom

Fell on our lawn

That dawn

And our guard in disarray

Our group will continue to weep for her own:

Our classmate, year mate, friend, dear one and husband

Because he is not

May The Earth lie lightly on him

In the bosom of Abraham’s God

In His perpetual remembrance

In perfect peace, rest

By Leander David

In memory of my JSS School Prefect,

demise on Good Friday, 14^th April, 2017.

Date written 18.4.2017

The Broken Pot

Onufule is on her way to the waterside

The fountain of the fathers

which has never known dryness

Obishi is in the kitchen

to fill the hut with salt and red oil palm

Mama sits by his side

as she kneads torn socks

Oh the master of all he surveys

drinks his brewed palm

The afternoon’s sun returns to his hut

Onufule who must get to the waterside before sunset

hits her flip-flops against her toes

as she bites away the dusty distance

Where are they to see her dance

and turns every curve and twitch of her maker’s gift

Where are they as the drums run amok to a frenzy

their pretty feet which needs no colouring

adores the rhythmic beats with their steps

Can’t you hear the drums thundering

the flutes enchanting

while the winds blow them in their riots

Beats that charm your fears and tears

and frightens your cheeks

leaving them bloated and buffed

beats that knock at your doors

to invite you to a dance of the elders

and of the ancestors

and cause your head to nod like the lizards

and feet to caress the ground with their taps

I saw these beats turn into impulses

I saw these beats exciting your sensibilities

I saw it drawing you closer and closer

to the prepared land full of flora and fauna

In your hands they turn your swords into plough sheds

and pruning hooks

and breaths into an indelible ink

ever writing the intents of the fathers

of the past and their glorious promises of the future

The beats no more hide under the skins of the drums

This is the night of the full moon

oh can she make it in time?

She runs and walks, her knee jerks her tie

She stretches, raises an arm, in twist and turns

oh her dance, the dance before all

all on her head fell

The ancient pot of the fathers broken

who will mend and patch and glue and heel

who born of woman can?

Oh not in shame the adage said

The one who goes to the waterside

is the one who breaks the pot

but should it be the ancient pot

Well let’s see how the sticks in the drummers hand

said it all when finally at home

Obishi

serve Papa his soup, Mama said.

My tongue will swim in a pool of red soup today

Onufule

you have returned sweating?

Ah my tongue will be quenched forever

All was silence…

She will tell her story as the performances unfold.

A Part Of Me

Many times when we touched

life full of surprises

and our actions barely controlled by the will

but the unseen soul.

I look at you

and see no more what I once saw

but what now draws me closer to you.

I might be wrong about what you want

If for love I have plenty and even some uncooked

All I have given and will give to you

All for that feeling you’ve brought back

which I am glad I shared with you

I am happy you are a part of me

Happy am I because of you…

2017 POEM OF THE DAY

Still pressing heavy on the shoulders bold

in anger, bitterness and regret born

She marches on!

Her whole life hanging on a hold

imprisoned in a wooden sieve

She marches on!

Weighed down by a baby at the back

lungs exhaling, sweat oozing up

She marches on!

Weariness disfigured her face

not knowing how far a hand on a third leg will go

when the whole body it holds

She marches on!

While at her side the falling sun rays

a lip opens to close

in a lost speech

in unfound thoughts.

Yet her screams follow her on

her feet painted by the noon dust

to send her hand into her mouth

finding hope in her beating heart

Oh help her march on!

Between continents

As far as the present is from the past

So am I far from you

Oh boundaries that made me

That set before the sun, this ancient city.

You moon who guard the rock

Which now stands in the middle of the vast ocean

Why do you hang above the cloudy sky?

Grace bestowed on your forehead

In sparkling eyes

And on lips well cut

Will at last take a bow in a strange land

To strange hands that hold in their possession

That reason why I will soon forsake you

And surely will it come my way

In this fear I wonder along these banks

When I should enjoy what they present.

I am lost in another world

Sweeter and more sour than I thought

Learning each day what comes my way

In a culture opposed to mine

All in the name of my beloved country.

Will I enter this new world

In this new clothing

Singing this new song?

I am here sinking deep

Not knowing if I will rise again

Out of this hold

Or ever from this new found love

N.B:

By Leander David

Dedicated to Daniela at Christmas, 26/12/2017