Jacob Kobina Ayiah Mensah Poems

You were not here but you heard it,
You heard the water, boiling over the hilltops,
Roaring in your ears, far deep in sleep,
Because, the windows of this house were opened.
...

A Maoist is reading a map
behind us in the kitchenette.
Maybe to marinate China
and tell us where we are
...

Remitting them every week
they increase and improvise
the boots, states, canopies,
and anywhere buyers could
...

And last night in a bustling shopping
district in Seoul when Professor X had died and Congo
was dying in Goma without trade marks, I was
following you as a passerby, you tall, slim, carrying
...

And again last night I painted my face
with the sun, thus, you became convinced
that you and I should exchange
our industrial position one more time
...

They spent the light
without you
without replacing
new fires
...

Now if I die
bury me naked
with a cypress tree
standing upright
...

He was angry,
burning every wood
he came across
till he discovered
...

Johannesburg is a painting of night watch.
The night of peacock feathers of the sky,
framed as smouldering countryside,
every very tall smoking building
...

Ever since Brother Ian brought down
his wife, Anna, from St Petersburg
through the postal mail
he has not been happy.
...