Celebrating the life of Maya Angelou – Part 2

Global Issues on Bloody Tissues

By Kwesi Atta Sakyi 3rd June 2014


Poets dread
Where artists tread,
If they muddy the waters,
Recondite reprobates
They are read

Words sheathed in red peppery scabbards
Can bark and bite
Blooding the tissue
On which they are inscribed
And clouding the issue
For which it is described,
Blacklisted black scribes
Lose penchant vibes
That can split the sides,
They may win the Pulitzer Prize,
They may win the Man Prize,
Yet not the Nobel Prize

Writer’s angst
Artists defer,
Artists choose to doodle
And dawdle in nudist mode,
On triumphant road,
Artists rode,
With brushes aloft in a rush,
Luxuries serious poets cannot blush
Nor with glee, gush

Taboos,
Unprintable words,
Consider:
Tina’s vagina angina,
Has it anything in common
With grandpa’s swollen watermelon-size testicles,
Or has it something to do with icicles or bicycles?
Nor with grandma’s ugly rheumatic lumbago,
Taboos place embargo,
Long, long ago,
Victorian rhetoric rectitude exuded,
No innuendo nor uncouth vituperations to undo

Panza’s pernicious perilous punishing penis,
A puzzling poser it will ever remain,
Or consider:
Georgina’s curvaceous luscious dangling pelvis,
Imagine pretty parting pussies panicky,
When osculated and they ogled
The ugly gangling ganglion of a Rasputinian
Appendage,
A bargain not least expected,
For which ghastly apparition bevies fainted,
And they cried sore to be shunted,
Therefore, stories of ordeal sordidly painted
HIV/AIDS pandemic,
Hot porn
Halt pun,
Horny and corny homos,
Locking antlers with anguished and languishing lesbians!

Born free not to freeze,
Nor flee from freedom’s fight,
Nor to miss the poet’s freedom flight,
Fanciful flights of fancy,
Gluttonous suggestive paper postures,
Glowing red hot diction on canvass posters,
Nothing to do with writers’ rosters,
Nor roller coasters at Brown or Boston,
Maya, literary giant with gusty pistons

Writers’ angst
Artist glee,
Eating ghee
With hot potato and cassava puree,
Yet, she hasn’t got many a rupee,
Save the helpings thrown at parties,
And repartee after a sumptuous repast,
Many an African American writer dumped on the heaps,
At behest of generous self-serving patrons,
No Nobel Prize for African American genius,
Serious oversight, history will vindicate
Michelangelo’s sacred drawings,
On Sistine Chapel Ceiling,
Sacrilegious gratifitti,
Or sacred mementos?
Contentious thesis awaiting exegesis


Words reign in rain confetti,
There’s no ceiling,
Holy Grail!
King Arthur’s Round table Knights,
Excalibur torching its way to Arabian peninsular,
Ali Baba in Arabian Nights,
Lady of the Lake and Omar Khayyam,
Lawrence of Arabia and Pocahontas,
Formulaic frontispiece,
An abracadabra unmasked,
Pensacola,
Rontgen rays laid bare ribaldry

Cluster bombs clobber Baghdad
Hailstorms of geopolitical maelstrom,
Nascent lives snuffed out,
Nights turned day by incandescent bombs –
Victims demand unqualified apologies,
Hey, reminiscing Papa Doc in Haitian blues,
Comrade Castro in castration coma,
Bay of Pigs imbroglio in limbo,
My! Bad dad,
Captured live on canvass and in verse,
No obverse or converse proposition,
No one is infallible,
In Shakespearian speak,
“To err is human, to forgive is divine.”

Penitent plenipotentiary popinjay
Stands diplomatic akimbo,
Foggy American Uncle Tom,
In cross swords with Jack English,
Torturing American soldiers in Desert Storm,
Red Indian Apaches, tomahawks and tom-toms,
Beating retreat after meditative retreat in Camp David,

International schmoozing in shuttle diplomacy gear,
Garden City turns untrimmed bush citadel,
Washington bemoans London’s Poseidon demise,
Trident blues in strident stride to strike
Missiles blues in strident stride to strike
Missiles issue staccato style from cowboys’ hip
Riding astride Rule Britannia in her Chariot spike
London Bridge burnishes bulbous glow,
Breaking broiling blisters,
On the way to Baghdad,
Inquiries burnish
Deciphering decision to “war war”,
Deeper knowledge to furnish,
No time to “jaw jaw”
The truth to be untombed
In cellars at Number 10 Downing Street,
Disquiet over Iraq’s Inquisition,
Heavy requisition for Inquisition’s inquest,
Disquisitions over Iraq’s Inquisition reverberate,
Iran’s sideshow in mannequin bombast,
Diplomatic circus goes round in circles,
Bleating goats blare and lay it bare,
The secret is exhumed,
Knowledge is consumed,
Lessons learnt soonest unlearnt,
In historic iterative sartorial and
Satirical diplomatic stylistics
Chemical Ali vomits gastronomic guffaws and effusions,
Buying time in dress rehearsal for
Proper dress down, a palpable clown,
Mere window dressing,
London and Washington scribes scuffle
Over oil for food scam in UN citadel,
Issues raised on attempted bribes in muffle
Naked truth clothed and enrobed in palpable lies –
Were there no Weapons of Mass Destruction?
Official lines laced with damnable lies,
Amidst spiced definitive international
decorum and niceties,
Consider Gadaffi in NATO turncoat,
What a world of murderous mothers!
Maya, Black Queen of literati, rest in peace,
Bard of oppressed bevies and divas, go well

Email: kwesiattasakyi449@gmail.com