To My Uncle Tarkwa Atta – A Tribute (20)

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr.

Uncle Tee,
you must be
sick and
tired of all
these cold-calculating
pretenders
screaming screeches
of tirades,
snorting at
your critics
like crickets
and calling you
a cry baby
who deserved to have
commanded our pity
and empathy…
as if
the presidency
is for sissies
and girly-men;
maybe
you ought to
have pondered
deeply over
Jay-Pee’s
tantalizing
bait
ere grabbing
at the same –
then also,
you ought to
have heeded my
frank and
solemn call
to concede…
for yours was
a loose-fitting
garment,
like the cheap
frazzled
propaganda pieces
thrown at our
kindergarten kids;
besides,
your neck was
rather too thin
to butt heads
with my other
uncle,
the one
whose father
the mini-club lager
was named after,
the bald,
popeyed and
bespectacled one –
see how
it has all
come to pass,
your apparent lack
of spine and
stomach
for a game
in which
you had no
pedigree or
even a college
degree,
except
the bean counter’s
craft;
yes,
you had no
flair
for this
brinkmanship
game of
statesmanship;
alas,
so full of vanity
and practiced
humility
were you that
you sneered and
jeered at me
like the latest
joke
in town…
it was only
a matter
of time
before
I won
our bet…
anyway,
some maggot-eating
leech recently wrote
a bleeding-heart
note
to Jato-Pee
pretending to be
you making a
clean breast of
your perceived
pain and
hurt,
almost as if
you were rather
too naïve and
innocent
to know
what you were
getting yourself
into when you
decided to truck
with him…
I couldn’t help
laughing heartily
and falling
so hard off
my chair
I am still
reeling in
pain;
I had nearly
broken my neck
and jaw,
and now,
I am
in stitches even
as I write –
funny to say,
but the SOB once
stepped on my
toes;
I had to
swat him
like a
fly,
you know,
one of those
big blue giants
one finds in
freshly dropped
payloads in
pit-latrines in
the boondocks –
Uncle Tee,
I hope
you never made
any pass
or wink
at this
ball-sucking
snitch –
what of this rude
mid-morning
depiction
of your
nudity
in the morgue,
hung and
all…
looking at his
angular head
and your square
jaws,
I am almost
tempted to plot
the link,
though I am
quite certain
there never was
any such
link,
real or
fancied –
but that which
intrigued me most
was one which
accused me of
dancing dervish
on your grave,
before the fact;
such is the extent
of the acute
lunacy
precipitated
by your
flight –

8/7/12