This originally appeared on misteragyeman.blogspot.com on July 14, 2015.
My mail inbox just tried to kill me.
I opened Gmail this morning after a heavy 12-hour marathon of work, rushing to redeem a long-deferred promise of mine. As my cursor made its way to the ‘Compose’ button, something caught my eye – and my heart stopped.
The email was from the BN Poetry Foundation, a movement started by a Ugandan poet. This year, I dared myself to enter a poetry competition. I chose the BN Poetry Award because entry is free, and there was no theme. I dug around in my head and submitted two poems. It wasn’t easy. When I exceed my five-line standard, red lights go off in my brain; the two poems were each more than fifteen lines. But I girded up my loins and prevailed, and proved that I can occasionally escape my bubble. I patted myself on the back and forgot about it.
Except, I clearly did not. I underestimated my desire to win. I knew the money would be very nice – I dreamed of a laptop with respectable sound and graphics cards – but I see that it went deeper than that. Anyway. The email announced the publication of the longlist for the award, and I’m not on it. I thought I was; one of the selected poems had the same title as one of mine, and my heart flipped again. Hearts really shouldn’t do that sort of thing.
I thought I’d share the poems here – the two I entered, plus another one I did a month ago – because I worked harder on them that I have in years, where poetry is concerned. Often I write disposable poetry and tweet-size verse. These three, I took my time. I hope they reflect that.
My People Had No Need of Shoes
My people had no need of shoes;
My people knew no concrete.
My people never learned the use
Of melting pots and cultural soups,
Because my people really talked.
The paths my people walked
Bore the dimples of their heels,
And marked the tales of their dances and their flirts;
The grass tattooed my people’s skirts –
In the days before the grass was eaten
By the ashen lava of the city.
My people had no use for hours,
In those days before the sea of towers
Swallowed up the sky.
If time did fly, they flew with it;
Then they welcomed night, and took with it
The blessing of innocent sleep –
For my people lived large; my people lived deep.
My people are resting in their beloved earth;
Shadows and scarecrows remain to judge us,
Now made strangers in the land of our birth.
The fires are dead; the whispers are faint…
But I can still walk my people’s lanes:
Perhaps our worlds can touch, our spirits kiss –
Perhaps like this, when I reminisce,
It’s their whispers that I hear.
Perhaps someday, the earth that hides their dimples
Will be proud to hold my own.
Perhaps I won’t be alone.
The Pearl
The pearl is a cancer in the shell of the oyster;
In the hands of the diver, it becomes a cure.
He hails his loved ones waiting on the shore
With the gospel of the lottery man.
In his hand they see the gleaming future.
Now, they think, we escape the slavery of poverty;
We can afford that of the monopolies.
Pane glass and tame grass; wire lights; pipe water.
Soon, we will have iron bars between us
And the madness in the streets – we will have streets -
And mini bars also, to fill us with heat,
And purring machines to make us cold,
And books, and troops, and their attendant parades.
And then, perhaps, given time enough,
We’ll raise prophets to lament our worship of stuff – With books, and troops, and their attendant parades.
All this they pray to the glorious pearl;
All this they pray to the calcified shrine;
And as the pray to the shine, the alabaster divine –
In the stall, in the field, in the office, in the mine –
As they quibble between the precious and the dross,
The dirt grows precious, the pearl cancerous.
Heroes
The darkness is leaving; the morning is breaking.
The city is sleeping; the heroes awaken.
Shadows kiss the floor; hero hits the door -
Another day, another battle in the lifelong war.
Things knock things; rock things; now we’ve got things shaking.
Sweat pores erupt; you’ve got one shot; will you take it?
Or will you give up? Don’t try to fake it.
You better stay true. Better make what you’re making for you.
That’s what heroes do.
Heroes fly.
Heroes defy the law of the average.
It doesn’t work first try, heroes flip the page.
Yes, heroes cry; but then you suck it up.
Yes, sometimes heroes want to pack it up.
So you quit? Your fire’s not hot enough.
When the going gets tough, heroes get up.
Again and again they get up.
If the fight won’t let up, then neither do you.
That’s how heroes do.
Heroes transcend.
Heroes understand that true ambition in humanity
Is the immolation of ego on the altar of possibility. Heroes are more than winners; heroes are pillars.
Heroes bear loads – make roads – write code that shapes the future.
With picks and saws and computers,
Heroes are crafting visions into reality.
Look around – every innovation used to be insanity. That’s why heroes challenge mediocrity,
Even when it hurts. Especially when it hurts – that’s how birth is supposed to work.
Any destiny that’s worth having, be prepared to have to earn.
After all, for every bridge you will have to burn, you will be building two.
That’s what heroes do.
(I wrote this one because I saw a very heavy ad by Dewar’s – adapting the words from Charles Bukowski’s ‘So You Want To Be A Writer?’, as I only just found out – and it stung me that poetry should be used to market hangovers. I hoped to make a short film with this poem, like the ad. I would still like to, if any film-maker would like to collaborate.)
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