Our poems today commemorates the 153 victims who died at the fire and flood disaster last year. All three contributors are moved by the huge scale of the disaster and offer poignant lessons to avert recurrence.

We remember!

THE HORRORS OF JUNE 3^RD – By Murel Laryea

The clouds unfolded its wings of strife like chariots for war

Spikes of lightening and roaring thunder before long

The rains were coming!

And no one knew what was in it

A dreadfulness surge patiently pursued

Not the ones that fills homes and breaks banks

Nor ones behind the screens of delight

Panic sparked in formations of scattered bats

Death rose angry waves and stole our silence without a word

It was harsh and ruthless, slaughtering by the swings of its blade on sight

The yelling agony of fallen victims squealed my eardrum

Wails echoed out of pain from spilt blood

And then they spoke…

 

Mabel: I said good bye to my mother, never thinking it would be my last

Trapped by waters rising from my feet, I just wasn’t ready to die

But my hopeful spirit weeps for her final hug

 

Kwame: I don’t know why I chose this route out of a million

Following a joyful company, our wheels collided and smashed like a glass at a wall

The wind only blew my lifeless body like a feature

 

Peter: Escaping flying fires was a skill I birth in seconds

Watching chaos break through a thick smoke

Diving in filth and hunted by a deadly stampede

 

Mama Jane: Heaps of sand flooded my mouth

Holding tight my lifeless child in tears

Can’t cry, can’t bend, can’t reach; stuck in the arms of love

 

The Drunk: Riots over a place no man respected

Pushing me aside, so real men can stand for life

What am I to save, if I’ve lost the cheapest sanity?

I care less, if we all die like common thieves

 

On the corridors of death

Many lost souls strike for a fair trial, not prepared to take any farewells

Promising dreams overcrowd graves and bodies tossed like faded coins

Remembering how live was brewed out of sweat, screams in passing now washed off our hands like dirt

Yesterday, survival was a thin thread and today, hopelessness in still seen in our eyes

Dead gods were swept together with riches

And people wept over their loss though it was a tragedy here to stay

You see, the truth is no different

Because stagnant waters will be drained, dug holes will be dried and fires quenched

But we know a collection of unfortunate fellows will still be harvested in another pour

The truth is always ugly judging from who is reading

Should our flaws always prevail?

Should the questions on many lips remain… Why?

The earth has been beaten and nature capsized

Our foothold has slipped from careful grips

We are all we have and the only chain of hope

With an open heart, let us work, protect and save our own

Fear should not be the voice that makes sense

Be a light in these dark times

THE RAINS ARE COMING AGAIN!

(KINGmimi)

 

PLEASE TEACH US HOW TO DIE AGAIN – By Oppong Clifford Benjamin

Memories of lost tears

that choked us to death.

We've forgotten all about yesterday,

about the inhospitable waters

that washed souls away from bodies.

And brought to us debris of ourselves.

 

We have forgotten

about sister Efe-

Who told us she would be back soon

And indeed, she came back but lifeless.

We've surely forgotten

about how we reluctantly danced to dirges

We have forgotten

even about how to remember

We're cursed with short memory!!

 

Before your merciless feet, we bow

On your pot belly is our plea

Teach us how to swim

in open gutters full of the waters

that we may excel in dying peacefully

when next the flood finally comes.

 

Please teach us how to jump

that we may avoid falling again

into broken and electrified storm drains

full of memories of our long lost names.

 

Please teach us how to eat bread,

How to swallow pains,

how to drink red wine

That we may glorify your donations

after the flood had swept away

the very last thing we owned.

 

Else the people would teach you about- how

we would vote.

JUNE 3RD DISASTER - Paul Akwasi Vinyor

 

Arise oh youth of Ghana

Show the world you have some form of education

Be the keepers of her sanitation

Prove wrong those who ascribe dirt to our nation

Have you heard

That Ghana is the 7th dirtiest country in the world

Ghana, the 4th dirtiest country in Africa

Ghana, the 2nd dirtiest country in West Africa

My source is World Health Organization

 

Have you lived around Odorna

The muddy place will make you walk like Nana

When you’re indoors and it all of a sudden starts raining

The rain starts drumming on your roof like mad horses stepping with their hoof

So I was like

What am I hearing?

That rains are falling

We are dying but we say nothing

Of course we are good at failing to do something

Even Nkrumah’s achievements are left rotting

On the streets of Accra

Gutters are choked even with ladies’ bra

The beauty of Ghanaians really glitters

But imagine beautiful people rubbishing the streets to choke gutters

 

June 3rd disaster

Was really a sorrowful matter

Over hundred people did die

Without even having the chance to say goodbye

Some also have their deaths drawn nigh

Because of their injuries intensity

This is a history for posterity

 

June 3rd tragedy feels my heart with so much sorrow

Are we assured it won’t reoccur tomorrow?

If we can’t protect lives then tell me the essence of the monies we borrow

If we couldn’t prepare our drainage systems in May

Then now it’s sunny so let us make hay

So rainy seasons would not give us a sorrowful day

 

Some frontrunners and office seekers with their bellies like pot

And some, with their barred craniums like port

Out of greed steal from the state coffers

Others too I must confess

Are content with whatever the state offers

They mount platforms for us to hail

On the same streets we stood to wail

When the gutters remain choked

Filled with rubbish, sand and bottles of coke

 

We’ve made people fatherless

And many, because of our actions, are motherless

June 3rd gained its fame

But to you and me, it’s a shame

 

 I can imagine their cries

When the fire burnt to dry their eyes 

We suffer from our own atrocities

To the families of the recorded casualties

And to those who lost their properties

Here I am to show my empathy

Do accept my deepest sympathies.

 

On all of us lies the onus

To stop filling our streets with ejected properties of our anus

I wonder if we could treat Ghana like the way we treat your bolus

Paul of Poets peaching to multitudes

Telling them to change their attitudes

My plea to Mr. President

Prove wrong those who call you incompetent

Help make dirt abolished

The nation you lead must be polished       

 

Amazingly we don’t consider urine as rubbish

Though it causes us to perish

Just as the peels of potatoes

Choke our gutters to cause severe flood

Which eventually spilt our blood

Cast your mind to circle area

The dirt and urine at Ashiamang and Odorna area

 Breed mosquitoes

That pilot to our rooms to suck our blood

And fill our veins with malaria

 

I salute you Mr. Obrafoc

wabcdam 3ha na wob3dwonsc

3fin woho yi ne nua ne dumsor

Paul of Poets

M’aka a m’aka that’s all

 

(Paul of Poets - For bookings  to perform at your program call 0209060011)