May I Speak to the Queen... - Nana Arhin Tsiwah

I am from that land of burrowed mythologies

a statement of wrapped raped soil

feet as dirty as a camel’s ankle

shirt torn by the lenses of the butcher

the abattoir becomes the butchered when it lacks meat

tell the Queen; your Queen of English

that a stranger from the land of strangers has come to see her

I have come in thorns and tears of piercing arrows

I have come as the lips of the ancestors

the sea never drums unless it has been disturbed by pebbles

I do not seek for water or wine

neither do I come like a beggar seeking for crumbs

after all, if nothing reminded the stomach of yesterday then the pains did

I am a young man of two baked eyes

one who has lived under the influences of mobs

whilst in my homeland, the mob-sters did teach me to rifle

like a basin; to be human does come on an end

its comes when a man begs even in cheat

She held her third leg and walked to my misery

the marrows saluting the ordeal of the flesh

Queen, “I have walked through eating eyes”, I said nodding

I have come without your needing me as a workman

that handmade of your ancestors wishes

maybe your ears haven’t heard

that they have become aborted anomalies of infernos and snowballs

when coming, I swam through the sea and danced on the desert

with no amulet, no industrial support and no airship alliance

I made it through the gate of no return

but sad as they were; I witnessed the blood of my ancestors

holding hands and cursing this your land

for he that speaks proverbs in the palace at midnight

must not live to see the sale of the harvest.

I have heard how sweet your accent is

how flattery they have echoed beyond the Atlantic

causing the brave hunters to sleep impromptu— sadistic!

even here, (as I stand elbowing) I am seeing the untruth in a winsome glory

its been over fifty years since Freedom (the self-acclaimed) came to greet us

the lands which you built heavens from

our sons whom you milked sweat from

have embraced the scrolls you left behind

they see their faces in the mirror,

take modernised cannons and run after themselves

while antelopes, deers and grass-cutters outnumber them

a letter from the West said, you have paid us well

furnished our dilapidated mud huts with gold

and tarred the surfaces of our roads with terracotta

but here, I see the evil spirit of doubt

dancing calf-wards between your teeth

as a speechless he-goat; I haven’t lost the delight of my stubbornness

I asked for your ears because,

the “colony” and “the crown”: I inquired from the departed

have done us drunken decades of malevolence

than we ought to have inherited…

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Nana Arhin Tsiwah (21st century) Ghana

Source: African Writer