Gold-plated Gutters in Accra, Ghana

*By Akadu Ntiriwa Mensema, PhD

**This and subsequent poems in the next few weeks are based on observations and experiences during my short stay in Ghana in May-June, 2014).





I saw them all! Ah! In Accra


Mosquito-colonized gutters


Accra’s obsessive grace with filth, decay


Huge palatial-like gutters


Flowing with graceful aplomb


Gracefully overflowing their banks


Honored


Celebrated


Dignified


Normalized


Like the first rain at the end of the dry season


Like expected rain-water on the eaves of the house

Guttered-filth is all over


Proud gutters


Where mosquitoes rule


Where their music


Serenade filth


Praise filth


Nationalize filth


Normalize filth


Bank filth


Celebrate filth


Massive filth


In huge gutters


In open gutters


Time-honored gutters

Gutters of gilded postcolonial age


Supervised by postcolonial elites


Destroyers of colonial-era built gutters


Destroyers with a dearth of inventiveness





Massive gutters of filth


The pride of postcolonial Ghana


Gutters that swirl with putrid pride


Alloyed with plastic bags


Pampered waste-matter


Cascading all over with grace


From mortuaries


From palatial homes


From Parliament House


From the Supreme Court Building

From cottage industries


Ah! These gutters of grace





Great gutters


Massive gutters


Catchment areas of plastic, debris, excreta


Gutters valley-ing homes


Gutters province-ing homeless kids


Gutters colonized by brilliant mosquitoes


Massive gutters


Full of manicured filth


Massive gutters


Nursing mosquitoes


Deploying armed mosquitoes


Gutters normalized

Brimming with excreta, garbage, trash


Gutters normalized


Gutters full of gold


Full of Gold


Putrid gold


Decomposing gold


Putrescent gutters


Ghana’s effervescent perfume


Ah! These gilded gutters





*Akadu Ntiriwa Mensema, Ph. D., is a nationalist Denkyira beauty. She is a trained oral historian cum sociologist and Professor in the USA. She lives in Pennsylvania with her great mentor and teaches Africa-area studies at a college in Maryland. In her pastime, she writes what critics have called “populist hyperbolic, satirical” poetry. She can be reached at akadumensema@yahoo.com. My poems and essays on Ghanaweb and elsewhere must not be reproduced in full or in part for any academic or scholarly work without my written permission.