Goodbye Ak’ra

By Sundong Abdul-Korah

Strategically perched on the shores of great Atlantic

And possessing all the powers of imperial Rome

Oh how I wish I could spend time congratulating all

Who deserved to be born on its flavoured soil

Ak’ra, so endowed with the seeds of heavenly virtues

Embracing all, even foreigners, who come without merit

See sea surfs soothing over sour souls

Unfortunately I must leave this favoured land

Savannahforest, where I was born, summons me away

For an ancestral home needs our presence and tears

I’ll travel by water because our roads are bloody

Littered by limbs, lumps and brains

For tired and drunken drivers soon lapse into coma

Hear me great Ak’ra, mother of angels and gods

May your stool thicken; May your broom thicken

I beg for pardon as I bid farewell

I offer sacrifice in words garbled by tears

But I can no longer endure your generous miseries

Ah, your temples which used to draw heaven closer

Are now contempteous and disgusting

And worshippers pass by as accident victims lie crumbled

Yes, near the Holy Gates of St Peter!

I see treated water too gushing

Just to bath worthless glorified gardens of His Majesty

As ragged urchins with thirsty gallons cry of thirst

And careless drivers zoom past splitting these helpless souls

Only to escape into temples again to sing Hosanna

Goodbye malicious Ak’ra

At the breezing shores in the near distant mirror

Perched exploitative colonial masters in fortified castles

Who ruled rudely servile natives

Then Nkrumah and colleagues’ thunderous voices rocketed

O freedom, O independence, O self-rule now!

And matured fetuses sprang out of tired wombs

To celebrate this triumphant triumph

Bravo all great spirits who restored our native hegemony!

Then the earth shifts about its path marginally

And demonic arms suspended on evil black arms exploded

Milking babies quivered off plump breasts

Those lilac gunpowder still linger and tincture

Yet the progeny of the hazardous in our little temple

Are still cruelly dipping their manicured guilty fingers

Into the lean basket of our orphanage

Rise and tower barbarian treasures up the sky

Hurray! May the weakest storm wash them down tomorrow!

All those guilty mountains towering our skies

And blocking view of the radiant off the Heavens

Goodbye dishonest Ak’ra

Ak’ra, seat of political power

Booming with knowledge, goods and services

Where milk and honey sweep across into contented Atlantic

As orphans’ bitter lips and rumbling stomachs

Proclaim and demarcate the geography of hunger

Walled out of school, these feeble empty hands

Are set to snatch snakes and lizards for dinner

Goodbye irresponsible Ak’ra

Along the corridors of magnificent structures

Simmer amazing Beauty Pageants

Sparkling on the high table are ministers’ outlandish cloaks

Who graciously sit in as honourable judges

Then the curious wall-ghetto peeps mockingly and hysterically

And soon plunges into pungent open sewages nearby

Oh, behind these golden gates and glittering garments

Rise spiraling garbage that discomfort even madmen

Goodbye shanty Ak’ra

Markets and funerals sprouting and sprawling along streets

As hawkers and cars compete for space

Oh, how burgeoning your sweet pitiful funerals

And how disgusting your fateful famous festivals!

Right here, foreigners are excitedly selling land

To servile natives as landlords threaten tenants

Over little money yet to be lent to government

By bedeviled development partners

See this miserable artificial tilapia too from a dug up, not the sea

Yet her price twice a handsome ramp in savannahforest

Whose testacles is healthier than frozen chicken from Siberia

Goodbye fraudulent, frozen Ak’ra

Ak’ra, paramouncy of peace and justice

Yet where assailants quickly accuse victims

And get them fixed in dungeons through fixed flawed law courts

Along the shores too local fishermen in museum-longing canoes

Are driven away by sophisticated foreign ships

Which come emptying hard drugs and toxic waste

As robbers rob and rape, escaping arrest

Great Accra, shouldn’t I hurriedly bid you goodbye now?

Ak’ra, where are your proud peacock’s feathers?

Why have your virtues suddenly gone bald

Like the vulture’s forehead?

These powerful beggars you plant along crowded streets

Who curse saints and disciples for offering little alms

Don’t you know your onions are forced into bulging bulbs

By the sweat and blood of the blind in savannahforest?

And these clergymen who chant unceasingly in architectural triumphs

Notoriously collecting collections on behalf of the poor

Only to ride in Mercedes Benz and make them cry

Where are your synagogues in richly poor savannahforest!

Here comes another generous Saturday distributing wedding rings

But all too soon weep crowded Monday divorce courts

Yet pretty girls still go borrowing silver skirts

Only for disgusting men to lift them with fake notes

Hear the notorious polygamist’s cry of loneliness

Oh, to disgruntled harlots!

Proud kingdom, yesterday we witnessed the crowning of your King

And the bees vowed never to brew honey for crocodiles

Even the frogs also swore to crawl on the King’s mat!

Ak’ra, have your gods forgotten the way to heaven?

To the civil pensioner meagre pension

And often after his demise

To the political pensioner Jupiter

And all its glittering eleven moons!

Can’t you hear the tree branches grumbling in the wind?

For order has become perfectly disorderly

And truth fractured by so many limping facts

That’s why your prisons smell of disease and death

And your coffins which are hewn into beautiful shapes

Will soon be lowered to rest on skeletons

Ak’ra, capital of democracy

Yet where democratic claws cut deepest

Where naked laundrymen are tasked daily

To flatten a thousand crumbled fabrics a day

To be worn by double-dealing demo-crazes and politi-cons

Why won’t bribed electorate change sides for cheap wine?

On sale: one people one parliament!

Robber of Cape Coast, where vile mounts and shines

Where zealous souls come shouting callously

All die be die! All die be closing eyes!

Yet their kraal and tails have long crossed the Indian Ocean

Where ‘all die be die’ is but foolish talk

Where leadership is about self-killing, never a citizen’s killing

And where the death of one monkey fetches oceanic tears

Goodbye robbers!

My favourite city has relaxed her firm embrace

And my native land is glad to receive me

Slowly my feet is crossing the treacherous threshold

Pitiful city, may your wounds close and heal

Surrounded by failure and a longing for prosperity

May your progeny be enriched by all ancestral losses

May your purse prudently thicken

You’re strong because you can learn from misfortune

Even the stars must set before they rise again

Rememeber the moon wanes before it waxes

Hear me beautiful city in coma

Quickly, you must revive and blossom

Miles away I can hear the melodious xylophones

Along with the synchronized feet of skilful dancers

In readiness to embrace the lost prince

Old friend, looming over you is grandeur

Over La, Chorkor, Nima before flamboyant East Legon

Accra, will you remember me as I say goodbye?

Savannaforest, will you dare drape gunpowder

Over my gentle innocent face

And turn to God with a broad smile?