Ghanaian poet, Omama Kidash
Ghanaian poet, Omama Kidash, whose real name is Godwin Asare has added his voice to the campaign against filth and deforestation in the country. He believes that going green and smelling good are key keys to our basic survival.
Omama Kidash is a poet, playwright, and teacher (Pentecost Senior High School – Koforidua). He is a member of the Ghana Association of Writers (GAW), a GAW Literary Award winner, and a graduate of the University of Ghana, Legon.
His wordings weave the beautiful survival cloth in this fashion:
The Filth Eats Us
With little throws here and there
We have created a mighty monster
Which opens its wide stinking mouth
To eat us alive.
Filth,
Which comes from us
Join hands before our very eyes
And in unity, transmogrify
Into a stinking unpleasant monster
To devour us in bits
And finally, in full
And we are shameless about it.
When one frowns on
The throwing of unwanted plastics
Through the windows of moving vehicles,
They are insulted and abused –
They say the street is nobody’s home
But it all comes back to us.
Our chocked gutters stink to rip us apart
And then conquer to enslave our healthy bodies.
Filth, who is now recognized as a citizen
Receives much pampering to grow in our
Homes, our streets, our markets, and everywhere.
The filth we create
Takes a bite of us each day
To become our lord.
Like the slave in the hands of the master,
The capital city is in strong chains
Struggling for fresh breath
As we watch the thick filthy rope of dirt
We produce
Hang us on the tree of filthy-filthy.
But we cannot look on any longer
Let’s come together to dig a big pit,
Kill and bury this master and his descendants
Else, the future will ask,
“Where is the sanity in our sanitation?”
Open Defecation
Open defecation
Is no national decoration
It is a shameful worry
To the gateway we sing of.
Open defecation is a cancer
In the body of our development.
We don’t have toilets
So our landfill sites,
Big gutters,
And the kind bare floors of our vicinities
Are molested with clinical dosages of
Excrement.
Plastic balls stuffed with body wastes
Fly over roofs to land like missiles
And choke us to death around the clock.
UNICEF thinks Ghana’s current rate
Of improvement will take
Ninety years to eradicate open defecation.
I think it may be one thousand
If we sit and stare.
Gold Coast
I live in Gold Coast
Where we played oware with diamonds
And the children washed their hands in Akwatia,
Waving Aku Sika’s style on their way home.
When the first ship arrived,
My bente was stripped off
And I became Ota Benga
Taking selfies of the past time.
Now I am Kunta outside the net,
Walking free on a sandy shore.
My king is my kind
But that heart does not look too kind.
Strangers are colouring our waters beyond treatment
Our cowries keep flying into white safes
Yet, we stand on the burning sun and say nothing.
There is a mystery upon the silhouette.
But this is a new dawn.
It is time to ride our horses.
Let’s shelf the clay beads and go for gold
As we create and build with love
Keep Ghana Clean
From the North to the South
Keep Ghana clean
From the East to the West
Keep Ghana clean
From the city to the countryside
Keep Ghana clean
This is the only nation we have
Let’s make it glitter
For the rest of the world to learn from it
Keep Ghana clean
Do not throw anything out of car windows
And do not drop anything on the ground either.
If there is no bin,
Use your bag.
Let’s be responsible
Let’s be wise
Let the elderly start for the children to learn
Keep Ghana clean.
The Trees Are Watching
If you have ever heard the trees talk
You would know they too have feelings
They care too much about us
To be cut into a cross
And be served vinegar for life
Their annual festivals commemorate
How our fathers of old welcomed them,
Gave them stool names to appreciate
The innumerable stools they had given to us
And made them a part of the society.
The trees, who grew older than our fathers
Told us the story of our past
And taught us righteousness and sacredness
The trees who gave us something
More than shade and shelter
Know they have been too kind and faithful
Over the years.
But we, have put on the murderer’s gloves:
While we assassinate the older trees,
Our little ones butcher their young without mercy.
We do not care whether they live or die
We do not care whether they procreate or extinct
But they are not mourning.
They are gathering with our fathers and mothers
On the other side for a reunion
As our world gets hotter and hotter on this side.
The trees are only watching for
They know our sure end.
Another Warning from the Greens
We are not done talking
We will talk and talk and talk
Until your ears wake up and listen to our pleas.
When the last of us are killed
We will all roll into a ball of a big curse and
Haunt you in your dreams.
When will you ever learn?
Will you burn all of us into ashes and pray later?
What kind of generation are you?
We lived with your forebears in peace;
They respected us and even made taboos to
Preserve our lives.
They knew nothing about chemicals that weaken
The body so they lived on us and waxed strong
To full age.
The love they had for us gave them free meat.
Before your forced foods that kill you fast arrived,
We served your fathers healthy dishes
And poured clean air into their lungs.
What kind of generation are you?
You destroy us with a passion and do not care about
How our families survive.
What kind of generation are you?
You murder us with joy and cover the earth with
Concrete.
Who shall face the strong winds for you?
Who shall shield you from the sun when he is angry?
Our warnings keep falling on deaf ears
But we shall scream and scream and scream until
You hear.
Keep us close to protect yourselves
Give us life to have life
Love us to love yourselves
We, the trees are very angry.
Facebook: Omama Kidash
Twitter: OmamaKidash
