The News From Home by Kofi Anyidoho

The News From Home

I have not come this far

only to sit by the roadside

and break into tears

I could have wept at home

without a journey of several thorns

I have not spread my wings

so wide only to be huddled into corners

at the mere mention of storms

To those who hear of military coups

and rumours of civil strife

and bushfires and bad harvests at home

and come to me looking for fears and tears

I must say I am tired

very tired

tired of all devotion to death and dying.

I too have heard of

all the bushfires

the sudden deaths

and fierce speeches

I have heard of

all the empty market stalls

the cooking pots all filled with memory and ash

And I am tired

tired of all these noises of

condolence from those who

love to look upon the anger of the hungry

nod their heard and stroll back home

worrying and forever worrying

about overweight and special diet for dogs and cats.

Like an orphan stranded

on dunghills of owners of earth

I shall keep my sorrows to myself

folding them with infinite care

corner upon corner

taking pains the foldings draw circles

around hidden spaces where still

our hopes grow roots even

in this hour of finite chaos

Those who sent their funeral clothes

to the washerman

awaiting the mortuary men to come

bearing our corpse in large display

Let them wait for the next and next

season only to see how well earthchildren

grow fruit and even flower

from rottenness of early morning dreams

Meanwhile

I am tired

tired of all crocodile condolence.

Kofi Anyidoho

Kofi Anyidoho is a Ghanaian poet and professor of Literature. He has received numerous awards for his poetry, including the Valco Fund Literary Award, the Langston Hughes Prize, the BBC Arts and Africa Poetry Award, the Fania Kruger Fellowship for Poetry of Social Vision, Poet of the Year (Ghana), and the Ghana Book Award.

The Last Dinner by Kofi Anyidoho

The Last Dinner

I am the helpless fish

Frying in your bowl of cooking oil

You lean against the kitchen wall

Smiling with the thoughts of coming feasts

But nature in time will call

You’ll render account squatting on your heels

Your hunger returns with new demands

And I will not be there to

Feed the needs of

Recurrent appetite

Kofi Anyidoho

Kofi Anyidoho is a Ghanaian poet and professor of Literature. He has received numerous awards for his poetry, including the Valco Fund Literary Award, the Langston Hughes Prize, the BBC Arts and Africa Poetry Award, the Fania Kruger Fellowship for Poetry of Social Vision, Poet of the Year (Ghana), and the Ghana Book Award.

Long Distance Runner by Kofi Anyidoho

Long Distance Runner

From Frisco once

we drove across the wide yawn of the breezy bay

to the Oakland home of Mike who fixed

a memorial dinner for his years among our people

5 They call for song and I sing the story

of our wounds: the failures and betrayals

the broken oaths of war leaders grown smooth

with ease of civil joys

They laugh they clap they call for more

10 For a change just a little change I sing

your dirge about their land’s defeat in the beauty

of her dawn: the ghost of Harlem standing guard

across their bridge of mirth their launching pad of dream and myth.

I sing also your long lament for Grand Geronimo

15 Amerindian chieftain who opened his heart a bit too wide

the lonely horseman who now perhaps only may be

still rides his old stallion across their dream their myth

forever riding his memory among mirages along eternities

reserved for him among snowfields spread across the breast

20 of the Earth this Earth and all his Earth.

Halfway through the songs I see the folly

and the wisdom of our choice in the cold stare

the shifting look in the eyes of our hosts our very kind hosts

Who are we to throw back at a man the image of things

25 he strove so hard to burn to ashes in history’s bonfires?

We know there is an agony in waiting for the long distance runner

who breaks the finisher’s line for the judges to declare he

jumped the starter’s gun stepped upon some other

runner’s toes threw him off balance and off the race

30 And what is a race, Cousin, without the rules

without other runners

But leave him alone leave him alone to his

glory looming large above his olive dreams.

Kofi Anyidoho

Kofi Anyidoho is a Ghanaian poet and professor of Literature. He has received numerous awards for his poetry, including the Valco Fund Literary Award, the Langston Hughes Prize, the BBC Arts and Africa Poetry Award, the Fania Kruger Fellowship for Poetry of Social Vision, Poet of the Year (Ghana), and the Ghana Book Award.