To My Uncle Tarkwa Atta – A Tribute (2)

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr.

You surrounded yourself
with bloodhounds,
and so you woke up
with fleas;
yes,
you surrounded yourself
with flies of
human waste
who kept
weaving lies
upon lies
about the failing state
of your health,
who unconscionably
rode you
like a mule
to your premature
grave…
and now,
the Shit-Bombers
have mounted
your saddle
with a crocodile’s
lament,
claiming to be
the new messengers
of truths
they have never known
or told;
these congenital liars
who callously
hid the truth
from the nation
at large,
these congenital liars
who callously sucked
your ebbing strength
till you sagged
and went limp
like a
deflated
balloon,
these congenital liars
who know no shame
and have no qualms,
they have mounted
your saddle
claiming to be
the new prophets
who shall ferry us
to the promised land
of Judgment Debts and
coldly calculated
commissions
for patriotic thugs…
and yes,
Uncle Ebo,
you said it all
and said it best:
even those who
carpenter-sewed
those loose-hanging
color-running
school uniforms
for our kids
shamelessly claim
our humanity
is the article
of their faith –
and on the right-hand
of Lucifer sits
that gray
and fast-aging
thug who tightened
SAP’s
strait-jacket
around
our broken necks
and kwashiorkorized
bellies and fled
to the bounteous land
of Fifty-Stars
at the height
of our season
of drought…
and you,
my good, old
Uncle Tarkwa-Atta,
so scandalously naïve
were you that
you cheerfully took
the barbed and
poisoned-tipped bait
of Jato-Patapaa
and ended up
fried
like a crab
on Labadi
Beach –
and the land
is generously awash
in human waste,
for the Shit-Bombers
are back again
in the seat
of our sinking
and stinking
ship
of state…

7/25/12