Dear Kwame Red (9)
By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr.
I saw him
again
today,
that bastard son
of yours called
Independence –
at 58,
he has absolutely
nothing to show
for all the dough
forked up
to school him
in a bid to
making somebody
out of this shipwreck
of a dunce
he has scandalously
become;
all the young ladies
in town cringe
and retch and
flee at his sight;
they say
this is not
what and who
they had in mind
when we fought off
the Brits…
too little
learning
that cost
the crab
his head
and brain,
too little
access to
and a taste
of a good thing
that turns
the head
backwards till
it falls
off the cliff –
those punch-drunk
minions of yours,
pounding and
punching
the dickens
out of themselves…
you tripped
and fell
and crushed
the gourd
of wisdom,
and then
an open-season
of foolery
was unleashed
like a plague
on our pates,
and we have been
kicking and
screaming like
chuckleheads
since your
primal fall…
Indepenedence,
that whoring son
of a bitch
that was not
your son
at all,
but the handicraft
of your
homecoming sponsors
you snatched at
cudgel-point
with a meat-cleaver
and a skewer
with which you
gagged
the ob-gyns
of our destiny…
Kwame Red,
sorry to say,
but you led us
to a dead-end,
a destination
self-expended
ere the trip
began…
a destination
that was no
destination at all
but eternal
procrastination
and abject
frustration;
and we have
been tripping
and falling over
one another
with colorful
yarns of
self-deceit
ever since
you staked out
your mendacious
messianic claims
of primal
procreativity…
yes,
Independence
came and went
his wayward way,
leaving us
the irreparably
broken pieces
of a life
fraught with angst
anguish and
ennui…
the Independence
whose meaninglessness
has not been
assuaged
by its linkage
with fifty-four states
of dictatorship
on the African
in-continent,
the Independence
that has made us
so hopelessly
dependent
on donor dole
you begin
to wonder
what our lot
might have been
had you not
so brashly and
brazenly and
impetuously
stirred
the hornet’s
nest…
3/11/15
