Poetry: Remember Me by Inusah Zanjina

Remember me

There are somethings I don’t want to remember
Like how Mama broke into pieces of eight
On the night my father became a kite
Flapping his wings into a wicked dark cloud
And into the arms of a younger damsel
I don’t also want to remember the shrieks of Mama
On the day father’s hands travelled her cheeks
And each journey left footprints on my Mama’s fair skin
I don’t also want to remember
How the nights slept with Mama in her matrimonial bed
Whiles father saw day in bordello

Somtimes a boy grows beard in his mother’s womb
Before growing legs in this world,
When his father is a thousand lunatics
Caged in an asylum
Who sees home as a battle field
A boy drinks violence in his childhood
Before knowing love in his old age

And
Such boys, eat their hearts in childhood
After seeing their fathers befriend the devil
In-between strange women’s legs
And I am one of those boys
Who has seen a father’s hand walk across Mama’s cheeks and leave prints
Yes! I am one of those boys
Whose fathers are married to the bottle
Such that Mama becomes only a vessel of nature’s contents
And I am still one of those boys
Whose future was written on sands at the seashore
Bearing scars of a mistaken union

And yes, there are somethings I may remember
Things…….
Like how a girl once promised to sail me across this sea of bitterness
Like how Mama smiled on the day I became a man
Like how Ayisha once said that my past has eaten my future and flew with the wind.
Like how I once even promised a girl my lungs (I ate my heart at birth)
So that I may not become father who promised a heart
And gave his hands to Mama instead

I may also want to remember
The dance I (and mama) once had with father
A leg in front, another at the back
Hands sown together as threads
With me in the middle
Seeing the moon and the sun (father and Mama)
And how this dance has broken into a thousand memories now
Following the northeast trade winds now

So Preacherman remember me!
Remember my thousand stories
When you do give them the kolanuts
Tell them that each kola
May be infected with a thousand ills
But they must treat it
For God and for mankind

Biography:

Inusah Zanjina is a professional teacher with the Ghana Education Service. He is a graduate of the University of Education, Winneba and Bagabaga College of Education in Tamale.
He likes to read and write poetry during his leisure time.
On writing, Inusah Zanjina has been a versatile columnist of Ghanaweb.com, a reputable news site in Ghana.
He has a vision of developing other writers in the savannah belt of Ghana.

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