Jacob Kobina Ayiah Mensah: 3 Poems
The Swing & the Fury
I write my life scattered about in lines
& stitch them together as midlife crisis.
The first line is a fishbone, covered by two cottony puffs from white hair,
snarling above a cornet, I slow down its tune among the motorcyclists
I’m of them to pass the dairy farm
& discuss arthritis from couch to a ladder.
I remember all the strays
you’ve included to manage the lowest rung of a leg.
The second line almost a baby equipment
& that requires assistances from the sisters,
I settle in the back seat, waiting to see in the mirror
how the heart beat springs up & down from your South to my North,
shaped on the anvil with sugar sprinkles,
still under the summer heat
& cherry blossoms hang from the sky,
open weeks are zipped with your breath.
At this dead heat,
to pay the next death duty
for debris,
I debug the cancer
from the cactus wounds
with your fingers making numb.
The furthest corner of this room
is just a frown furrowing your brow,
I take the fury on your face
& fuse with the bones of the spine together,
showing a brilliant future
in the front through the dark corridor.
The third line remains the surface underneath, the glass is full to the brim.
I keep the brine
for a very agreeable weather
& that’s why I’m not hurt outside their dairy products.
In Rome I make a long list, age-old customs,
you stare at it aghast,
I’ve nothing against people making money
& paying taxes on it
for very tall for their age.
This mound is clad among groups of people in heating allowance.
Sighing
Singleness
is the most gift
& ordinary thing.
I’ve wrapped with your voice
beneath the ruins
& above
the first lemma we compose
like a yam tuber.
Some things almost the symbols in K, L, M, etc, are
between our vector spaces, your wife proofs
with my corollary right
against any Renaissance pigments
on the walls or from the ceilings, we remain silence before the headlights
during Labour Day. Aiming straight
at the crag
& seizing your moment
blundering down the aisle,
hands are folded, days are rushed away
up the corridor to complete the triangles
for this trench.
It’s quieter there though you clench your fists
built around a circuitous route to avoid the hill centre.
You DIY without all this hassle at work,
DJ does his chance by just standing there –
doing something!
I consider this old chrysalis struggling to be christened
when chrome handles glisten with our sweat,
the visitors begin to filter into the hall,
holding water from the goof ground,
the next finch,
a finicky eater, flutters about,
the lake is wide opened in your mouth
we gob the results, hanging from hunches,
I decollate to the fuselage without my go-cart.
Cooler towards Riverside
We’re lizards to our ends as from our beginning
during the fall above the bog, where wattles are covered
with clay to hide your presence, we’re formed from no supposition on any subject governing the guard,
I go ahead about your story,
that doesn’t agree with
what the historians have said before a large audience,
I’ll keep out, yes, out your way. No eating an ogre or a ghoul, no begging your pardon, sir,
I keep the edges to a pinch,
as I’ve been accustomed to do, I feel disposed to see inside
& enter the house & retreat from the floating staircase,
I master its ritzy riser, if that’s possible to alight the cuttings for the next collage on dust.
This music is much more akin to blue jazz than cold rock, here within, you’re easy reach.
How do you react to the news when they shout & boo?
A colleen grabs your wrist & some paddies have a very bad reaction to these peanuts.
I sit down to read your hand- writing full of role-play,
a robin stares at a fishing rod still in the lagoon to rob you
your self-confidence over the fire. I justify nothing, only the touch, the softness & the impossible.
Jacob Kobina Ayiah Mensah is author the of new hybrid collections, The Sun of a Solid Torus, Conductor 5, Genus for L Loci, and Handlebody. He lives in the southern part of Ghana.