*Akadu N. Mensema

** After a long absence, I am back with the hope of trumpeting the challenges and prospects facing Ghanaians. And no subject is sacred. Long Live Nkrumah! Long Live the CPP! Long Live Ghana! And “Long-Disgraced” to all Pen-Armed Robbers or Educated Thieves who use pen, official paper, and their vampire signatures to rob, impoverish, and marginalize the Ghanaian masses!

*** This poem is dedicated to Mama Pat and her four kids who died in the flood on June 3, 2015. Mama Pat, in a typical Ghanaian fashion after an ad hoc ceremony with speeches that out-distance the truth, you have been forgotten so soon. Another rainstorm has washed away your tombs. RIP even as the majestic and self-assured Odaw River and its coterminous others, which have been turned into filth-gilded urban gutters, continue to mock the lethal ingenuity of our corrupt and clueless leaders who only like to steal from the masses to buy mansions and cars.

“Hours of torrential rains in Accra since Thursday night have led to parts of Accra and other areas flooded. Hundreds of residents are displaced due to the heavy downpour with some major streets experiencing gridlock. Homes and offices in communities including Abeka Junction, Dome Market among others have been submerged in water. The Kwame Nkrumah Circle, Lapaz, Kaneshie among others were also flooded in what has almost become a normal occurrence even at the slightest downpour” (Ghanaweb October 9, 2015).

“Vice President Kwesi Amissah-Arthur yesterday June 8, 2015 led the nation to begin the 3 Day National Mourning for the more than 150 lives claimed in last Wednesday’s flood and fire disaster” (Ghanaweb June 8, 2015).

“Many parts of the capital, Accra, have been completely submerged after hours of torrential rains on Wednesday left many residents homeless and roads impassable. The rain began around 5:30pm and stopped at around 11:15pm but left in its wake a disaster of unimaginable proportions. Many houses have been inundated by the water with residents climbing on roof tops in a desperate attempt to save their lives” (Ghanaweb June 4, 2015).

Pristine rivers, ponds, streams, lakes, lagoons
Ah! The Odaw River and its families
Sites of purity
Sites of ontology
Abode of gods
Sites of ritual negotiations
Sites of ritual performance
Sites of ancestral reverence
Sites of life-giving water
Sites of food production
Innocent
Regal
Noble
Pure and unpolluted
Free-flowing in nature’s valleys
We have reconfigured them all
The Odaw River and its families
Ah! Such majestic waterways
We have turned them into gilded gutters
Gold-platted urban gutters
Ah! The habitation of the living dead
Come the dry season
Triumph of lawlessness will prevail
Come the raining season
Triumph of cesspools of disaster will flood us

Pristine rivers, lakes, streams, lagoons, ponds
The self-assured raining season will come again
The floods will come again
Releasing the fury of the choked gilded gutters
The Odaw River
Freed by the rains
Will find freedom once again
Its valley filled with gilded debris
Its waterways filled with garlanded garbage
Smothered at its watershed
Suffocated in its midstream
Strangled at its downstream
The majestic Odaw
Our gilded gutter
Will look for freedom
From excreta
From debris
From garbage
From illegal structures

Pristine rivers, lakes, streams, lagoons, ponds
Reconfigured by Ghanaians
Into majestic gilded gutters
That have at all
Gutters that have it all
Of pampered filth
Of potted debris
Of practiced excreta
Of prearranged junk
Of planned scrap
Of premediated trash
Of plotted illegal structures
Of preserved sewage from the poor
Of perfumed sewage from rich gated-communities
Oh! This our manicured national filth
Governments that supervise putrefaction, decay
In massive majestic gilded gutters
Gutters with rich grime
Gutters with symphonic flows
Gutters with regal islands of refuse
Gutters meandering around trimmed garbage
Crowded
Congested
Clogged
Crammed gilded gutters

Pristine rivers, lakes, streams, lagoons, ponds
Ah! The time-tested Odaw River
Will look forward to its freedom
The Odaw will flay, flow and flee
From the sad expenditure of politicians
From the twisted sympathy of politicians
From the pathological empathy of Ghanaians
The vultures in the dry season
The vultures in the raining season
The Odaw will flay, flow and flee
From MPs’ photo-op tours
From Ministers of State’s superficial visits
From the President’s opportunistic commiseration
From Chiefs’ diluted libation
From the press/media’s messy incantations
From religious leaders’ depressing prayers
From trotro passengers’ din discussions
From the rich people’s narcissistic gifts, donations
From three days of evanescent national mourning
From victims dancing to drumbeats
Of drumbeats of theater of death
Of drumbeats of ruined belongings
Of drumbeats of shattered lives
The Odaw will flay, flow and flee
From all Ghanaians dancing to drumbeats
Of drumbeats of failed and archived promises
Of drumbeats of corruption & mismanagement
Of drumbeats of traumatic national histories
Of drumbeats of organized, orchestrated chaos

Pristine rivers, lakes, streams, lagoons, ponds
The Odaw River knows it all
Come the dry season
The debris will be built
The garbage will be built
Excreta will be built
Illegal structures will be built
In its waterways of adaptive vitality
The Odaw River knows it all
The raining season will come
Cacophonous cries will be heard
Ad hoc measures will be heard
The Odaw River has heard all before
Cacophonic promises on the eve of raining seasons
Fall on the eaves of shattered seasons
The Odaw River knows it all
The Odaw River
Will free itself from our tyranny
Of debris
Of garbage
Of excreta
Of junk
Of illegal structures in its pathways

Pristine rivers, lakes, streams, lagoons, ponds
Under our tyranny of orthodoxy
Of babying filth, debris, trash, rubbish, refuse
Of nursing filth, debris, trash, rubbish, refuse
Debris-ing land, rivers, lakes, and beaches
Of plastic waste, polythene bags, broken bottles, computer parts,
Of pollutants from Agbogbloshie and Sodom and Gomorrah
Of human excreta now called Lavender Hill
Of garbage at the Arts Center Beach named “Borla Beach”
Plastic, polythene bags, broken bottles, computer parts
In watersheds
In waterways
In our homes
In our streets
In our hearts
In our communities
Through our organized chaos
Through our dazzling mess
Through our triumphant lawlessness

Pristine rivers, ponds, lakes, streams, lagoons
Colonized as gutters
Recolonized as urban gutters
Massive rural-migrationed gutters
Slums in their valleys
Slums at their watersheds
Illegal structures in their pathways
Ah! These slums
Impoverished, benighted slum inhabitants
Ah! They call it Sodom & Gomorrah
Ah! The place of filth and “sin”
Ah! Agbogbloshie
The hold of unsanitary alluvial gold
Gilded filth
Of industrial sewage
Of human excreta
Of imported debris, junk
Of discarded computers
Of discarded fridges
Of discarded TVs
Of discarded vehicular parts
Of foreign-used second hand items
Dumped in gilded gutters

Pristine rivers, lakes, streams, lagoons, ponds
Time to prefer a clear glass of rainfall
Time to discard a tinted glass of sunshine
The Odaw will tell us once again
We have rights to make garbage
We don’t have the right to be ignorant
By dumping garbage
Debris
Trash
Refuse
Waste-matter
Excreta
Depositing our wealth of trash
In glided gutters

Pristine rivers, lakes, streams, lagoons, ponds
The Odaw and other waterways, waterbodies
Have become cultural orphans
Gilded gutters
In our vast desert of mismanagement & lawlessness
The tidal rains will come again
The floods will come again
The annual floods will come again
The rivers, streams will find freedom
Freedom to flow and course in their valleys
Ah! In the habitation of the living dead
Come the dry season
Triumph of lawlessness will prevail
Come the raining season
Triumph of cesspools of disaster will flood us

Submitted by Akadu N. Mensema October 10, 2015. Can be reached at akadumensema@yahoo.com