Africa: SLOWLY and QUIETLY | by Nene Tetteh Adusu | African Poetry

Slowly and quietly,
The wheel of patriotism
Is rolling out of Africanism.

Slowly and quietly,
The wheels of corruption,
The wheels of selfishness,
All, loftily and grandly roll in.

Slowly and quietly,
The people are indifferent,
The leaders are different,
Untied are our aspirations-
Preach Yes and live No.

Slowly and quietly,
The angry winds of modernity
Is hurriedly sweeping our hard won freedom
Back into colonising civilisation-
A disguised form of colonisation.

Slowly and quietly,
Patriotism thrives in our history
And more citizens want to be characters
Yet our sweats are now tears,
Unwiped still.

Quickly and loudly,
Slowly and quietly
The winds of change blows
From a distant land,
Unsought for in this land.

Quickly and slowly
Loudly and quietly
Let change tumble and rumble from our Obonu*,
And our leaders dance our identity
Like AkƆm*, possessed
and Kete*, royally beautiful
And the people follow suite.
Quickly and loudly!

Glossary

Obonu- a Ga drum

AkƆm- a ritual dance

Kete- an Asante royal dance.

*********

Image by ~W~ via Flickr

About the Author:

Writing under his indigenous name—Nene Tetteh Adusu—Tetteh, a Poet, Performer and dramatist, hails from Ghana and currently lives in Accra. His poems have been featured in various magazines, literary shows in and out of Ghana like Tuck Magazine, the Beautiful Africa poetry anthology, Writers’s Project on Citi Fm and has also performed at Alewa Poetry Show, Verbs Café, Love is a Two Letter Word, Monday Night with POETS on Yfm to mention a few. He opines that – just as words were used in creating this world, so can the world be transformed by words. Mirroring life and crashing them when necessary to fit the pieces in life’s dazzling puzzle- his philosophy. He was the “Order of the Village” awardee at The Village Thinkers Poetry Honorary Awards.