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Paul Obah Poem
Spectrums, Tints and Shades
Like the painter’s palette awash with hues and tones – white to tint and black to shade, greys scattered in between:
What risks we run:
Shaving a little too close that we get the hair as well as the scalp;
Shoving the pot over because we stirred a little too fast;
Losing one leg of the tripod stand from neglect so we fall flat on my face;
Fanning the flames too hot and toasting the succulent corn to unsavoury cinders;
With boundaries between cultures once amorphous now defined into divisive walls bricked up to heaven and;
With the make-up we wear that cake-up so thickly our fleshy hearts are forever masked.
What risks we face:
When limbs once attuned to celebratory dances are now hypnotised by drums of war and;
Spontaneity, gaiety and creativity have given way to seriousness, deliberateness and belatedness;
If we suffer the fool as well as the praise singer whose heartbeat is subject to the puppeteer’s wiles;
If running faster than ones shadow becomes a banquet at which the aged sup and ceases to be a repast of youth and;
If we lose our child-like nature and fail to see the painting in the random patches on a wall nor the master pieces brushed on by African clouds in our skies.
What dangers await us?
Running too fast into a blind dip in the road;
With the dive into a pool of unplumbed depth;
Cuts and bruises we suffer in a manic bid to scratch an itch away;
If we attempt to swat the fly off the monarch’s face;
Losing cultural norms to new-fangled western concepts; already trashed by the wise amongst those who brought them forth;
Bleaching our heritage dead-white on concepts alien to my 'Africanness'.
But what joys will ours be to share...
If our names once again become full verses of tributes to lineages proud and bold;
If cherished ancestors departed stay the backdrops to our scheming and;
Walking tall means more than the physical attributes of the super athlete;
If we remember that clothes maketh not the man but the quality of those who have his back and whose voices he hearkens to;
If we ultimately acknowledge that history predates our birth dates and shall endure my last breadth on earth;
And the legacy we must leave generations unborn is engraved not in mortal marble but in living flesh.
Our choices: Like the painter faced with a palette awash with hues and tones, white to tint, black to shade, greys scattered in between.
Copyright © Paul Obah | Year Posted 2015
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Paul Obah Poem
A KIND WORD
A pat
A hug
A scolding
A kind word.
A push
A pause
A listening ear
A helping hand.
Those we truly touch never forget,
Even long after the moment is passed.
O yes!
Like clay in the hands of the potter,
Those we form forever stay firm,
Long after our supporting hands are removed!
Like tempered steel, our words can build and strengthen,
If spoken from a heart of flesh: as with winks or blinks and silences screamed in voiceless mode. True talk!
But, our words can also freeze into stone and inaction, as with a gorgon’s stare
When love is blinded and hearts calcified.
Factual!
The latter leads to dreams broken and wings in mid-flight burdened with dead weight;
Where hope is dashed, dreams in ashes and the fire that keeps alive forever banked in cold coal.
And the former? So like the risen sun, the gallop of the antelope through luxuriant field,
And the graceful ascent of the swan in exultant flight!
Copyright © Paul Obah | Year Posted 2015
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Paul Obah Poem
Dream Home
I do not dream of a mansion
Not fifty bedrooms
Not with baths and toilets en-suite;
I do not desire a Jacuzzi in every room
Not a penthouse for ‘Yours Truly’ and
A playroom for even the pet dog.
All I ask for is, a house to ‘house’ my HOME, and, welcoming smiles on faces all around me - after a hard day’s job.
Copyright © Paul Obah | Year Posted 2015
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Paul Obah Poem
Live Art
Dream your dreams I pray thee; orchestrate your play I beseech thee and write the song you always wished to dance to; strum the guitar; blow the trumpet; bang the drums I ask you and let the clashing of the cymbals resound! You - pompoms raised high and waving wild, the cheer leader, and fan, coach, ball, goal post and player rolled into one.
Splash the colours I order you – fill your palette with colours ranging wide; with the world around you, your subject to carve, to mould, to weld as you would and at your whim; and weave from threads tiny and disparate into a whole! Be the glue that holds it all together and sketch your heart away I insist. Every thought, scribble, doodle, and wiggle into your folder of bad, good and excellent. For so are visionaries born.
Dare you be God even for a minute and the human your creator, our Father always meant you to be I ask? Forget not your humanness: Scream! Shout!! Play!!! Laugh I ask thee; keep your human face intact and, and your heart loyal to God. THIS IS AN ORDER, I dare pronounce!
My name is Paul and my heart is with you.
Copyright © Paul Obah | Year Posted 2015
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