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Papa Kofi Joel Poem
THE CONVERSATION
A stammer once told me the beauty of listening.
So I shut my big mouth and made him speak.
Till his speech became music.
And I could sing with him each syllable till his own words chocked him.
So I listened to the brief silence with my eyes closed.
And I could see myself listening to the metronome of my heart, beat at the rhythmic pulsation of a song I knew too well that I could read it with my eyes closed.
But there was a moral to his story.
Cos for that rare fleeting moment silence was louder than two empty barrels, and we could fill each other with drops of wisdom till we made an ocean.
If silence is golden, then I wanna be stingy with my words and make me a fortune.
Cos talk is still cheap and listening has no price tag.
So let the songs I sing be heard through my actions.
Let the strings I pluck be synchronized with my chest drums for my eardrums to listen.
And let that silence beneath be heard.
This is what the stammer told me.
So I listen.
Cover my ears to the talkers and make the listeners talk.
For sound is merely a cover up of the truth we seek to walk.
Beneath every stutter; beneath every beat.
Beneath every letter you utter is nothing but something beyond everything.
Copyright © Papa Kofi Joel | Year Posted 2016
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Papa Kofi Joel Poem
Zugzwang zugzwang zu
Trying to write a haiku
Just a chess player.
Copyright © Papa Kofi Joel | Year Posted 2012
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Papa Kofi Joel Poem
THE MONTH OF MY BIRTH
The sound of June sounds like nothing but June.
Sweet! like the last drop of fine wine dripping from the warm tongue of a lover.
Leaving you wanting more for the remaining 29 days.
The sound of June to me is like music from 7 harps and a grand piano.
That sink my soul into the timelessness of the moment.
Junes come and go like rain.
Like porcelains leaving circles on the table.
Memorable photographs left hanging on the thin wooden
walls between love and hate; pleasure and pain;
lessons and mistakes; friendships, fights.
Coincidences; serendipity; synchronicity; light.
Epiphanies; truth; lies.
The sound of June breaks my heart.
Cos it reminds me of a little midget king plucking sunflowers to his mama.
Wearing a big permanent smile like the world would end if he didn't.
Now he's all hardened; like ice in a cold world.
No room for big hearts like his in the city.
Time's changed. But will change again.
It's still a beautiful world; With beautiful people.
Beautiful minds. Beautiful things.
Beautiful songs. Poetry; words.
Beautiful nights; Places.
Beautiful month.
For the sound of June sounds like nothing but June.
Sweet! like the last drop of fine wine dripping from the warm tongue of a lover.
Leaving you wanting more for the rest of the year.
Copyright © Papa Kofi Joel | Year Posted 2014
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Papa Kofi Joel Poem
My mother is a kind of person on the planet
Who cannot watch movies on tv or the internet
Because she thinks they're real.
I tell her of the video shoots
And say it's just a movie.
She leans back and at me she hoots
'My boy don't be a rookie'.
And so I linger with the rest
Of borrowed video tapes.
Mama home like a house arrest
My mocking brother gapes.
I still can't watch Spartacus,
Vampire Diaries nor Nikita.
Daily we watch In Focus
From Voice of America.
Copyright © Papa Kofi Joel | Year Posted 2011
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Papa Kofi Joel Poem
A dozen siblings we are in number.
One by one we come and go to slumber.
To hold your feasts,festivals,anniversaries,.. as a reminder;
That's why you cannot do without a calender.
Siblings we know we are to the core.
Yet we've never seen each other before.
Since the very past we've always been in groups of four;
And in some parts of our world, in two halves for a reason.
All because each of us has a favorite respective season.
To us a second is just like a cell;our basic unit of life.
When we are together, our lucky numbers are 366 or 365.
Four of us age 30; like a middle aged man.
Seven of us are older just by one.
The second of us rather the youngest,
From 28 he leaps to 29, and then reverses like a protest.
The 12th Child cannot miss Christmas.
The 4th Child cannot miss fools' day when people are spun around like discuss.
Just take a smart look at your MOUTH and then,
Summersult the middle to an N.
Yes! 12 we were and 12 we are..
For 12 shall we be fore ever..
Copyright © Papa Kofi Joel | Year Posted 2011
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Papa Kofi Joel Poem
Someone get me a Catholic Priest.
I have a confession to make.
About how I doubted God-
By not believing in the magnificence of his creation.
ME!
I told me lies that I believed like the Bible.
Chanted my own crafted verses-
Within the darkest temples of my lost hollow mind.
I buried the skeleton of my soul in wandering waters of skepticism.
Now I suffocate for the truth like oxygen
Someone get me a doctor.
They say my anatomy is proof of life's perfection
But I've mutilated the molecular structure
of water molecules in my cerebrum with my dubious thinking.
If I am Adam's replication, then I will need an auscultation
For my heart beats out of fear of the things I can become.
So I set my feet wide on high grounds
And make the winds blow me.
Till I float with my thoughts to the place where destiny lives.
Someone get me a photographer.
Today we take pictures of the things we cannot see.
Faith is in the thin air like a sylphic palanquin.
Ready to take us heights till we reach the depths of our essence.
Copyright © Papa Kofi Joel | Year Posted 2014
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