Poems by Eze Amushie 

Words in Simple Language

Suddenly the sky opened.
Angels on white horses
Filled the Earth
Like the rays of the sun.
With tongues of fire they spoke out
Secrets untold
The hidden bond
Between the silver and the gold.
They told our history
They told the future
Their Revelations were  
In musical notes,
Sang to our bones in strange languages,
We did not understand.
We were made Christians.
Even when we knew not what was said
Of “One Strange God”.
They confused our senses.
Then they threw away
The images that we believed in.
They said it was wrong to sing
An ode to the morning of rising sun.
 
They changed the images
They changed them more pale.
Other songs in place
Of our morning desire.
Confusion arose
In most violent protests,
They let it go on.
They let our hopes hang from
Above the edge of a sharp razor...
We did not hear the footsteps of the crumbling mountain.
We were engaged in one stupid ethnic trouble...
When the mountain came crumbling,
The eggs they had laid
Had already hatched.
 
The worms were already there
Eating down what was left
Of our hope.
Our fortune,
Our custom and traditions,
They devoured our pride.
We began to see evil, in our brothers' tongue
And time, time...
Time passed us by.
When we realized where we were,
And what was happening,
The worms had eaten down plantations,
Entire villages.
And on them, they erected glasshouses!
They called them "Colonies".
In place of our "totem of good hope"
In my home town
Now there is a phone booth.
When we saw vanish in broad day light, our faith,
We flee in great masses,
To learn the secrets of the phone booth,
And strange language.
We were to bring back at least a hope
For another shrine of love.
So we had to learn to use their language.
First we began from the simplest ones.
They were only words,
Words in simple language.