The Hunger Game

We sat in the living room in Dansoman 
A suburb of Accra, curtains all drawn down
To keep the uninvited happy sunny face, locked out 
This was no a time for jokes or playful games 

Us young and worrying 
If we worried as kids 
Then mother must have had heavy 
The weight of the world on her shoulders 

To carry the love and protection 
Of her four kids like mother hen 
With no corn harvest to pick on 
Cracked dry was the land, infested with hunger 

Rationing was an art work 
No one was above size ten to flaunt 
And ten would have been fat with affluence 
Or privileged with mystery of gain, mystery of gain 

Early sleep, to wake early at 4 am on queue lines 
Long for the water that cooked the kenkey 
To have the kenkey was a privilege so few
Could afford, if luck had them reach there in time 

Rawlings chain was the jewelry of the neck bone exposed 
Both the young and old wore to show and tell 
As statements of the state of affairs in the country 
Yellow corn and wheat was what was known 

Gari should be made a national treasure in Ghana 
Beans was all the protein one could get 
We hunted the fruit trees to make up the difference 
Hunger always asked his stomach to be belly fully paid 

We became expert tree climbers 
Hanging on the last branch a stretch 
To harvest and pull the bounty it held 
There are tricks to these things 

Ways of getting around climb 
If you know how to throw on targets 
And be quick to get your harvest 
Before eagle eyes that hover gains ground 

This was the hunger game, not Hollywood  
Script with fancy actors pretending to starve
With luxury trailer caravans to return to 
After the director shouts, cut! its a wrap 

We lived in the pulled down curtain era 
Of the 80's where the sun came out 
But for energy preservation of the little food ate 
The kids were not seen out playing 

We played the hunger game in the 80's 
Before today's fast food joints and wasted resources 
I wonder with the world population inflating so fast 
Would we be playing the hunger game again 

In this generation or the next, who is to tell 
Global village it seems brings global consumerism 
And global warming follows suit, global troubles 
Will we be playing the hunger game again so soon 

Who holds the keys to the farmhouse door 
Will it stay opened or locked by the owner to privilege a few 
Is there enough food in storage for tomorrow's demand 
Who holds the keys to the farmhouse, is this the hunger game 

The hunger game.

Drowning In My Sleep

I spent forever getting upgrade, remade; sharpened nails, ready to cut down glass roofs and let out rage... swimming up from the depths so deep.  I'm drowning in my sleep, it's not just all in my head like a mirage. I am done with the daily dose of pills, society pushes down my throat; to keep me, keep you, keep us sleep walking, like the matrix. Birds spinning round above my head making me feel all dizzy, disgruntled, I see all in physical forms of pretense they pretend on false promises, they lecture, they pledge to.

They say aim high stars above and I am looking past, ready to fly past, G 6 in my back view, wings blowing fast into accelerations gained, it's light speed to destiny aimed for; then like a nightmare, boggy man, they come snatching platforms quicker, faster than we ever build them, made them, furiously fearful. They sit paranoid,  fearing to share  to see us, change clothes and become company men like them; not like them, it's a class state. It is a class state to keep the status quo.

The banker smiles like the demon's son on the devils advocate, playing drinking games with my blood thirst. I'm bleeding, he is drinking; money rules the world and it is evil at its core, so the big man sits with, evil wrapped up, around to gauge and the poor suffer pain of suffocating stress, watching the fat pig getting fatter on our children's blood as breakfast. Skinny man, skinny bone, kids looking alien, skinny head, mothers heart, torn out with  lungs still attached by the devils hands held out with laughter's on pride; he laughs in barbaric ways, in excitement; man them starving while the Ak 47 speaks loud, getting louder on battle grounds, fields tearful theaters, bodies dropping like rain fall pouring, it's messy out there rated PG 18, I am bleeding.

I am peeling off layers like onions with liquid in my eye's fountain, and this is just the start,  just starting; already my eyes are filled full with tears of this nonsense we justify bullshit  it's absurd; someone, somebody, anybody hold me back before I go raging. I am fuming on observations, based on reality checks, institutions built on corruptions, like castles on quick sand. It is all a fools game, fools fooling fools, on following fools stands; standards on the best dressed in ceremonies sat in seminars to discuss falseness,  on repeat sentence, on repeat play, on repeat play, on repeat play, rewind to replay. 

The best rather be left sleep walking, reality too hard to handle and the rest are left coked up drunk to numb the edge to want to think to know past the bullshit, sex games rules, religion, drug games rules, no difference left to see between the far right, far left, communist, fascist  and dictatorship rules. The same leaders in camouflage change clothes, schooled in the same school of thought, with no notion, concept of the grass root's pain; sipping on wine, tea and biscuits in meaningless, mindless, while-wind meetings of agenda, pledges and promises, false promises made, I am bleeding as witness forced to witness.

Peeling off layers, peeling off bullshit and this is just the start; the poor no longer able to tell the difference between politician's lies and truth. Its blurred, its greed in green eyes in fine suits, this is pain of knowing and it is wide spread from the four corners of the world like epidemic on invasion from sneeze like cold flu.

Companies on direct debt, quick to snatch quoting contract clauses, but slow to refund in mistakes made, dodging taxes on technicalities and bonuses, while the poor are trapped to pay on throats and daggers; slashed, they are all friends of the same clan of greed. So who police the policy makers, the judges robe is empty in encasement  of  moral value on earth, the comedian changed sides no longer making jokes of the men with riches; just ask who is in charge and they show faces, show of hands, coming out from the same holes of comfort, their colourless, colourless  colourless, colourless 

To talk debt on clauses, politics is all a game now; money men pulling strings, their voices stronger than society's call in need of fair play. It is money talk and the rest march past and they have plenty to talk with, talk about so they make up the stage and make up the rules of engagement and we are suppose to play against them on fair play, fair grounds.

Then I woke up from sleep walking or is it up from drowning in my sleep, or is it going back to sleep in daylight on hypnotized states. Drowning in my sleep, I am drowning in my sleep, I am drowning in my sleep.