My Lover turns into a Witch on Sundays.

By Oppong Clifford Benjamin 

I was as sure as faith and dance

as darkness and its absence 

and as heaven and humans- 

I had no doubt that God was here

And that God was there too;

In sins, He was here and 

in the holiest of holies, He was there.

It was a dark room under a dark rainy sky

with the stars hidden behind frowning clouds

The air carried everything including our doubts

on its carelessly chaotic cold paths to nowhere

It was the sound of percussion instrument playing

Playing soft hymns to the atmosphere unseen

On the floor, seated we were:

Legs crossed. Right on left leg

right palm in left.

A black candle burned its wax away 

to illuminate our dark life someways 

Kiky had mastered her craft.

She was in a black cassock

She looked ahead of my head

And closed her eyes again softly.

She didn't want to breath

She didn't want to call my name

I watched her dance to the heavens;

Head bent to the feet,

Her hips curved around the dark,

Hands thrown to the near west

Heartbeats in accordance with every bit

of nature. It was with the rains on the roof.

I watched her turn into air and 

back to a shadow on the wall

I watched her move back and forth

between the present world and trance

She danced her glory off,

She divined our future

And I looked on with anxious surprise.

And my lover finally became everything

I couldn't have been, 

everything I had only dreamt of;

The room walls 

The moment

The air

The candle

The dark

And God 

And Kiky was God

And God was Kiky

And God was us.

She opened her eyes abruptly and

spoke to the silence and it broke

As above so below, she said and smiled.

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Sunny Side Street.

 

The Sun can be sweet on the sunnyside street

Telecasting shadows of uncommon scenes ;

of boys who smoke the hell out of the street

of blind beggars who see the luck at sunrise

of fashionable girls with no cloths on

of barbershops where no hair is seen

Everything can be sweet on the sunnyside street

The day lives longer than 24 on the sunnyside street

We kiss our fortunes goodbye and sit for rude sights;

of girls who walk the side street in groups of three

to boys in faded blue jeans who could afford a lunch

of blond ladies who pray the sun dies off at six

to take whatever the grim fate of the day brings

they love the nights, its light and how the body bites

Of cops drawing strategies to improperly extort monies

from poor foreigners who have no identity aside pleading

Of robots that always smile green but no cars seen

cos we meet at every corner on the sunyside street

The night is never quiet on the sunnyside street

Bad DJs play your favourite songs in the ghettos

You nod and tap only your right foot on the tired earth

while your left is motionless because it's cushioning the ass

of a fine bladdered lady of the night whose name matters not

Thick guys knock you hard in the face and drag you on the floor;

they make you bleed

make you cry

make you think

make you curse life

make you taste what it is to be here

no ice is promised on the cream, they say

It's some gangsta shit, that too they say

And you wonder when your visa will be due

to leave because you know you will die soon

And the night grows into the morning and the day lives on

And you wake up in bed a proud a survivor

With the nameless lady by your side

to welcome you to just another version of the day.

It is always sweet on the sunnyside street

Robot: A visual signal to control the flow of traffic at intersections. Synonymous to Traffic light.

Oppong Clifford Benjamin

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THE VIRGIN MOTHER

'The Virgin Mother by Oppong Clifford Benjamin ' is a vibrating short story about a small students cult on Tescoland; the campus of Ghana Secondary Technical School (GSTS). Of which, members were even not aware of their membership in this mystical school. The deity therein was a drawing on the wall of the dark room, called the dungeon, in which they rehearsed every night when all were asleep; a half nude woman with wings appended to her back.

The Virgin Mother is summoned by dancing to the rhyme of percussion to exhaustion and only then would she appear. She came in different forms - a ray of light from the heavens to earth, a tiny smoke from earth to heaven, the sound of heavy down pour of rain and so on.

I dare say, the innocent cult was called TERROR SQUAD (TS).

Read excerpt of the thrilling short story:

..................... On the night of a certain day, it was past 1am in the late African winter weather. Tescoland was snoring, the evergreen field laid calmly in its oval shaped campus, the structures stood the heights doing nothing but staring at nothing and enjoying the tranquillity of quiescent atmosphere of the night, and the sea as usual, comported itself beneath the adorning stars in the dark sky which canopied everything including the dungeon, and therein we stood – three boys, students actually - playing the acid* we used in our previous performance at Mfantsiman Girls secondary school at Saltpond, it was of percussion rhythm and our audience couldn’t just stop screaming throughout the drama session, they were scared yet they didn’t want the show to end, they loved it, truth be told.

We wool-gathered and thought, we sought ideas from The Virgin Mother on the wall, from the God behind the skies, from the leaves of the tree which grew behind the dungeon, its branches had pussyfooted into the room through the broken windows, we were sweating, in reality we wanted to do something different for our next performance in St. Johns boys School. We wanted to break tradition.

That was a rivalry school to ours. The stories were told of the boisterous war between the only two boys schools in western Ghana over who was the desirable official gents to the only all-girls school in the region; Archbishop Porter Girls Secondary School.

From the news of the days, GSTS had carved an image of academic excellence over the years and still were fine-tuning this image in modern days, our school almost always was among the top ranks of the A class schools. And as most girls were attracted to guys with high intellectual faculty, so did we won the game when the dice were cast by the girls themselves.

But sincerely speaking, the Saints had the official recognition, as both Porter girls and Johns Boys were catholic schools; they easily found love in the communion of their faiths. Moreover the boys in the green shirts represented everything we were not; they were more fashionable, voguish, and rich and had a spot on entertainment.

It was apparent that the show to which we were preparing for was a big one and as big shows attract big audiences, we were compelled by source of motivation to give off our best. We contemplated on the numerous terror squad dramas performed by our predecessors, they ranged from; the priest and the farmer and the monster story to the poor boy in the jute bag and the zombies– in the composition of the former, an unsuspecting farmer discovered rather to his dismay a corpse which had been indecently interred just beneath the top soil of the native earth of his farm, the unpleasant scene came to sight, after he had rested his back in a recumbing posture against the trunk of a tree, and was decompressing his worn out self from a tired labour. And when he was alleviated, decided to resume his industry, to assist his rising, caught hold of a sprig of acacia which grew just by his right hand side, which, to his surprise, came easily out of the ground. The alarmed farmer being cognitive of the recent disturbance of the immediate earth, examined the soil and saw the remains of his own brother fast decaying by the actions of termites and weevils.

He, therefore, bucketed along to the village in deep lamentation to disclose the afflicting intelligence to the only catholic priest in town, who, he found at the sanctum sanctorum of the cathedral. He hastened to the holiest of holy without cleansing himself. The priest upon seeing him, shouted at him to retire for he was dirty. Nobody entered the Holiest of holy, neither the high priest, nor him, but once in a year, to pray for the propitiation of the sins of the people.

The farmer retiring to the main floor of the church emitted long loud wailing asking the priest to condescend to receive from him the smiting words on his tongue. His cries penetrated the immediate presence and travelled deep inside the heart of the priest.

Upon their return to the farm, they met an apoplectic monster oozing with extortionate anger, ................................

Kindly watch this space for the publication of 'The Virgin Mother'. The book comes with ten additional interesting short stories by the same writer. Thank you for your patience.

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In The Battle against Stroke

On the 7th day of February, 2015, exactly a year today, it came and took very much away from me - my speech, part of my brain, the muscles, my personality, my reasoning ability, my superb retention- but it didn’t kill me; I rather fought harder and instead, it made me stronger. The stroke taught me some vital lessons in life which I wouldn’t have practised even if I met them in my books.

It was very usual of a South African morning sky to have the sun actively at labour, and the least said about the effects of its rays on human skins and leather the better. It was half past eight in Cape Town, the administrative city of the country, and the city was already up with the refulgency of the sun, bustling and hustling with the cries of conductors of commercial buses traveling on the beautiful and black asphaltic roads. They were either moving to or from Durban to Bellvile and vice versa. And for some minutes long, I kept my gaze at the to and fro movement, from the windows of my room. I watched the pedestrians too. They were either walking or waiting to catch a bus to carry them to anywhere. I was thinking about nothing in particular, my head was comfortably rested at the intersection of my crossed hands on the panels of the glass windows. But not before I could retire to bed for a second time sleep, did Phina, my host, knocked at my door; she had come to ask if I cared to visit the Tyger valley Mall, which She said was the biggest in the country. "Yes please", I responded perfectly well and with much delight in my voice. It was my third day in the country, and I was still curious about everything within.

While in the bathroom, I looked at myself in the mirror that hanged just above the sink; it wasn’t a reflection of me I saw. It was of another man, whom we only shared resemblances, but not in his distorted mouth; the upper lips had shifted towards right and the lower to the left, and his reddened eye balls looked like one who had just stopped crying over a hurtful loss. I tried to understand that he was as normal as I was, but it was only then, that I realized something was going the wrong way somewhere. Something I couldn’t just fathom, it was strange to me and it appeared that the man in the mirror was more frightened than I was.
I felt total exhaustion after I managed to move my right hand to bath all of my body, which, of course, included my right leg which was refusing to stand properly. What is happening to me? I asked myself, but I knew I had not even the slightest clue on the answer. I still managed to re-enter my room to dress up for the mall, but I was weak and so I bedded. No sooner had I rested than Phina called my attention to the time and also advised that the sun could be terrible in the afternoon so we made it now.
Phina was driving, and I was seated just beside her, and she would, sporadically, converse with me. When she asked me to teach her my local language, I grinned without opening my mouth. Then another, she asked me how we said ‘good morning’ in my local dialect and I dared to speak, and the words just rushed all up at once in my head, each wanting to come out of the contorted mouth, confused as to what to say, I kept quiet. She asked why I was quiet, and I answered; 'ablebla', that was when I realized I couldn’t speak. But ignorant Phina laughed and asked if that was how we said ‘good morning’ in our local dialect, to which I nodded in the affirmation to save myself from further questions. I wondered what was wrong with me, my right hand wouldn’t do as the brain orders, and same with my right leg, and my speech wouldn’t come and I felt very sorry for myself.

When we reached the mall, Phina had a call from her son; she was to pick some items from him at an uncommon ground, so she left me at the car park to window shop while awaiting on her return. I came out of the car very carefully yet unbalanced in my steps and so she asked me whether everything was okay with me, and again, I nodded in response that all was well.
I dragged my feet to the mall; I could only see its magnificence in the white people around, for second I asked myself where the black folks are? I could see items on display but my brain couldn’t communicate with my eyes therefore everything I saw remained in the eyes, and not further to the brain.
Unconsciously, I found myself sitting in a restaurant and a black guy walked up to me with the menu, he welcomed me and asked if I would need the menu. In a deliberate attempt to answer him, I accidentally threw up the saliva I had all the while accumulated in my mouth at him but rather to my surprise, the guy saw that something was wrong with me and so was calm. I tried apologizing and the words wouldn’t just come out of my mouth properly, I kept on throwing my hands in the air, gesturing the words but I made no sense to even myself let alone the waiter. He told not to bother at all, and opened the menu, I was pointing to a particular dish but my right hand wouldn’t obey any orders from the brain or it was the brain who wouldn’t communicate rightly. The waiter then said he would serve me a nice meal. I threw my eyes wildly across the food court and I saw the waiter positioned at a corner and keeping a worried gaze on me.
He realized I found it difficult eating the food. No hand to pick them from the white plate and no mouth to chew. I kept on struggling with the feeding and ended up with the food in my nose and all over the place. One of the customers seated with a lady next to me, said to the girl friend; 'How can ocean basket allow mad men to come here just because they have the money'. The waiter rushed to me, and asked me if I needed assistance in anything, but I insisted I was okay with my left hand. But the waiter was smart to realize I wasn’t okay.
When I was exiting the mall to the car park, looking around, I found out that the waiter was following me. My right leg was eventually paralyzed, I fell to the floor at the park and suddenly I wept. I was crying because I realized how abruptly but gradually I was transmogrifying into a day old baby, who couldn’t think, walk, touch and worse of all feed. But babies don’t go to shopping malls by themselves. I knew I was still a man.
The waiter came to me and begged me to talk to him; he asked me what he could do for me and I wanted to tell him how I was feeling but each time I opened my mouth, the brain wouldn’t bring out even a word, and that made me cry the more such that the waiter too cried. We sat there in the middle of the car park, and then my brain came back all of a sudden, I remembered that I was with my phone; I gave it to him to call Phina to come for me.
He did and said that Phina was just somewhere around the corner and that she was already on her way to the mall. When Phina saw me on the floor with the waiter, she began to weep. She had a soft heart. Phina was above sixty years. I was hauled to Tyger Valley hospital, which I later learned was the biggest and well equipped teaching hospital in Africa and the third in the world. Indeed a first class hospital it was. I was admitted in the intensive care unit and had about seven doctors around me the whole night.
Just after three days, I could walk but far away from perfect, but I had not restored my speech. I was assigned to a speech therapist, a physiotherapist, a team of cardiovascular doctors and a team of neurological doctors. And above all, a powerful praying team, which included Phina and Noleen. So after a week in the hospital, the doctors felt I was fit to go home and discharged me. The rest of your functions will recover over time, the leader of the cardiovascular team told me.
After some time in Cape town, I was flown back home to Accra, Ghana.
 
THE WAHALA OF A RECOVERING STROKE PATIENT

Right from kotoka international airport to my current location, I have constantly faced humiliation in one way or the other.
I remember sitting in a taxi with two university girls in Kumasi, they engaged me in a conversation in English about the recklessness of some taxi drivers on the road, when I tried speaking, the words just rushed up in my head and I stammered over them, choosing them one after the other. One of the girls, looked at me, said “You could speak twi” while the other hid her face in the wind to laugh out. I looked at them and only smiled and shook my head.

Another was when I was opening a bank account in Accra, the lady started the conversation in English and when I was responding, I made a mess out of myself; I kept saying ‘eeerrrhhmmmm’, and then she asked me what language I was fluent in, I managed to respond out of shame, I said I spoke Chinese.

One day, I was just walking by the street in my neighbourhood and I later found myself in a trotro (commercial van) without knowing where I was going, the mate (conductor) asked me for my money until I realized it was an accident, and I told him I had no money on me and he was so furious insulting me, I tried explaining but the words came only half way, so the driver angrily dumped me at spanner junction and I walked to Accra mall, went into the wash room and wept my sorrow off. I easily forget, this stroke took away much from me.

In a meeting in Tamale, I recall the secretary asking me to sign the attendance book, and when I did, he looked at me, and told me to buy my first copy book to start writing again. We both laughed. But mine was the kind of laughter which comes from a sad heart. The stroke made my right hand, my writing hand, weak such that it couldn’t hold pen firmly.

While I was in an aircraft to Liberia, I wrote a poem in the clouds, I proof read the poem severally, with each time picking many grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, and a whole lot. Each time I read the poem and saw some errors I wouldn’t have made if not the stroke, I would cry. I sent the piece to a friend upon arriving and he asked whether I wrote it, having known me for long, he saw in the poem that all was not well. He called and asked “Cliff, you don’t write like this, I know you. Tell the writer to do a little more of grammar and spellings before starting to write” then I laughed. This time it was a genuine laughter.
And the worse of it was when I am reading, I skip some of the words, which I later see upon re-reading the piece. I would laugh as I read the paragraph again.

But in all these and more, I have never stopped believing in myself; never stopped writing, never stopped reading, never stopped learning a piece by heart to exercise the brain, I have never stopped talking. These days, I have learned to laugh the more rather than cry over my inabilities. And the results are mind blowing. I have also learned not to talk at all when I was angry and my speech now is perfect when I'm much relaxed and speak slowly. That way, I give the brain enough room to process the thoughts slowly but sure.
And God has always, always got my back, that is why I am even able to type this piece in about an hour.
God is healing me, I believe I will be perfectly alright in three years to come, I have learned from a ted video.

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Thick and Thin Accents

Thick and Thin Accent

The queue was moving quite fast
And the air couldn't be blamed
for our sweat but the Sun
Which manifested harshly the bright of day.

Next, Next, and Next
The sales girl went on happily
with her life in sweat and smiles
And soon I knew my name will be changed to;
'Next'
And it did change indeed.

It was a city of supermarkets
And drivers slept like loons in taxis
that hanged around on the street
I could possibly leave for another
If you would disrespect me
I was angry beyond measure
Even at a cinema of her shadow
Which the Sun projected on the walls

Excuse me Sir, can you say it again please?
No, I can't.
Why Sir?
Because I'm tired.
Sorry! Is there a problem here?
Boss, this man's accent is too thick...
As opposed to her thin, I guessed

Each time I speak;
My accent is full of my skin
Feel my black skin,
Is it not full of;
confidence?
brilliance?
Is it not
Thick?

So there are two things you can do now
And unfortunately two I can't do;
You can spend the rest of the day
learning English as spoken by a thick accent guy
And you can keep smiling, it's good for your career

And what I can't do;
Is to bleach my skin so look thin
And I can't buy the CHEWING GUM

The Way of life will be beautiful
if you do what you can
and I do what I can't.

Good Afternoon.

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Bon Voyage

Sailors without north,we are
Reclaimed by the sea
Cursed by those who can wait
Dancing with our sacred boots
And giving tongues to blessed hyms of;
      Bon Vovage.

The crew without a captain, we are
On deck, all hands
Make fast the bunt gasket
On the mast,a port is seen afar
We take solace in these words;
       Bon Voyage.

Sons of a widow, we are
Our light shine across
the darkest weight of the ocean
crashing us fast to the deep depths
Even in death we know we had a;
       Bon Voyage

A potpourri of dead and living, we are
Our labours in concord keep the ship afloat
This our journey of no land
though we see many a shore
When one slip his rope, we throw him into the waters
And we sing a dirge of;
        Bon voyage

Oppong Clifford Benjamin.

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Room 16.

Its on the last floor
small space, dim red light
a holy Bible and more,
Tattered curtain laid white.

Light skin ladies
Colourful men
Dogs with rabies
God bless them, Amen.

An innocent porch
A blessed couch
Sleeping days
Bring no pays,

Happy working nights;
'Cut some slights
for only fifty'
Oh Dog!, the price is nifty.

Read quotations
Change positions
Cum quick, next dog!
Damn stupid wog.

Wear your pants
Be gentle with the curtain
Exit room 16
Say a prayer for the night

The sleeping days will take care of its self

We are only trying to be happy
But we try harder not to regret
This our normal life
'It is finished'.

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A True Confession III

(The Holy Communion)

Near the Eucharist, at where the body of Christ was hid, and His blood was in a bottle kept, it happened. We had a puerile romance. Not that we were ignorant of the place, not that we were nescient of its sanctum sanctorum, but, we were as weak as humans. We couldn't hold it any longer as a man and a woman, we were caddish. We had a small but gentle sex at the sacred place.

In the early phase of my ontogenesis, when life gave me little to think about, I joined a catechism class in inexorable prolusion to receive the communion. I was a little younger than 16 years, cute in body and had a round face that matched my small head. I was everything handsome. (I can't trust my mirror these days). We learned the lessons by heart. I could recite the rosary, the Angelus, the Apostle's creed and many other catholic prayers.

The class was in session any other day apart from Sundays, from 4pm to 6pm and anybody who came 5mins past the reporting time, had the catechist to face. Punctuality was just our hallmark. I was the defending paladin in the class and I faced strict opposition in memorizing the prayers by Janet. Janet was the most rigorous oppugner I had ever faced in my life. She was smallish but a year older than I was. She wore long hair that most of time ran down her butt. Even at such a tender age, she had already developed some coquettish curves and a pair of succulent breast. And she had a cherubic voice. Whenever Janet recited the prayers to Saint Michael, you could instantaneously feel the presence of a supreme being, she had an unnamed magic in her voice which enamoured all of us. She was Mr Ephraim, the catechist's, favourite student and I was the people's choice.

One Friday afternoon, the sun was up high behind the mango trees and scintillated its rays through the leaves; it projected a cinema of shadows on the walls of the lonely cathedral and its statue of Arch Angel Michael. In the hands of Michael was a spear thrusting deep into the naked left breast of a defeated serpent. That sculpture always reminded me of Janet and her sweet voice. Rumours had it that, each time Janet recited the prayers to Angel Michael she invoked the spirit in the statue. And it was also a popular belief that she always came to catechism earlier than anybody else to perform some rituals with the statue. Regina always argued vehemently that, she had caught Janet red handed talking to the statue twice when she (Regina) sleuthed her (Janet) actions inadvertently. She would even spice it up with a more shuddering story; 'Janet eeh that girl is a witch oo! She even took the spear from Obofopom Michael and set the serpent free'. Regina always got our emotions hagriddened each time she got to this part of the story.

So, on that faithful Friday, I reported earlier, if my memory could serve me right, I should be confident in saying that I went as early as 2:45pm in my school uniform. I went straight to the cathedral after school had closed. I was the only one in the premises. I went to the statue and greeted the Arch Angel, hoping to hear the mysterious reply but I never did, He was silent and fixed his gaze on the serpent. After many ineffectual attempts to get the statue to talk, I shamefully retreated. I entered the church. Therein was a dead silence which scared me as a cemetery would. The lights were off but the sun shed its rays with meridian splendour through the designed holes in the walls, and left on the pews and on the terrazzo floor of the church large innocent shadows. The shadows were those of trees, of Father Nsiah's car and of the mission house. I was enjoying the solemnity of the atmosphere in the church. The pews were good friends of men. I moved three steps forward and I saw a Bible left in the shelf of the last but one pew and I picked it, browsed through the pages without necessarily reading anything. I completed the whole book without a word mentioned. Just at the spot, I scrooched and saw some coins scattered freely just below the first pew. I rushed there and gathered them, counted and it amounted to 400 cedis. At least that was enough for a toffee after the day's session, I thought. I rested my butt on the flat and smooth veneer surface of the first pew. I was still for a while. Abruptly, I started thinking so much about the communion. I thought about whether it was true that the communion was the body of Christ and the wine the blood. If they were pieces of bread and wine, and by just a few incantations by Father Nsiah they turned to be something so sacred? These were the usual questions playing my mind up and down.

My thoughts were disturbed by a sudden cry of a car engine. It was the usual blue car that always picked up Janet from the Chapel to the house. I quickly hid myself under the far end of the sixteenth pew, close to a hole in the neighbouring wall to where the statue stood. Where I could have a graphic view of the happenings outside. Call the act espial and you wouldn’t be any far from the truth. Janet jumped off the vehicle, and waved her right hand at the driver, who responded in same fashion.  She then went straight to the statue. I was so anxious. I knew the moment I had been waiting for had arrived.

'Good afternoon dear Arch Angel Michael', she didn't wait for His response before continuing her rather monologues;

'Dear Michael.....'

'Heerh Janet....I have caught you paaa, today di3 I will tell when the rest come', I interrupted. Silly boy, what would waiting a little longer do to me, I said to myself. It appeared I was too anxious to be noticed than a spy would.

'What did I do?'

'Were you not talking to the statue?'

'Yes, I was but what is wrong with that?

'Everything, you were going to free the serpent if I had not cut in'

'Hahahaha, what are you doing in there?' She asked while entering the church. She made a court bow at foot of the altar, something I did not do. Janet knew so much and I was envious of her. I watched her as she moved with the wind on the floor of the church, touching the pews unconsciously and dragging her feet along. Her hips were curved and her face was glittering by the assistance of the sun that owned most of the items in there.

I had long had a thing for Janet though we were young, I knew something about love.

'Janet, Eerrmhhmm did you know that the communion and red wine were hid in the Eucharist? '

'Oh yes and I have always wanted to have a feel of them' She responded quickly while taking romantic steps towards the altar and I followed her closely behind. Observing the up and down movement of her round and heavy butt.

We climbed the altar which stood up the east of the church room, went to the Eucharist and made a court bow. We paused for a minute for a coup d'oeil at the fear on our faces. We were timid to act any further from where we stood. We had from infancy venerated the place. Nobody went there, save the priest, nor him but once when he was cleansed spiritually and fit and proper person to administer the communion.

'Janet, I’m not sure I want to do this'

'Well, I will do it, but promise me you won't tell anybody'

'Okay, buy my lips with a kiss'

She looked at me as if she had seen a stranger in me. Well, my request came to her unsuspecting. Nevertheless, she gave in to my price for a silence. She brought her head closer to mine; I gathered my lips forward with the upper lip taking the lead and closed my eyes softly while anticipating my first lips to lips kiss. For a moment Janet had paused to swallow a heavy breath. I opened my eyes to observe whether all is well then again I closed my eyes. She finally gripped my lips with hers. She kissed me first on my lips, and then on my cheeks, she moved slowly but romantically towards my chest. I grabbed her with my little macho; we were fastened tightly together as if we had employed the service of a screw driver. We kissed to the rhythms of Celine Dion's ‘From a distance’ which played from a faraway distance and was carried by the air into the chapel from the mission house. We were not the only persons who had found love that lonely afternoon but also were Father Nsiah and the rest of the maid that lived in the mission house.

Everything in the building resonated with our kissing and romancing. The air, the large shadows, the pews and the Eucharist - they were all looking on helplessly and cheered us while we made love. I was hard downstairs in my shorts. It projected and Janet felt it against her hot thighs. She stopped the kissing to laugh briefly; I joined her in my shyness. She held my cock like a pen and she seemed to be writing on her tights with the head of it. It really entered me, the feelings.

'JANET....... sto....op
those things do it, it again haaaaaahhh Janet not anymore
More Janet ...okay stop right there... I can't take it a...gain'

I moaned while she performed magic with my cock on her body and finally when she tried to force it in her dry vagina. After many unsuccessful attempts to push my dick straight into her, she finally gave up a big sigh and rested her disappointed self-right beneath the Eucharist. The Eucharist was a wooden box which was appended to the wall at the right corner of the altar. It was neatly decorated and covered by a white veil and on top of it was a metallic artefact of Jesus Christ. Janet picked herself from the ground. She had recollected her mission and had paid her price enough to zip my lips forever. She boldly opened the Eucharist, and to our surprise a red light shone in it, so bright that it nearly blinded us. We couldn't stand the light. Janet forcefully shut it and we ran quickly towards the exit. We stopped just at the door and made sure we were cleared of all doubts before stepping outside.

For some peculiar reasons, perhaps, our censurable conscience, we both discontinued the catechism and so couldn't take the communion that year. However, we both took it finally in our respective senior secondary schools and coincidentally we are both no longer Catholics. I guess we can never be with this guilt in our inner selves. But they say God forgives he who confesses truly his sins. And here I am, God forgive me.

NB: Don't be too quick to judge me or Janet please.

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Freestyle Spoken Word

Has day expired already?
And the sun retired to its peaceful rest in the west?
Has the wind not lied to the atmosphere yet?
And birds on branches tweeting and gossiping
About nature's architecture best
Where you miss nothing more than the warmth of love
Love unseen
what causes you to skip a breath is love unheard
Knowing not who and how to love
Especially when you have tasted the cake before
You are left with nothing else
But with memories of long ago deeds
Moments captured in frames
Of silent hours alone in the woods
And you watch them like they too never die
You harvest more from life
And far more from the songs
Composed by a choir of birds, silence and the dead times
Times never to resurrect
And you find your head nodding to the rhythms with the trees that don't know a thing about love
The only thing they remember is lovers kissing right beneath their shades
They don't know how to say 'I love you'
Damn! dumb trees
All they are best at is dancing
Dancing
Crazy dancers, they don't have feelings like you
Lest they stop dancing and study technology too
And learn why you are here chatting with me
And not paying any mind to either the birds or the moment.
Every thing don't make sense to you at the moment
Not even my words do
I have heard
So when you are done reading this poem
You may chuckle or laugh it off
Which ever way, I will feel loved here in Ghana because I influenced your emotions.

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The Freemason and The Boy

‘The Freemason and the Boy’ is a chronology of the happenings between Mr. Otchere (The Freemason) and Nyantakyi (The Boy), which unfolds the true identity of the Freemasons in an already brainwashed community. Many furphies surround the Freemasons in an African society and the writer was much aware of the rumours, and in his quest to know the truth for himself, he finally took bold step to join the Freemasons. So now, he writes as a Mason and as one who grew with the many scuttlebutts about the oldest and largest fraternity in the world - Freemasonry.

In the stories, he carefully and artistically stretches out the doubts of the people in the community, the Freemason’s stand, how the people see the Freemason and how the Freemason limns a true self of knowledge and divinity, the boy’s belief about him and what finally led the boy to join. But let me leave it here for your own serious perusal, whether or not the boy actually regretted after joining, or whether he saw it worth all the struggles. Or whether all the rumours were actually true about the Freemasons, and that Mr. Otchere had lied to him all the while.

Suspense forms a greater part of this book. Every page is a mind-blower and you would want to read ahead, only to end up wanting to read further, even the end leaves you unsated until you go over the whole book again and read it, this time, with much patience. We are all curious to know what the Freemasons do behind closed doors, why they wear black lounge suits in their meetings,what binds as a brotherhood, in fact everything about them. And right here the writer seems to have said it all or paint it for the one who reads and reads it well. So many was hidden in this book, it takes one to get into the book to know it for himself. The philosophies of the Freemasons, their livelihood and their principles, all that is right there in the pages ahead, but till you put your eccentricity aside and pay close attention to the details, am sorry you will be thrown into complete disarray.

Another thing that intrigued me was the way Clifford chose his characters and developed them. You would come across a whole lot of persons in the book. Some just walked by, others just gossiped, but he never lost grip on the two principal characters, Nyantakyi and Mr. Otchere. They are so alive in every page of the book. Clifford created vivid pictures of them in the very first chapter and they became more and more graphic as the stories unfolded. Another character was the boy’s mother. Right from the beginning, we are told that she is dead, and then along the line, she seemed to have awaken and doing more, then you get confused as to whether she was actually dead, finally, you come to find out in the end that she was only a ……………… (That too is something I will leave you to dig it out).

Let us not talk about his settings yet, oh my God, they remind me of Ernest Hemingway’s ‘The Old man and The Sea’ , so much attention to details, well description of places. At a point you would feel yourself living with the characters in the community, as if you can actually touch a building or you may feel stupid (Sorry but that is how I felt).

I am privileged to read it first before anyone else. And I endorse it with a Big Yes. I will encourage everybody to rush in for their copies when it is been published.

Rachel Rada.
Waterford, Ireland.

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