Tan Renga Challenge #95 “lilies of the valley” by Adjei Agyei Baah – August 1, 2015

lilies-of-the-valley
stuck to the mountainside
like ribbons

(c) Adjei Agyei Baah

birthday gifts from creation
opened and forgotten

© G.s.k. ‘15

Carpe Diem Tan Renga Challenge #95 “lilies of the valley” by Adjei Agyei Baah

Visions of Tchad – haiku – July 26, 2015

Visions of Tchad (Chad)

pitter patter
rain falls on the tin roof
dry season past

puddles in the sun
children splash and laugh
after the rain falls

old woman
walking with her daughter
carrying water

baby on her back
young girl beats the millet
for the evening meal

happy singing
someone plays the balafon
under the full moon

new scars on his face
now he is a  grown man
initiation

young girl
time to become a woman
bloody razor blade

© G.s.k. ‘15

 

Written for:

Carpe Diem Special #158 Adjei Agyei Baah’s 5th special “Afrikuland”

Afriku by Adjei Agyei Baah:

in his world alone
a water strider resting
on his shadow bed

filling her dimples
with strawberries
summer camp

midsummer blues–
the wild memories of
a skirt-chaser

© Adjei Agyei-Baah, Ghana

For more Afriku, here is the Link to Adjei Agyei-Baah’s  “Afrikuland“

African Haiku – Silvery Curtain – July 15, 2015

For this episode of Carpe Diem Special #156 Adjei’s third “silvery curtain” Chèvrefeuille has given us both the background history of this month’s guest poet and his entries from this week’s challenges to use as inspiration for an original haiku by ourselves trying to reflect his sense and style.  I’ve chosen waterfall … though it was difficult to choose just one!

Waterfall

silvery curtain
on a mountain wall –
waterfall!

© Adjei Agyei Baah

§§§§§§

shimmering
tumbling from the mountain
waterfall!

waterfall!
flying droplets of crystal
studding the bushes

studding the bushes
with diamonds and silver
pounding water

§§§§§

among the rocks
hidden in the thorn bushes
a tiny waterfall
unseen from the dusty trail
inviting sound of water

© G.s.k. ‘15

Haiku Special – “Summer Morning” by Adjei Agyei Baah – July 9, 2015

Summer morning:

summer sun
all in her eyes
the ocean, sand and nudity!

(c) Adjei

Gulls

my haiku attempt:

early sunrise
promising new day
lake, birds and wind-chimes!

dancing on the wind
the gulls glide gracefully
morning on the lake

all in her eyes
wind dancing gulls
this promising new morning

© G.s.k. ‘15

Written for:

Carpe Diem Haiku Special where we try to write in the the same sense, tone and spirit of a guest poet.

Afriku – July 2, 2015

along the Logone
when Lai was just a village
moon light lit the night

Way back in the 70s I lived in a small village in the Tandjilé region of Southern Chad.  We were there as part of a project to create canals for rice paddies.  The village, for it was really just around a 100 huts, two Christian missions (one Catholic and one Evangelical), a Soviet Health Care Centre run by a Russian couple and a small bazar owned by a Nigerian, seems to have grown around the rice project.

Looking up Lai today, because I’d forgotten the name of the river that flows past the town, I discovered that it’s now the capital of Tandjilé and has an airport and a population as of 2008 of 20,428!

When I think of Lai, I always remember the ferry service, which connected Lai to Mondou (the largest city nearest Lai at the time) and was it ever a precarious thing – little more than a robust raft with heavy ropes holding it between the two banks of the river. Now I wonder if it too has also evolved .. at the time at least three vehicles a day passed over the Logone on that ferry. Or perhaps they’ve since built a bridge.

passing time
a ferry-boat to the future
Lai on the Logone

© G.s.k. ‘15

The desert is constantly growing in Northern Africa eating up land and evaporating the water resources … what was once one of the largest lakes not only in Africa but in the world has been slowly drying up – the encroachment of the desert has many reasons behind it and it’s a very complex problem to face and solve …

For:

Carpe Diem Special #154 Afriku, haiku from Africa, an idea of Adjei Agyei Baah. “Stones”

shoreline pebbles…
a reminder of how far
we have come

preparing
daddy’s delicacy
taking stones out of gizzard

stone temple
leftover boulders
add to reverence

© Adjei Agyei-Baah, Kumasi, Ghana
Poetry Foundation Ghana