By: Emmanuel Papa Quansah

When you see tons of placards
flying without flair
When you see hundreds of fists
vertically punching the air
When you hear millions of hungry voices
shouting
When you see thousands of jobless feet
stamping the street
When you see our teenagers and adults
slapping their chest, muttering and crying in fury
When you see wrinkled old men
and old women
jumping the roads with their stick.
It is because
our daughters are being taxed every month
for their gender
and our sons are double-packed for survival
Fathers do not come home after work
they have nothing
to show for their hard work
Mother’s kitchen is stuffed with empty bowls
cabinets and refrigerators mirror the Sahara Desert
Our university graduates
are forced into waakye vendors
Their certificates
cannot settle them employment
their pockets
cannot afford the manager’s signature
Our schoolchildren say
the school is equal to a prison
and the ones who go
end up under trees without furniture
rest their bellies on the sand
and embrace the scorchy sun with their backs
The experienced teachers abort their posts
and swing onto ships casting off to other coasts
Our specialised doctors
see the fruit of their call overseas
Pregnant mothers squash at the hospital forecourt-
there are not enough labour beds
Our uncle,
diagnosed with renal cell carcinoma remained
a lifeless pale clay
he could not afford the price of dialysis
The parliamentarians find comfort in chatting on planes
As we shrink in poverty, they sleep in rave.
But you, men in blue
buckle our lungs with teargas
and hold our throats at the minister’s guns
You pounce at our tired hearts and claw it out of our ribs
wrench our imbrued necks to see our grave
and you receive a medal for being brave
Are you not supposed to be protecting us?
You say you are our friend
but come at us when a coin is slipped into your pockets
from the parliamentary lockets.
You say you are men of peace,
but crumble us behind the bloody bars for our voices
You say you are men of the law
but you slay us for knowing our rights and freedoms.
When you see us on the streets, do not kill us
nor fight us,
because we are just calling for what belongs to us.

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Emmanuel Papa Quansah is a young Ghanaian poet based in Takoradi, Ghana. He enjoys writing and has a bachelor’s degree in art education with English as his major and History as his minor from the University of Cape Coast, Ghana. When not writing, he reads novels and articles. His works are available or forthcoming in Kalahari Review, All Poetry, Rigorous, Ngiga Review and Spillwords Press.