Prison Walls

Prison walls is a collection of short and some long poems with authentic touch of African background. Themes include love, day to day life, death, astronomy and the mystic in the tradition versus modern day Africa. The continent, like an unfinished sculpture has been undergoing vicious changes carved by knives of war, colonialism, marriage, modernity and the times epics between. Prison walls is about that... As norm in most traditional African homesteads spreading to villages, there was one likely patriarch, a husband to two or three wives and hordes of children of all ages. Evenings would find the younger children enjoying basking by the hearth as they waited for the evening meal, warding off dozing. Prison walls is about that... The thrill would be in the folklore recited from their mothers' laps, tempered with parables and adages passed on by word of mouth. Accompanied by dances of teenagers and ripe suitors under the moonlight, all with pretty good behavior, Traditional hierarchy did not allow chastening of an older person, unless say, by song. Prison walls is about that... Today's Africa is completely different. Where there were huts are now skyscrapers. What were dances are today's discos and live performance by showbiz artistes. What was a skin clothe is a today's three piece suit while the donkey is the Mercedes Benz. Folk stories have been gradually swallowed by TV, films and contemporary education. Traditional songs are today's poems. Prison walls is about that... So, while the styling of each poem is different and the wording designs unique, some of them are justified with symbolism, to drive the message of the ballad home. 'Where to bury me' is shaped as a grave with a cross, as the tree of 'green our green' epitomizes the late Nobel Laureate Professor Wangari Maathai. The drums in 'Broken drum', the bowl of the 'beggars bowl' plus the holy cross in 'Savior' are all in prison walls...and more.