K. ASARE-BEDIAKO
There’s No Such Accent Here
When I met a boy, down my age, prettier than my tongue, he asked for a vocabulary to be
explained to him. When I tried to translate, he sniffed—signalling no appetite for my language.
Why do you ask? He sneezed a statement out; I gotta leave you with your mother fucking
language. Then, he left incurious, see? Sometimes when I sit by my father by the fireside to
swallow tales. an accent pops up strangely—an unknown rain—something allergic to us all.
Only those with black streams seem to experience the reality/ not sugar/ no salt/ no water but
tastes honey at the embrace of your throat. This poem is speaking about such tales. There are
days my father coughed & all flies summoned him, a beautiful song. Father says; any person
with a racial background swallows language & only speaks it when they dictate for a charcoal
boy. This poem is growing, gradually tilting & merging the broken
tongue. This poem sits here/ sit on a white chair smooching at a
blacktable in retrogression. Black chairs washing away in the snow
outside a lawn. Black roses dying up in the rain, in a hollow, finding
new Adam & Eve. How do you name a language that is not loved by
others—a piano that burns a sheen in church or a drum that echo in
the chest of Christ or the mettlesome in Noah’s arch? My father’s
hand coalescence my cheeks whenever I lay in, his palms breathing
the softness of water on my body—a porcelain, I hold tight
like air. Like gold. Sometimes, I meet a boy chewing a strange tongue—
an imitant from South Africa. I’d ask, then he let out those buzz,
a feeling of doze. Sometimes too, my father snarl the clouds
tight to the ozone & not wait for rain. This time, telling me to
bypass a rimrock tied with language dichotomy.
Asare Albert Kweku writing as K. Asare-Bediako, is an up and coming Ghanaian writer, teacher, coach, poet, philanthropist and a legal aspirant. He chose writing as a therapy to aid him breath away thoughts of his invisible father. He is a diverse writer of colour and mostly centre his works within the crannies of the African continent, with works published/ forthcoming in both local and international magazines. He is the author of the microchapbook, PORTRAIT OF MANY COLOURS (Ghost City Press). He is either singing or learning song, sleeping and watching TV when he gets away from writing. He tweets, @Asarewrites. Instagram, @asarewrites.