bakwerirama

The Horseman's Woman

By Mbella Sonne Dipoko

Some Bakweri people in Great Soppo owned horses
When I was growing up in that village as a small boy, going to school
In the late 1940s of the just-ended century.
And on the Mission Hill too there were horses
On which white missionaries sometimes rode
For the fun of it for they also had their station wagons.
Maybe it was because of those horses
That I came to write
About a woman who never betted on the races, not being a gambler,
But who nevertheless was always dreaming of a big black horse
On which a man sometimes came riding through her farm,
A big black horse that sometime was No. 6
And at other times it was marked No. 9
And always it was painful to her
Whenever that man came riding through her farm
As if it was no longer her private property
But the village common or the Town Green
On which any black horse could gallop
And any cow graze.

The Bakweri Drums

By Eposi NW Tokeson

The rhythm starts slowly
With a pause
Then the throbs increase their pulse
The pulse increases to tones that needle the shock waves
of the senses
Into your brain, hair follicles, stomach and feet
Like an electric shock of fever waves
That moves from your toes all the way to
The hairs on your head in a flash
Then the hairs remain standing as the rhythm continues
Then the throbs send currents to the shoulders to move
Left- right -then left.
Flashes of continues uncontrollable movement then
Stop.
That is the way of the Bakweri drums.