"Lorlornye nukae dzor nenema gbegbe?
Le nyatepeme la, nye me bui be egba avazu aleka o lo.
woenye nye dzi.
Wodeka pe nu koe ledzinam awu tugbedzei desiade.
Nusiatae le vevesese kple dzigbagbamea, mega le bibiam be nu kae dzo nenema gbegbe?"
And so as I sit on this log on the hills, upon which I first entered the chambers of your womanhood,
As I watch the sleepy sun set its bed beyond the horizons to,
And as I sip this palm wine of pain from the cracked skulls of a broken heart, these thoughts kept lingering in my mind;
How did we get here? Where did we go wrong?
What happened to our love and the promises?
Vows we vowed to each other on the chief priest’s sacred premises.
For we were lovers.
Le nyatepeme la, nye me bui be egba avazu aleka o lo.
woenye nye dzi.
Wodeka pe nu koe ledzinam awu tugbedzei desiade.
Nusiatae le vevesese kple dzigbagbamea, mega le bibiam be nu kae dzo nenema gbegbe?"
And so as I sit on this log on the hills, upon which I first entered the chambers of your womanhood,
As I watch the sleepy sun set its bed beyond the horizons to,
And as I sip this palm wine of pain from the cracked skulls of a broken heart, these thoughts kept lingering in my mind;
How did we get here? Where did we go wrong?
What happened to our love and the promises?
Vows we vowed to each other on the chief priest’s sacred premises.
For we were lovers.
 |
| CEP.Sefogah, performing "We were Lovers" @ ALEWA 2015, with the palm-wine band |
Rumor has it that in their younger years,
Your mama and my papa were lovers
Around the same too,
Your papa and my mama were also lovebirds.
And so when the jealous hands of faith switched their love stories around,
Pairing them apart, we were born.
Ohh I have listen to the elders tell the tales of our birth.
They said said on that day, bats sung and flew in daylight and it rained so heavily that the Rainbows, made Love to the Moon and the Stars rode on the back of the Sun as they arranged themselves in unison writing love in the sky, like i see in your eyes
Born on the same day at the hands of the same old lady,
Out doored under the auspices of the very traditional chief priest of the land,
The gods chose to smile upon us for they destined you and I from birth,
Even the gossips at the market square knew that for a certain.
I was your Efo Korku and you, my Davi Aku.
Ohh, I remember vividly, how every evening when we young, my mother will bath be and decorate my neck and chest with Korle Bu powder as she sends me running to your house to buy a bottle of Kerosene for the “torkpodogui” in our house.
Oh what a beauty you were, a true epitome of African delight.
For you will come out of your fathers mud house with a piece of cloth around your chest and waist as your black soft body glitters in the reflection of the fire from your grandmother’s earth stove,
The older children said we were young and foolish but even then we both knew how we felt.
And so when I underwent the “tudedeasi” puberty ritual and my father’s gun given to me and I was dispatched with 17 other boys into the forest for our first hunting expedition, you were all I could think of.
Because of you I was the first to return with my pray resting on my shoulders and as the younger boys and girls run behind me naked and cheering me on,
I came straight into your house.
How I so badly wanted to share every bit of this meat with you and use its teeth to weave a necklace of my love around your neck,
How I so badly wanted to share with you the tales of my hunt, showing you the man I had grown into.
Little did I know that I was going to be ripped off this joy of love?
The stories of my first hunt became tales never to be told or heard.
Life tricked me and death stole you away from the grips of my love.
You died too early.
And so as I await the break of dawn to bored the famous Gold Coast boneshaker bus away from this haunted town of lost loves,
I just want to take a moment to whisper to the winds that...
we...were...lovers.
Your mama and my papa were lovers
Around the same too,
Your papa and my mama were also lovebirds.
And so when the jealous hands of faith switched their love stories around,
Pairing them apart, we were born.
Ohh I have listen to the elders tell the tales of our birth.
They said said on that day, bats sung and flew in daylight and it rained so heavily that the Rainbows, made Love to the Moon and the Stars rode on the back of the Sun as they arranged themselves in unison writing love in the sky, like i see in your eyes
Born on the same day at the hands of the same old lady,
Out doored under the auspices of the very traditional chief priest of the land,
The gods chose to smile upon us for they destined you and I from birth,
Even the gossips at the market square knew that for a certain.
I was your Efo Korku and you, my Davi Aku.
Ohh, I remember vividly, how every evening when we young, my mother will bath be and decorate my neck and chest with Korle Bu powder as she sends me running to your house to buy a bottle of Kerosene for the “torkpodogui” in our house.
Oh what a beauty you were, a true epitome of African delight.
For you will come out of your fathers mud house with a piece of cloth around your chest and waist as your black soft body glitters in the reflection of the fire from your grandmother’s earth stove,
The older children said we were young and foolish but even then we both knew how we felt.
And so when I underwent the “tudedeasi” puberty ritual and my father’s gun given to me and I was dispatched with 17 other boys into the forest for our first hunting expedition, you were all I could think of.
Because of you I was the first to return with my pray resting on my shoulders and as the younger boys and girls run behind me naked and cheering me on,
I came straight into your house.
How I so badly wanted to share every bit of this meat with you and use its teeth to weave a necklace of my love around your neck,
How I so badly wanted to share with you the tales of my hunt, showing you the man I had grown into.
Little did I know that I was going to be ripped off this joy of love?
The stories of my first hunt became tales never to be told or heard.
Life tricked me and death stole you away from the grips of my love.
You died too early.
And so as I await the break of dawn to bored the famous Gold Coast boneshaker bus away from this haunted town of lost loves,
I just want to take a moment to whisper to the winds that...
we...were...lovers.
