African Poet, Athlete Gabriel Awuah Mainoo Of UCC Eulogises Kobe Bryant

Over the rotten rim

sending to Kobe Bryant

Over here love,

I see you once more

dunk it

over the rotten rim/

In the cologne of Philadelphia

I feel you

trapped in a dark child's dream/

You have laboured all ways

to carve the way

In between paths of suns and moons

comes

a dreadful wonder parting you

from the sky/

to trip alone, is to walk

the darkened myrtle, where ancient voices growl

parching your name/

Over there love,

I see you once more

dunk it

over the rotten rim/

arching this way

is to wave the world in a fog

where sparkling memories ices up in your body/

rock it baby

hooking ma heart//

dropping the dime

making it rain;

putting 'em on skates//

Over there Kobe

one more time

over the rotten rim/

©Gabriel Awuah Mainoo, Ghana.

Biography

Gabriel Awuah Mainoo author of ’60 aces of haiku’ and 'Chicken Wings at the Altar' serves as project manager to Ghana Writes journal and creative editor to WGM magazine. He's a semi-finalist of Ito Eno haiku Grand prix North America 2019. Gabriel is a widely collected griot who has appeared on/in The Cicada’s Cry; Writers Space Africa, Kalahari review, Ghana Writes, WGM magazine journal, the haiku foundation, Malawi's Nthanda review and elsewhere.

He is a contributor to Best New African Poets 2018 anthology, Bodies & Scars anthology; attempt at exhausting a place in Leicester volume, poetry leaves bound volume, The Cicada’s Cry special edition; moon, Quesadilla and other adventures among others. Mainoo is a tennis player in the morning, a student in the afternoon and writer in the evening.