Bio
Jacob Kobina Ayiah Mensah is the author of the poetry collection, Witness. He edits RawPaper, an academic journal. He is currently living in Vietnam and Thailand.
Jacob Kobina Ayiah Mensah
Independent Money
The hotel is perched high on a cliff above the bay
you show it on a postcard to the rest of the world.
Here milk and other perishable items are disposed
perhaps, the peril of this periphery will not cause
periodically tests for right things here and below
the valleys, where hundreds are perished, a yacht
sank yesterday after Meg perked up when he was
appointed the new director for a perilous journey.
This is all about your money, bigger than dollar,
Euro, or pound, but cannot buy a cicada's cry;
we build a field full of shadows, yours is here
and mine, hanging on the lawn waiting for the call.
Our local shops have decided to branch out into
renting new rooms to expatriates to expectorate;
hard to trace this money when hands are washed well