Poetry

Ode to Thomas Malthus

2011-11-01T15:58:00.000+03:00

Seven billion people
so many if you ask me
seven billion men
in a handful of cities
and deserted villages of Africa
and deserted plantations of the west
and deserted polars, melting to accommodate us
such statistics
should be juxtaposed
to square miles on earth

Beef

2011-06-25T11:40:00.000+03:00

Hilary Clinton is despicable. When NATO wanted to go to war with Libya they did not think that Libya is Africa and went to the Muslim brotherhood who they supposedly initially saw as terrorist affiliates and fundamentalists. Now she dares come to us and orders us to banish envoys of Libya from our own land. Now that public opinion all over the world is against NATO’S invasion of Libya she relishes we are bloke heads without opinions as our rulers. She now has the audacity to acknowledge our say in their war in realization that Libya is actually in Africa.
What we should actually do is expel all American France and British envoys from Africa who support dissidents against Libya and bomb innocent Libyans under the mantra of humanitarian intervention. What we should do is refuse to recognize NTC POST Kaddafi regime because it is unrepresentative and undemocratic. What we should do is reject American media and propaganda as they have rejected Kaddafi’s propaganda of Libya TV. What we should do is help Libya transform through an election. What we should do, above all, is nationalize the motherland!

And to some condescending commentaries on Libya, (Leftist arguments for the int’l intervention, from Yassin-Kassab and Woodward by Philip Weiss on March 21, 2011) who dared say that Libya can only blame itself if it falls to the interest of the West? Damn you they already have a private bank and oil drills in NTC territory! Who do you think will extend philanthropy to rebuild the infrastructure they are destroying in Tripoli? This is what I have to say to you, and all other condescending commentaries.

What the fuck
Do they know about us
Anecdotes of our leaders?
Mulfunctionist
Assessments
By their embassies
Racially relayed
Via wiki leaks?
What do they know about us
Conrad scholard
In our ancient animalism
What the fuck
Do they know about us
Our hunger?
Our humanity?
Our bones below the rubbles?
Our necks below machetes?

Stop the bombardment of Tripoli!!!

jilted

2011-01-27T09:50:00.003+03:00

i feel like a Job

only i cursed God

and die to regret it

like the world

made me anti people

like you stabbed me

through the heart

and i die

cursing my love for you

cursing your lies for me

cursing with a severed tongue

cursing when i should have held my tounge

and i hold it

in the arms of my regrets

in the cacophony

of suppositions

you know the world is nasty

and am a victim

just a victim

Esoteric

2010-05-29T18:38:00.000+03:00

I know we are being played
And the law won’t stick me
If I say I alleged
All I want to know is who
I know that in 2005
They didn’t want a constitution
And what has changed about this crew
They don’t want any even now
They would drive against it
Oo that I knew
So they have all our understanding rearranged
And tis in double speak they pledged
Is it some Lancaster vow
That binds their dynasties
To cow
At revolution fantasies
Is it reading by the book
The status quo
In hook or crook
I know the politicians
Gave the ruling on Kadhi
A walk in the park
Gave a motive of fearing the sack
So they could blame the judiciary
Of being defunct
I know they hate consensus
Coz the only unity
Is against their disunity
For we are adept haters
And it takes a little knowledge
To know that we are at the mercy of their fetters
And when we jump at their pranks
Our victory will be our loss
Gambling on unbiased coin toss
Let as play them and loose
And laugh in our death like the golden egg goose
Whose innards they’ve ripped in greed
And sowed a revolutionary seed

MOULTING

2010-05-03T10:48:00.003+03:00

Starved of feeling
myriad misgivings
I called her,
yesterday
and slept with a smile
upon my face

I'd wish to call her everyday
listening to my heart beat
skip a bit
in this cold morn of May
to show her the nakedness of my love
unblemished like a proverbial dove

I missed you
I don't know if you missed me too
but optimism claims
dreams come true
and 'tis depth like my heart's
that wands illusion
of skies being blue

I am foolish
petty and girlish
but its the thrill of greater love
i relish
and its Naburuki i cherish

let all convictions judge me
all that matters is you love me?

RENAISANCE!

2010-05-03T10:31:00.004+03:00

Mama we'll build a hut
Of sticks and straw
Indigenous!
Igloos don’t thaw
A hut of many tribes
And we'll sing poems of yore
by us; exotic scribes
Ma we'll built a hut

Ma the machetes that maimed hands
the guns, the mortars
generals with medal armbands
will be history
and the blood and tears
the ash and cinder
are nightmares
we'll wake up from

Ma we'll build a hut
and everyone will play his part
all for the love of you
so that dreams come true
Ma we'll build a hut
today disappearing remotely into a past
we have a future to build
and tomorrow's approaching fast

We coughing out blood now; Ma
revulsion from suffering glut
but Ma
revolution's docked at bay
a dawn of a new day
raise bloody knuckles
like victory champagne
shouting freedom at last
so that Ma, we can build a hut!

One more farewell

2010-02-11T23:43:00.000+03:00

I say bye bye
God it feels so easy like when I said hi
Watching you leave
Transcending to a different future to weave
So my fate is not as smooth as a sieve
I watch you go
Shouting through my lungs no
My face says adieu
Fragments of my hearts lyrics askew
I say farewell again
But what do I stand to gain
And what do I stand to miss
Fantasies of lifeless kiss?
Disgust of swallowing insults like piss?
I know what I have is this
The ability to lovelessly tell you; goodbye miss!!!

MBITHE B. SHE HAD EYES

2009-07-25T14:26:00.001+03:00

Like the sun
Eyes of our hearts
Gelatinous bright
Yet pitch dark and comely

And so shrines,
I erected
Supplicated to her oracles
Prostrated before austerity

And my mortal mind
Conjured prophesies
Beheld premonitions
Of bliss
Of explosive passion
With those eyes

I reached
At my gaping ribs
And wrenched out my heart
Then offered
A bloody willing sacrifice

And my pain
Self inflicted
Hoped to see those eyes
Gladdened
To enkindle them
Ablaze with lust
To consume a confounded me

Yet
Yet, it tearfully closed
I couldn’t understand
I was confused
Whirlwinds played with my reason
My soul was bleeding
I hoped the eyes would give me healing
But they shut
I die thus

Droughts

2009-07-25T10:35:00.000+03:00

It rains,
pelts like forever
and fretful shouts
reverberate the iron sheets
walls of my newly built home
It rains,
of heartless bosoms
and great is desire
strong is the urge
to empty a paupers bowl
but equally fearful is the nagging
that under those goggles
are seeing eyes
of a blind beggar
Still it rains,
pelts the more
of heartless hearts
Oh honey am for you alone
yet still you recoil
stand in suggestive posture
of your painful groin
from futile masturbation
that drew no orgasm
And hearts, rained
flowed in puddles
into our gutters
the slits of our anatomy
so foul
that vomit is gulped back
our disgusted throats
So it rains
and our hearts are gone
and those who claim knowledge
are virgin harlots
in buibuis or nun cloaks

WANJIKU’S HOME COMING

2008-10-06T10:32:00.003+03:00

Preparations were onset as soon as the newspapers predicted her likely return. They went to the extent of sparing a couple of pages to explain the detailed journey and even the estimated arrival of Wanjiku. ...RETURNS HOME. Not even the gutterpress were caught uninformed on this.

Wanjiku was not beautiful, she was not some gold medal winner or any fancy celebrity splashed with the attention. Wanjiku is an ordinary Kenyan.

But her name was in the newspapers, and she was coming home. And just that had to be announced, and well prepared for. So the goats that she left behind had to be slaughtered. For her homecoming celebration? Wanjiku was coming home. The government quickly chipped in and gave her twenty thousand shillings. This was in fact read in parliament. Emergency expenditure for Wanjiku to build a home which she no longer had. In fact it was read by..was it the minister for housing or Home affairs or the second assistant minister for local authority or... Well it was one or two or three of the ninety Mps with a minister tag to accolade their Hon. Titles and who I must say share jurisdictions.

Now Wanjiku is famous for her homecoming which had suddenly taken a national outlook.

She came after the party when nothing but the intestines of her used to be flock littered her compound. And not a soul to welcome her back. Had Wanjiku’s homecoming turned sour? She silently settled into a tent perhaps with the consolation the she was home at last

The Home coming welcome
Fungua jinga wee
Startled at midnight in her canvas tent
you know my bother’s still in prison, am still poor an the government gave you some money, I was hoping that on the spirit of homecoming if you would like to share.
-now aware of the sudden limelight on her return
Uui am being robbed uui
Shout ciku shout. Shout for the the mothers whose families were shot dead by police, Shout to the fathers whose sons are rotting away in police cells Shout ciku, tell them you returned. We can even help you (shouts) NEIGHBOURS THE KIKUYU HAS JUST RETURNED AND IS ASKING FOR YOUR HELP!
Ha ha ha ha ha ha
You beasts you vermin unequaled devils. You heartless villains you drived me from my home to shamelessly sell myself to camp men like a slut. You senseless morons who raped my daughter before my eyes killed my husband and the razed to the ground what took all my lifetime to build. You motherless….
Aaaa mama no need to get all fussy. But you know the status quo changed. You know even as Raila is prime and ODM a half a government we still cant afford the price of food we are still are jobless. So we kindly ask can you at least share the twenty thousand in the spirit of homecoming, anyway its form our tax!

And the communal agreement of the male crowd outside.. And Wanjiku knew she was outnumbered, again!

Possibility of meeting Mau Mau!

2008-08-12T10:48:00.001+03:00

He was here in flesh and blood as the NEWS claimed. First I had met him through books that had filtered from the colonies by the dimwit administrators that were sent to run the backward abode of human territories. They wrote a detailed account of meeting these villainy beasts and their brazen efforts to keep their heads above the turbulent river of blood.

He was with eyes red as ochre seen on scalps of Maasai warriors on those fancy fantasy postcards of Africa. His beard was untamed, fired and glowed of gold like a lion’s mane. His hair wild and twisted into locks uncouth that were intertwined like tendrils. He wore pseudo general attire complete with metal plates for medals. And in his eyes was fiery fire that reduced the colonels to a piss. He was huge and strong and like a barbaric animal was deemed to be ruthless. He was Mau Mau, a leader of a bloodthirsty race of uncivilized villains murdering to retain their right to be savage!

I had to see him, I had to take a look at his eyes that had commanded so many grotesque killings in cold blood. I had to see his arms that were claimed to hold a human throat and tear it apart. I had to listen to his grim reaper voice, justify killing people. He was at the colonial office given a chance to talk out of the madness he had indulged a passive race that were otherwise willing and thankful to the white race for delivering reigns of darkness and brutality which he was leading them back to.

At the office, I had to struggle throngs of people that were there to take their peek and were enjoying their worth. It was like such a valuable relic had been shipped into a museum and had attracted so many. I shoved and pushed wedged and elbowed until I stumbled to the front reaching for my pocket watch “ooh the bloody London urchin” no wonder they saw it fit to send them to Africa. But look, instead of civilizing the natives they taught them their urchin behavior.

He stood there dressed in a tight fitting suit. Expensive and elegant. His hair was keenly combed backward into a beautiful neatness. He was middle aged with little white hairs intruding his dark ebony hair. His eyes looked tired and almost lustful. He had this smallness that is unlike negroids and I turned to the observers obviously perturbed as I was,

Was this Kenyatta?

The leader of the Mau Mau!

©2008 Otiato Guguyu

Ezra as told by Odanga

2008-07-31T13:27:00.000+03:00

Who architected this war?
and does not know Ezra!
Do you know Ezra?
or because you locked your door
hibernating
from the constant onslaught
Of gunpowder tom toms
But Odanga knew Ezra
because
They struggled at Mama Wangiu’s shop
disrobing shelves of their commodities
And they ran riot
shouting chants and war cries
seething forward with a cause
Who’s cause?
And when helmets appeared,
Camouflaging green
in the dry brown dust
I suppose conspicuous
is camouflaging to them
or they just see things differently
Like
Shooting in the air
meaning, holeing Ezra
And the last thing Odanga realizes,
he is gasping at his threshold
blessing his luck
He survived!
And when asked for the details
He points at Kiraithe
and assert
“It was a Hollywood clip”

©2008 Otiato Daudi

JULY 5th 1969

2008-07-24T12:48:00.003+03:00

This is how Tom Mboya died

the guns smoked

the air mocked

utumishi kwa wote

as the body of rioters

fell on the streets

he struggled for breath

as the teargases

bounced amidst the crowds

blinding women and their children

from the sight of pounding batons

pity it was before a chemist

where life is sold in capsules

and who killed him?

FORGET IT!

who was killed because of him

well there’s quite a number

of gunshot cases

in the register of death in 1969 July

Shh

Silence

Listen

The army

Their feet

That steady trample

Smell them

Their bayonets

Thirsty for blood

The rumble

That great canon rumble

Raging the skies

trailing

The light explosion

And

RUN!

scuttle for cover

the storm is here

ooo, rain

THE PLANTING SEASON

2008-07-21T17:03:00.000+03:00

The pelt that rained
and trampled the earth
made it moist
and soft to the monotonous thump
of the spade
that parted the soil
and dug six foot
for heavenly plant
sow
thou farmer of souls
sow flesh
sow souls
sow so that the future may grow
sow cofins
so that grass may grow
in the nourishment of the yester
and the health of the latter
because tears
like rain
will suffice mother earths thirst
and sorrows
like fears
will cow the unrepentant
but why
doth the season last forever
only second to birth

©2008 Otiato Guguyu

The Kikuyu Question

2008-07-21T16:59:00.001+03:00

Kenyan ostriches who’d rather their heads in the sand plunge to avert disaster, have avoided the issue. We are scared of admitting there’s a problem and would rather look aside and point fingers at misguided youth and opportunistic politicians. Lets all face it we have a problem!

In days long gone the Jews have a history they would love to forget a holocaust. But this was bred and brewed for so long. They had one thing in common with the Kikuyu, they were stereotyped money servants and swindlers. As seen in theories of Marx in perceptions of the Nazis and even in Shakespearean literature (Merchant of Venice). It was an accepted tag to Europe for a Jew to be synonymous with opportunism and theft. And sadly many years down the line when Europe faced financial and political turmoil as a result of the war, they turned and pointed fingers at who more befitting than the Jew! They should go back to Jerusalem the swine. Did I hear the same in Kenya ? The go back to Othaya chants?

One problem with stereotyping is that it turns the subjects to what they are deemed to be. For instance Africans have been thought to be inferior to whites. As generations are borne into these perceptions, the concept of themselves is remotely inferior. Our view of Africas linguistics societies culture economics and politics is seen to play a second fiddle to those of whites. Although scholars have arguments contrary to this, at the grassroots Africans find whites superior. Although disgusting, who wouldn’t attest to running after white people when they were little shouting “muzungu” or seeing children do it? So we became inferior because of being stereotyped and subsequent social inculcation of “you are a lesser being!”

My point, the Kikuyu question is a time bomb. When after the election it was called a battle of forty four against one, (those that disclaim it, I do not assert to their local situation but to my environment). It manifested small reactions to a sitting presidents tribe. But the perception that the Kikuyu are a different people is of great concern. Stereotyping Kikuyus as money servants or swindlers is conceiving a holocaust that will be more gory than what we have ever seen. Worse if as a social cluster the Kikuyus who are wronged accept the stereotyping and disassociate breeding hatred, then we might just as well call Kenya quits!

I have been a victim of stereotyping myself, hating whites for what they’ve done to us blacks but surprisingly those that directly affect me, I bear no grudge. I must confess I love footballers be they white or black. I heard a fellow who shared my sentiments during the violence, he claimed that Kikuyus should be dealt with except from his friend who is a Kikuyu. I asked why the partiality for curiosity’s sake and to him his friend was Ngugi not the mass he resented. He had humanized the friend. And that’s exactly my point humans are what they are because of their mentality and conscience and not necessarily, race, gender or tribe makes them what they are, good or bad. And stereotypes affect mentality!

©2008 Otiato Guguyu

METRIN

2008-07-21T16:54:00.001+03:00

It is not
that moonlit walk
on grass
courted by mist of dew
Nor that ground
turned foxy gold
by the embrace
of the moon hue.
It is
that tender
forebearing
Her little skin
so soft it hurts
Her slow breath
so silent it threatens
Her warmth
so tender it invokes
sudden illusions
of a future untrodden.
That is what seals love -
that fruit
of copulation
Destiny of mankind
to forge a future
so
latex
split!

©2008 Otiato Guguyu

Cyber exploits

2008-07-21T16:50:00.000+03:00

Working at a cyber café has been very interesting I must say but why should I tell you about the free surfing and all the typing. What really enthralled me then were the folk that flood cybers. Really Kenyan cybers are under divine invasion - in all literal senses.

The pastors are these folks but do not imagine of confusion of computers for flock. Even though technological advancement has by far made computers the next of kin to Darwinian Homo sapiens. The men of Jehovah surely have an added advantage of comprehension to blunder so. So it is the people on the other side of the email address that mater so. But it is not secret liaisons or money swindling schemes or miracling babies through the net! No, and you can’t believe it. They are doing what that dirty old ragged man at the corner of your street does or what Mbeki and Gaddafi and Wade do at a G8 meeting. BEG.

They come in all types those that cannot tell where an A is on a keyboard and those that are versed with oxford English. With introductions of Gods abundant blessings and greetings that are numerated to be many. And at one time I thought that porno addicts were cyber victims from the very mouths of these knights of the Christian word. And the stories are the same a collapsed church or one that need repair or electrification. Flooded flock or malnourished by hunger. The church in economical constraints or failing. And then the hope that this time the dough will be more (…Hope our Lord will enable you to give more ...). Or those applications …I am so and so from such a remote place with tough challenges read your books and am inspired to serve our Lord but not able blab la wish you could contact me and guide me to missionary work…. Christ we are pitiable.

I have watched those desperate waits those reading and re-reading of mail in the hope for acceptance the begging for cash and by God we are born beggars. And are those white folks dumb these people spend more time on the net than with their flock or the word and thus leaves me asking who has the moral dignity to steer this continent to a future even a poor one? With parents that are tribal youths that are violent a clergy that are cheats and leaders that are thieves.

Africa is barren of real humanity. Ask Taban

They’ve fooled us

2008-06-18T11:59:00.000+03:00

They have in their speeches thronged with unpractical clauses. For how many times have I heard of mechanisms set in place or subsidies offered? How many budgets have I heard of loans and development that turn castles in the air! How long have we withstood coherent linguists dodge questions that are of uttermost importance to us?
When? When shall we go to the duka on the street and buy sugar at a reasonable price while sugarcane in Nzoia is shriveling into firewood hard stalks
Yes, when? When will we live in decent houses in decent clothing and feed on decent food without their hallowed speeches and multibillion budgets and projects, of imagined incentives and mechanisms by government ministries promising us this and that?
Silence!
Of course they cannot answer us. And while they think up imagined explanations and unworkable schemes , are our children to go hungry? So tomorrow if you go to your local shop and the prices are no different know that they've fooled you

Hungry talk

2008-06-18T11:54:00.000+03:00

What talk? Angry talk! What did they expect when we can barely eat, our children can’t school and our sick can’t be treated. When our lives are at negative budgets and our economies in sachets and our visions are not 30 years down the line but tonight. What do they expect when they fly over our heads in helicopters while we bargain in matatus that run on old potholed tarmacs. When they earned a million shillings and we millions earned nothing. What did they expect?

Now we know it is not government money they swindle but our own, now we know the price of food is to suffice their families and satisfy their mistresses and not run their bloody government, now we know our children are indebted through slavery to white men by the loans that swell their bank accounts, now we do know that tribes aren’t what they tell us and the only ones that exist is the rich and poor tribes.

Hungry talk, angry talk! Now we want to eat because presently we are hungry. We cant feed our families but now we want to. And nobody’s gonna tell us how to eat when they turned us into beasts, hungry beasts. We gonna go out and eat em first then their families down to the last one of em. As we get rid of em we’ll teach those that think capital is worth more than humanity where they belong in our bellies and down the toilets of justice! Hungry justice!

Rosa Parks

2008-06-05T15:15:00.001+03:00

And her ass
that stuck on the bus
it was her sturbonness
black rigid firmness
her willingness
to slumber in a gaol's coldness
when she said
angrily shaking her braids
I aint give up my seat my ass
stuck on the bus
and in her oppressed curse
was borne the civil war fuss
go defy presumption
who knows
you may trigger a revolution

©2008 Otiato Guguyu

When we gonna sell the air?

2008-06-05T15:05:00.001+03:00

Why?
we sell water
and life in testube babies
we sell chicken
and fowls of guinea
even hawks
and butterflies and fish
in threatened species
why?
what we waitin for to sell air
in cubic centimeters
and a gentleman
walks solemnly acrosss the room
of the world great meeting
and smacks me hard
till it resounds
in my drunken conscience
"of course
why?
you think we poluting it so
we creating demand"

©2008 Otiato Guguyu

Theres nothing we can do

2008-06-03T12:59:00.001+03:00

When a doctor tells you
your son will be a guinea pig
on the theatre slab
to amature scalpels
dont you gasp
"arent there corpses!"
Then you check yourself
having realized
oh!
your son is one.

©2008 Otiato Guguyu

makwerekwere South African "okies"

2008-05-28T12:05:00.001+03:00

You seen dem southafrican okies Yes the ragged backdrop of dusty people crowded in informal housing .Look at them when at lunch hour they watch your shuffling feet towards eating places in the 'I will survive look' . Watch them when they cuddle their sick in bony embraces you would think that would heal. Stare at them when the hollow eyes of their kids question existence while tummies play tom-toms
Then ask them why they come . then tell them to go back like you did white men .yes that is the right thing to do .Then see if you household will eat .ha they gone but still the prices inflate still the mines exploit still the politician promises
By god dem okies cant take the blame. I wont let em if you let me tell you why. Coz its the capital it called them to south told them they'd be able to feed their family .Told the to go south .Why because the more and poorer the labourers the lower the wages . the call them down south till they crumble in polythene outside the city of gold having walked miles hungry that they would eat each other if they could. The capital comes to take them to pick gold and make it pay so little you couldn’t feed yourself let alone your starving family back home
The white men been doing it the black successors inherited it. Then why now they run em okies down .Is it coz the okies tired earning nothing or their bloody rheum and cancerous coughs plus numerous letters from home askin the horrible question -when? that turned the okies clever and the mines would have them no more? That capital turns to southafricans and said your poverty is of them okies takin your jobs and tells them to run em down? had too much okie blood been crushed under collapsing gold dust that never was avenged and now haunted with the potency of rebellion that the capital had to call on vigilantes to rout them okies

Either way you see what am drivin to
its not the okies that make us jobless hungry and miserable
its the damn capital feedin on our continent as we feed on ourselves

*okies-john steinback's GRAPES OF WRATH

me and my beggar

2008-05-28T11:59:00.002+03:00

it was in my ears -
the tingling coin
in his empty bowl
every empty dawn.

It was in his routine -
the timely nod
in grotesque gratitude
every begging morning

Today,
it was that same clanking coin
but there was no nod
my heart pride cherished gratitude
"but why"
"sir in the budget read yesterday
prices have inflated
but you still give me the same coin
I would be pleased if you raised your charity.

I walked away
tomorrow there would be no clanking

It would be a note!

©2008 Otiato Guguyu

Rat Race

2008-05-28T11:49:00.001+03:00

I found the pumpkin
in solemn argument
with the jacaranda
and my ears
that picked the murmured curses
purported I should diet
on ear growth enhancer
to outdo the head height,
so we suckle
the warm milk
and then the warm blood
of our own mothers
and the monuments
built on selfish foundations adorn our skies
as skeletons
whose height is the issue
and not the beauty.

©2008 Otiato Guguyu

Bedroom technology

2008-05-23T12:56:00.000+03:00

Man why are you still basking in past glory
why are you still in celebratory robes
of the reign over the down trodden
can you rival the sperm bank
in production of likable features
single parenthood single conception
can you even dream of vibrating
like a chinese toy in the electronic shop
self reliance self satisfaction
and you still had the audacity
to let past your power fed eyes
same sex marriage
now the daughters of eve come together as one
will you allow to be pushed to
homosexuality and bestiality?
or will you with nostalgia
discover the joys of your palms
let us fight bedroom technology
lest we be rendered redundant
and allow the race of amazons
in the second millennium

©2008 Otiato Guguyu

Path finder

2008-05-23T12:42:00.001+03:00

My grandfather tells me stories
of long ago
he is dead you know
but alive since in his time
he knew no death
in those times
rain bonded life and death
the hiss the solemn hiss
the gush the monotonous gush
the pelt the coded pelt
talked
he came to me in my closed eyes
grinning
and told me stories
of reciprocity
of giving and being given
of taking and being taken from
he talked of how they gave the land
and it sustained them
how they took from the land
and gave it their life line
told how man was in the yield
how land was man
how toil was not work
but giving in expectation of receiving
they took care of Bildad as Sudan
and it cuddled them close
till ostentatious cripples rose as kings and chiefs
till they invented taking and taking
grabbing and grabbing
exploiting and exploiting
the rain
they stopped listening to it
the land
they heeded not to its thirsty call
call for tender care call for giving
call for being one with man
parched, it starved them
but before the land was healed
before people could master the rains voice
before reciprocity became norm and code
the white men came
came and whispered
whispered to the sons of ostentatious cripples
they had been too naive
to spare the offsprings of snakes
and again it was take and take
grab and grab
exploit and exploit
use and use
self and self
i and i
before departing my grandfather told me
where grass has grown it will always grow
I will be we
self will be us
the rain will talk
land and man will be one
the path will be found

©2008 Otiato Guguyu

A DANIEL for nelson chisale

2008-05-23T12:29:00.002+03:00

Of your fourty one years of livelihood you were
a skull shards of bones and a finger
or
an autopsy sheet stamped "mauled by lions"
or
a victim in court that saw the deffendant life sentenced.
Should we recall your horor
before the foxy brown manned beasts,
How should we endure
your deathly pleas in errie howls of gennuine terror
suffocated by the raucous laughter of your white employer,
How are we to perservere
the reverberating saddness of you pain contorted face
beholding your brother who had helped haul you into the den,
Should we cry -
but tears wont wash off our race.
should we contempt and create animosity -
but two wrongs dont make a right.
Chisale a Daniel in flesh and blood
the African gladiator that fought lions
and won!
with your black heart

©2008 Otiato Guguyu

hunger of the soul

2008-05-23T12:22:00.001+03:00

have you ever
stood under a mango tree
and watched with nostalgic eyes
the deep green raw mangoes
and an unabatable urge
crawls up your spine
to pick the stone right below you
and like your childhood days
hurl down the fruit
to numb your teeth
but then a damsel passes by...
startled, you rush away.

Have you ever sat under that shed
while trickling divine tears
cleanse the atmospheric void
and an restrainable desire
thrust you foward
to rush into the puddles
and bath in revertalising rain
jumping and shouting in joy?
and the shoving crowd behind you
jostles you back to rationalism
well i have
and one day they'll call me crazy

FOOD CRISIS

2008-05-13T14:20:00.000+03:00

I aint writing to no poor masses, and wont fool myself to think so. For God's sake am writing in the internet, in English an i know all them poor guys just walking in the streets with no money to surf or are illiterate. Am writing to petty bourgeoisie, ostentatious cripples to elites and straightly to the middle class. They know it the few capitalist rich , the know that doom has come of their lust, they know that the masses will starve and in their hungry anger will revolt against them. They saw it in Senegal Panama Kenya Cameroon Somalia, and they see that across the borders continents poor people are fighting one battle. Poor people are uniting, poor people don’t want to go hungry again. And they re afraid. They have called it the food crisis and have come up with a hundred petty excuses with half-truths of things imagined, but they know it. Their hunger for wealth, their thirst for power, their monopoly over life that has sustained them so far has led them to the end of the tether. They no longer can convince poor men that it’s God causin their plight nor nature nor colour. Because poor men are hungry and all they want is food for their children and they are angry and will surely fight
And you! Ignorant fools for middle class. They saw this end ab initio, you are the curtains that will veil them from this fury You insolent fools. The rich are unreachable so the poor will gore you maim you chew at your shards of bones in their riots and strikes. You are the rich capitalists last resort for protection, you will take the blows of our fury. The axe is at the root and you schollard self righteous puppets will come down. It is time to repent and join the kingdom, time to fight and fuel the battle, lest you burn in our fury along with the few rich capitalists. Lest your flesh and blood serve as sacrifice for hunger

By Otiato Guguyu.

The Fly Market

2008-05-13T13:59:00.000+03:00

The thick ones
the thin ones
those with jelly blue stomachs
and shinny black stripes
and prism-like colourminting wings
or those tiny grey ones
with red meshy globules for eyes
here there everywhere
'mama,
I want the fat ones
with plump legs
and lazy buzzy flight'
She smiles
a toothless grin
and a light strikes her

©2008 Otiato Guguyu

Life's a Carnage

2008-05-13T13:47:00.001+03:00

Business was down as usual. Only one client since morning for a ‘boda boda’ was not worth the perseverance of the hot midday sun. Dust was afloat the humid air and one had to rub his eyes a little too often. Omwaka kept fingering his ear perhaps not to hear nature’s call of ‘hunger’ but neither his patience nor his activity could lure clients from the trillions of fellow ‘boda bodas’ who each had to share the already few clients.

“God gracious, this one has fallen,” was what he said when he saw it. The metallic mass was raging down the road in merciless fury. It could not stop. Neither could it overtake the crawling trailer for just ahead a salon car was approaching. The driver having not seen the coming salon opted to overtake. Realizing too late, he tried to break. Impossible! He steered it into the trailer to avoid a head on collision. The frantic attempt was a disaster. The trailer chopped into the bus grinding passengers and the driver. Grinding horrific yells momentarily seized the scene then crimson blood splashed in the air. Nothing but the thunderous clanging of cold red metal and the wreck of scrap metal ground to a smoky halt.

Omwaka was the first to shake out of the spell bound immobility of the horrific accident. He rushed to jumble to rescue or to be rescued from poverty. As he pulled out the bloody corpses he took a mobile phone from one and a wallet from another. Dead men told no tales. He relieved from yet another a wrist watch and wrenched safari boots from another. Dead men did not need them as much as the living. All the other rescuers did the same thing. The accident was aghast. All those involved died on the spot. Flesh had to be scrapped off the sides of the trailer. Meat ground to pulp was filled into polythene bags and the wreck towed away. Omwaka did not wait for all that, he took his bicycle and rode home. First he bought food then cleaned the boots of the blemishes of crimson guilt. He was thinking of how he will spend his amassed fortune when things started going wrong. The phone rang. It sickened him that he had not gotten rid of that SIM card right away. Who was it? Was it the dead owner’s relatives, a friend, the dead man himself? He picked it, Halo? Silence. He hung up. It rang. Angry, he picked it swearing. Silence… Just as he was about to hang up “you filthy thief, return this phone where you stole it from. It has been enchanted by a Congolese pigmy. Ha ha ha, you’ve got six…” he hung up. Was the corpse short or tall? Must be short. A pigmy. Damn! Six what? Days, hours, minutes? He should not have hung up, he should have asked who it was, what a chicken he was. The boots, they were red, all red (in his confusion, he had washed them with paint). Red!

“Return … where you stole it… in six…” The money, where was the money? Had he put it in the cabinet or under the pillow? It was in neither if the places. Where? He found it in his breast pocket, near his heart that was thumping leaving him with a parched throat. He even felt it grip his chest and he tore the money literally out of his pocket.

“Return… in six…” Seconds? Where was the wallet? There it was on the bed. When he reached for it, it wasn’t there. A mirage? He bent to check under his bed. A hairy animal rushed out rubbing his skin. He jumped up screaming and scampered onto his bed.

“Enchanted… Red boots… Return in six…” The phone started ringing. His ears were ablaze with its shrill interruption. He found the wallet, put the money back and took the ringing phone together with the red boots and did not care even to put on shoes. He carried them in a trance, not even stopping to put off the phone. His eyes were bloodshot with fear. He was trembling and his teeth chattered in the warm evening. In his ears, “Return wallet… money… phone… red boots… in six…”

This morning I was sitting under our tree but had not seen Omwaka. I was hot with news of the accident and I tuned my radio (I had bought it with money from the carnage).

… yesterday a man carrying a wallet, a ringing phone and painted boots mounted the busy highway and lay them down only to be knocked down by a lorry driver who says the man just jumped into the road from nowhere. This was the scene of the previous tragic carnage…

Where was Omwaka, he certainly should hear this.

©2008 Otiato Guguyu

Letters

2008-05-13T13:22:00.000+03:00

The village was fast approaching as I triumphantly rode my metal donkey into Ikewi. The cluster of mud-huts seemed to be fast approaching, growing and magnifying in size. I felt my heart thump inside me maybe out of excitement, fear or I just don’t know. Having stolen my concentration of the small footpath wiggling on the wide low lying land with acacia and thorny bushes I tumbled into a muddy pool of water and in my effort to come out of it the chain of the bicycle came off smearing my corduroy trouser with grease. I jumped off cursing partly stepping on the mud and sucking gurgling mud onto my polished shoe. I pulled myself out, replaced the chain and wiped my greasy palms mixed with perspiration on the hip of my trouser then mounted on the damn thing and rode into Ikewi looking around at the rousing village dwellers. At such a time, the elderly were at the farms so I only met small naked children breaking the monotony of the previous night’s sleep. I squeezed myself past homesteads passing greetings here and there until I came by kukhu Agutu’s place. She called on me to stop, I felt disgusted. I only wanted to get home and rest my tired bones and eat well yet obligation forced me to attend to this old croony. Damn! I wished I could crack her old bald head open and thin out the already scarce white hair off herscalpbut suppressed the urge to fling my arm.

“Son I know you are tired but this matter needs to be settled now for I slept not soundly and my heart seemed unable to be contained in my ribs when this paper came. I was waiting for you because I do not trust these semi literate fools. You have gone far, you will understand.”

I took the crumpled piece of paper, it was brown with grease and stank hard of goat smell, part of the seal was off and it felt heavy. I opened it and found three scripts then read them;

Dearest mum

You sent me, urged me on and now I am here having reached the unattainable heights. In this European-like world, I have found a job as a clerk to the Ministry of Education. It was challenging Ma for education is what the black man needs. I have joined the party and am looking forward to bringing the light home. Something else Ma, I have stopped going to church and I hate Christianity and its dogmas that have thronged us fast to everlasting colonialism. Please understand and pray for me to the ancient God, not Jesus, damn all Christians. Ma I have to go. I know you will live long to see my return.

Ogolla Harambee.

Dear mother,

Mom, I have scrutinized myself and discovered with fear and objection that I am not African, all the crap about education is a way of making us neo-colonized. All of us up here seem to find nothing of more interest than stacking riches for ourselves. But mum, I have refused I will not steal from the poor peasants. I have not much money but that won’t make me a goddamn thief. See mom, the heroes in the society are political thieves. I hate them hate this society, hate your generation for rejecting the ways of our fathers and adopting the ways of the Europeans forcing us into the quicksand that is swallowing us whole. We are lost mother, with all this theft, all this aid, all these loans that we owe the white man. We will for ever be captives.

Anyway mom, I have found love in Ciru, a beautiful omusebe* (a Kikuyu). She has taught me to be a black man and my heart to be fully African although I must accept it partly belongs to the white man. Mum, she is beautiful as the embrace I never got from you and I might be hooked to her. I love her so much. Please don’t object, I can’t marry Akinyi because I don’t love her, you only betrothed me to her. Mom, I hope you will understand.

Your loving son,
Ogolla Harambee.

Dear Mama,

I am in a hurry. Things are bad. I did try to persuade Ciro’s parents but they still object our marriage. I told Ciru to elope with me but she values her culture, her dignity and respect. She is strong and wise. Blood is thicker and it will always reign. But that is not what’s putting me in a hurry mama, in desperation, I came back and met the minister at his office. He tried to force me to sign a clearance for billions of shillings to go into imaginary projects and I refused. He tried to persuade me through force to help him or help our selves rather with public funds. Mama, I thought of you, of Ciru, of the beggars on the streets and that is why I did it. Mama, I felt like a hero by the way I clasped his throat feeling like a redeemer in a trance mama. I squeezed that thief’s throat and saw his eyes grow pale, his pupils disappear, his gurgling sounds, his resistance and finally his giving in mama. He is dead. Mama, in this envelope is my account card, get Otiato to withdraw the money I have., share the money halfway between you and Ciru (she has played a significant role in my making). Mama, I won’t flee, I will wait for the government to take me. I left a note indicating it was me. Yes mama, I did it for you, for those in Ikewi and for those in Kenya. I did it for the peasants. Mama, please understand and I hope you will live long to see the redemption I have started take its toll, so long.

Son,
Ogolla Harambee.

The account card fell off my shaky grasp. I looked at the old kukhu Agutu, her eyes were swollen out of their sockets with the strain of wanting to know. How could I tell her that Harambee was a murderer and would now be in jail waiting for trial, hanging, death, peace from the world we had forced him into. I remembered Shakespeare;

‘I am thy father’s ghost
Doomed for a certain term
To walk the night’

Doomed by society, by nature, by fate, I looked at the old woman as if it were the whole Ikuwi, the very ones that had doomed us to walk the night all of us and explained it as best as I could caring less of the feelings I evoked.

‘… Of days confined fast in fires
Till the foul done in my days of nature
Are burnt and purged away’

By who?

©2008 Otiato Guguyu

let the flesh go

2008-05-02T10:53:00.002+03:00

the vibrance in your steps
the vulgarity in your strides
the fluidy flow
collision and splatter
the music of your flesh
supplication to the nudity of eve
all constrained
in denim jeans
all restrained
into one arsed tautness
let it go
in a filmsyfrock
in a flowing dress
that resounds the beat of your body

©2008 Otiato Guguyu

Klap

2008-05-02T10:47:00.003+03:00

cursed be those damned hands
that married in thunderous claps
to applaud in merry drinking
a thief
yet those very grotesque hands
would clasp armorphous stones
and maim a desperarate thief
who pushed by circumstances
has snatched a worthless purse
and yet
they clap to a honourable thief
who in decades
has sank the very soil they stand on
in abject povety
by his corrupt actions
let all you fools clap
chant like bootlicking bastards
to have a share of the loot
snatched from your own poor hands
for me and my conscience
shall call him thief

©2008 Otiato Guguyu

Doubts

2008-05-02T10:37:00.009+03:00

tell me africa
assert to me africa
tell me am not inferior
confirm to me am not a sub race
they cannot be right
surely they cannot
or are they?
am not made of substandard material
my hue is not evil my will is not handicaped
my future is not bleak
am not born to serve
or am i?
please tell them africa
tell them what you told me
that am man first
that race is skin deep
tell them its red blood that flows in my veins
please tell them
that am of noble ancestry
that my heart is not yoked
am not mentally enslaved
please speak
africa speak
tell them i dont need emancipation
to hell with their marshal plans
[to you]
i'm not insane
he talked, africa talked
and told me all this
am not making this up
am not mad
he said it with his own?...mouth!
but he talked
please wait am not a lunatic
he will talk

©2008 Otiato Guguyu

naburuki

2008-05-02T10:37:00.008+03:00

oh
so was he encompased
how simple the eyes looked
how innocent her smile stood

fair was she than an angel
desirable beyond conotation of lust
beautiful and very beautiful

how could she be so intoxicating
how even in her mysterious silence
how could she be so heartwarming

fair lady apple of my eye
my harp doth sing for you day and night
so fair that i yearn for you so

so was he encompased
in emotions that thronged his heart
in a bid to restrain the unconquarable

does you fete
play against the desires of a devastated man?
does you fate stand between an inevitable union

adieu my fair love
simple silent mysterious and addictive
but why cant i stop waving
even after your ship has sank
away from my field of view

©2008 Otiato Guguyu

there was this pool

2008-04-23T16:07:00.001+03:00

immaculate stagnation
still
as if to it
time had stalled
into a marktiming vortex
not even a single wave
unheard or unfelt
disturbed the halted tranquility
and deep below
this waterry beauty
moss stood on their placid edges
their moody greenery
kaledoscoping the pause
of natures virgin pool
untainted
unexplored
unexploited
till my hand sank
into the swallowing softness
and the mermaidine ripples hastily drowned
to hide evidence of tamperment
and i reached for the pearl
glowing amber
in the hard grotesque shell
an erroneous inclusion
in natures cosmos
it snapped
i grabbed
too rashly
my fingers recoiled
around black fertile earth
that held green moss
my drowned hand reemerged
murky clay clogging my nails
palm
wrist
and dirty water
dripping into the pool
turbulent
dirty,disturbed
and no longer a virgin

between 0000-00-00 and 9999-99-99

©2008 Otiato Guguyu

representative democracy

2008-04-23T15:54:00.001+03:00

for your benz
bwana mkubwa
i have my dreams
fantasies of one day
driving a datsun
for your plunder
bwana mkubwa i have an eye for an extra shilling
and sell my wares expensively
to undoubting customers
you arent the only ones that dictate your pay
i collude with my fellow bussinessmen
and inflate prises
for your corruption bwana mbunge
i have mastered the act
how else would you explain
my kcse certificate
i couldn't get past ellementary school
my driving licence
i fell short of all qualifications
for your empty promises
bwana sir
they still wait
my son for his first soccer ball
my daughter for her "rinda"
her mother for a trip to hawaii
and thats why
i'll take you to parliament
you represent me!

©2008 Otiato Guguyu

apotheosis

2008-04-22T16:59:00.002+03:00

are they willing
to share the comfort
of their divine luxury?
the gods
to promise elevation
into cellestial bliss
for those who attain certain perfection
then assuring us vanity
"no man is righteous"
then why do they
promise apotheosis
of th nonexistent?
is it to bemuse their boredom
by us dogs chassing our tails
do we move them to pity
when like sahara visitors
we follow a mirage in ernest fanatism
if really they wanted our ascension
they should not have been so dogmatic.

©2008 Otiato Guguyu

Letter

2008-04-22T16:52:00.003+03:00

i burn
the indescribable
hurt the poet
for his ink
recoiled in his pen
and his imagination constrained in a cage
i burnt!
in the smothering fire
of impotence
as my country tore at itself
and my being took sides
smouldering lips of flames
consumed my flesh
as i hated
as i scorned
as i feared
and was tounge tied
to air my view
where it was unwelcome
and worse
what burnt me most
is that i never tried

©2008 Otiato Guguyu