The Drunkard

The men loved the brew more than life

They congregated everyday to listen to sermons

Sermons inspired by chang’aa induced stupor

Sometimes the spirit instructed them to grab

A collar or another, and dare to eviscerate the aggressor

Talking in eloquently slurred language

A language that will dissipate with the morning dew

If they make it home alive

Barmuriat staggered home one night and fell into the river

There, he slept and never woke up again

Truphena’s husband lay by the roadside one evening

And succumbed to intoxication that very night

Kiptum’s father, while drunk, undressed in the rain

And died peacefully, his soul pounded by the pouring rain

Haggard, shabby and unsightly men hover

In and out of drinking dens, courting death. and oblivion

Wives and children have since ceased praying for them

Their tear glands have run dry, leaving a desert of tenderness

A grave yard of cares, love and compassion

While alive, they are used to their absence

If they do not resort to violence to pass their crude messages

The Lawyerist

As a teenager, it was quite fashionable to perform activities that made an immense contribution to our psyche, if not our gross domestic product, namely: loaf time in the shopping centre. Not seeking to deviate from this behavior, I often left home in the afternoons to idle in the shopping until such a time when I determined that supper was ready at home, and then I’d slip out surreptitiously. Sometimes, when in a good mood, I’d leave early in time to ensure all the domestic animals had made it to their respective enclosures.  Over time, this activity wore me out, save one incident that’s indelibly etched in my mind.

The sun had deemed it fit to go and shine in another world, paving way for people to take stock of their day and make the following deductions: had breakfast, lunch and supper, yet I don’t know where the food came from – so far so good, let’s do it again tomorrow. I was walking gingerly home, trying to get there before darkness had a dictatorial grip on the events that would follow. I took a short cut through an idle farm. On reaching the road, I found an old man, seemingly confused. He asked for a homestead of a retired teacher. I knew one barely three hundred metres from where we were standing. He instructed me to take him there.

With complete disregard to my personal conscience, we did set off to the homestead. The old man had had one too many, and blubbered all the way to the designated destination. I personally don’t have a problem listening a drunkard’s musing. But this one did faze me. Perhaps it was due to my relative inexperience with such people. I was still in high school at the time.

“I am lawyerist,” the old man said boisterously.

He then went on to talk of having been to Dar es Salaam University, upon which he benefitted from the teaching of Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere. Or that he was a classmate of his. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that he had a close encounter with Tanzania’s founding father. The old man did not give me a chance to say anything, not that I had anything. Maybe he was pleased to have such an attentive audience. I do not know.

Before we reached our destination, the old man saw it fit to scare the living daylights out of me. I personally believe that no one can utter words they are not able to do. The old man took his walking stick and balanced it horizontally on his open palm. He then glanced at a fear-stricken teenager in me and dared me:

“AWALAGE? AWALEGE? (Can I transform myself?)”

The words escaped his mouth, sounding as though my consent was all it depended to come true or not. My mind raced at the numerous things or creatures that this old man was capable of changing himself into. It could only settle on one thing: snake. I cowed with fright, and told him:

“NO!!” I repeated this response each time he made the threat. I wasn’t about to be the first person to witness a human being change himself into a snake. Lord knows what the snake could do. Perhaps it could swallow me alive. Or bite me and inject venom that would pre-digest my person, turning me into soup upon which it would just sip me. At the time, I hadn’t discovered alcohol, so you can imagine how my body would have been JUICY.

It turns out that the old man’s threats were emptier than Uhunye’s promise of eradicating corruption as part of his legacy. We reached the homestead and the old man shouted so loudly as though he was calling out someone located in Pluto. A bulky man showed up. The old man explained his problem. The bulky man said that were in the wrong homestead, and gave us directions to another. He was generous enough to allow us to take a short through ‘his’ farm. This form of generosity is quite rare, and even rarer, when the homestead has a girl coming of age. Girls here are permanently grounded. However, even under this stringent parental upbringing, plenty of them still, quite mysteriously, manage to get pregnant. You could easily hunt down and slay the Holy Spirit, if you are a father.

I walked the old man, darkness slowly setting in. I hadn’t planned on being that late. I was still a novice on this coveted teenage indulgence. Besides, my pool skills are comparable to a diseased cockroach – or even worse, only that no one can coax a diseased cockroach for a pool game with me.

We walked on the railway track, then turned right after a few metres to join a road that led to the new homestead. Apparently, the old man had been looking for a retired teacher with one ‘bad leg.’ I knew him well, for he taught me to hate school, for two terms, while in class three.

When we reached the gate, I exhorted the old man to enter but he went straight, silent as the wind, ignoring me as though I was absent. I looked on, bewildered, as his form got swallowed by the darkness. I washed my hands, in a bid to absolve myself of any blame should the man attempt his witchcraft on me, and walked home.

Although with a disturbed soul.

Integrity Deficient Nation

A massive heist, a thorough plunder,

of money meant to buy life-saving drugs

for the country’s poor, the downtrodden

without influence, discounting God’s

a man stops a bullet in the forest, tortured first

hit men, having God’s job description,

delight in dinghy bars, celebrating a job ‘well done’

the police, baffled, will hit dead ends on its leads

our beloved country is addicted to integrity

so much that we resent its absence

leaders hold the bible with velvet gloves

thereafter receive money earned through ungodly means

God laughs at our vain attempts at prayer

For we mask our evils in his name

Shout about salvation from the pulpit

Yet, unaware, sacrificing our blessings all the same

Yesterday

you made away with my yesterday,
every single moment seems longest
as I lie on my bed, thinking of you - 

thinking of the dreams, 

thinking of your laughter, 

thinking of you love,

thinking of you arms wrapped around me 

thinking that you may not even be thinking about me

thinking endless thoughts

and wishing that we never should have met 

Always The Best of Time

I got to tell you how it feels beside you

Like waiting for heaven’s gate to fling open

And we stand there waiting to embrace forever

Always the best of time dearie

Something stills time, your smile

I could walk a million a mile

And ten more to spend awhile

With you, happiness pile

Sitting side by side couldn’t tell what you mean

How I don’t know how to act around you

Yet deep down me a feeling ripples through

The kind that tells me you’re my only queen

I will trade my life for your love

A gift of wings to a dove

To hover around heavens above

You aren’t earthly my love

Strutting

You strutted into my mind as would,

a model, auditioning for my attention

from the first sight, I picked you

you are a clear winner,

and you are hereby given the power,

to reign in my heart for a thousand eternities

Mosquito Nuisance

It’s half past one in the night. Satanic hours, as my former higher school principal used to refer them. As with these times of the night, awake, I normally nourish myself with whatever food that remained after supper. I had eaten githeri, and disregarded its soup which I found too salty. Now I am taking spoonfuls at irregular intervals, feeling as though I have discovered a new exotic culinary delight. Why was I awake at these satanic hours? Well the answer is mosquitoes.

It is one big problem which, I strongly believe, should have been factored in the building bridges initiative, and if not, a commission of inquiry formed with immediate effect to look into these mosquitoes that are giving ordinary Kenyans, who diligently file zero returns every financial year, sleepless nights. Despite magnificent, huge, momentous and gigantic inventions man has ever discovered, these extremely tiny creature was purposefully made to teach human beings to be humble. You could huge and intelligent, God must have been saying when making mosquitoes, but tiny brainless creatures will torture your nights, and you may never discover the vaccine of malaria. And God and the angels burst into prolonged guffaws, which made him forget that he was creating a human being. The error saw Him make Hitler.

I recently came back from the village to Nairobi to run important errands which are keep hustlers company and continue my hatred for mosquitoes. I learned that, despite evidence showing that they do not have brains, these creatures are actually intelligent. Within minutes, they had also landed in droves with their persistent annoying whine close to your ear especially when you are concentrating a particularly serious thought – where do I steal huge amounts of money and never get caught? Without a doubt, mosquitoes are already in the moon waiting for you.

It leaves you to wonder why Jesus died and never took away the annoying mosquito whine. You could have just closed your eyes, and really loud whine, overtaking the supersonic jet, flies close to your ear and off it goes. It was on a reconnaissance mission. The second time it circles your ear looking for a landing spot where it goes silent and deploys its suction tools. So your role is to subvert them by swatting and making serious and laudable efforts namely: missing it. It flies away laughing in mischievous mosquito laughter.

The aforementioned scenario is only idealic – there a billion mosquitoes my friend ready to take a sip of your blood. Thinking of it, why is human blood a mosquito’s only meal? Why couldn’t God make a Christmas thing, leaving them to survive on ugly and useless creatures such as rats and politicians? Just animals that do not have the ability to reason: I don’t want to name names.

If the ecological role of mosquitoes is quite indispensable like, for example, defecating why couldn’t possess at least three functioning brain cells? I base this on the fact that you could wake up in the middle of the night and manually kill them and arrange the dead bodies on the nightstand but they still come in droves. If they had brains they would know that this place is dangerous, and warn others never to step there. At that is the way it is in my ancestral home, Kerio Valley.

You see, in Kerio, you cannot plant maize, sorghum or millet without the intervention of monkeys. And they are very lazy, they don’t help when planting, only showing up when it is ripe. Anyway it is not their problem – they have adopted noble characteristics of certain species of animals known as slayqueens. They wait until its ripe then they wreck havoc. You have to rise as early as six in order to beat traffic…haha…sorry, there is no traffic in the village. You rise up early because monkeys don’t take chances with their laziness. And so you wad them off until you harvest.

However, the monkey problem can be easily be solved by simply killing one and placing the dead corpse on your farm as a warning. Being avid readers, they take seriously such warnings and they never step there generations after generations. Unlike mosquitoes. But they are just like us every election year.

PHOTO/PEXELS 

Review: Black Hawk Down - Mark Bowden

It is a book written by Mark Bowden –he also wrote another about the American-sponsored hunt for Medellin drug boss Pablo Escobar – and it details the events leading to a botched capture of some Somali clan elders in Mogadishu.

The capture of the elders did not go as planned, perhaps signaling a blood bath that would fill every crevice, nook and cranny in Mogadishu. A teenage ranger (who, by God, would be holed up in room exercising his free will to think of sexual fantasies and escapades) missed the rope while they were descending down a helicopter – which was way off-target – injuring himself. The Somalis seemed to have had prior intel about the impending American assault and were quite ready. Every single one of them was ready – men, women, lactating mothers, and children. All of them were ready to die. And die they did.

The unexpected ambush on the American soldiers precipitated a long fight in which they fought through a barrage of rocket propelled grenades, and bullets from the preferred Kalashnikov. Two American helicopters were downed. Efforts to reach the crash site were derailed by strict military protocol which effectively ensured that communication from surveillance helicopter reached the ground troops a little too late. The ground troops ended up getting lost, leading to the second down copter being overran by Somalis. They captured a pilot and killed the soldiers.  

In the end, a lot of Somalis were killed and eighteen American soldiers killed. More than seventy soldiers were wounded while thousand Somalis faced the same fate.

The capture of the pilot and the dragging of dead American soldiers across the streets were aired CNN. It sparked outrage, leading to questions from both the congress and the president himself; the main one being: what were American soldiers doing in Somalia? Somalia has no valuable natural resource if you don’t count piracy, and charcoal.

The president’s intervention led to the unconditional release of the captured piloted – of course accelerated by a threat to obliterate Mogadishu – and he withdrawal of US soldiers from Somalia.

Other than the fact that the targeted clan leaders having issued a threat to the US, there’s no other valid reason given in the book as to why the US soldiers were in Mogadishu. The only verdict was that the solders weren’t ever going to set foot in Somalia, at least without the approval of the president. That was 1993

Letting Go

The dawn, the unwanted dawn is heralded,

By birds chirping as though singing dirges

For these are beginnings of empty days

Of days thinking about the memories, love

Of abandoned plans, plans to love forever

It feels like you’ve just boarded a bus. A train

A ship and sailed away, far away from me

The yearning of my beating heart couldn’t stop you

The cry of my love sounded like a some nasty noise

Who needs noise when it all involves is sorries?

I have said a thousand sorries, many times not even,

At the back of my mind, knew why was doing so,

And these sorries depleted my sorries account

Now sorry – sorry sorry – is a sorry word

There’s nothing more I can do except let you go

The Ultimate Kenyan Dream

A palatial home. For a mere driver of a university vice-chancellor.  It left many Kenyans in awe of the exceptional business acumen of a man holding one of the least desirable careers. It turns out the only qualification is a complete lack of integrity.

I hereby corrupt – which is now a cherished talent of ours – a line from a movie I once watched: do not be addicted to integrity; you will resent its absence.   

The audacity of the Mara University heist does not surprise anymore. Hairdressers and receptionists have made away with millions of shillings before; paling the driver’s if attempts at comparing it are made.  

Kenyans, in their characteristic manner, decried the blatant theft by – and this is a country that prides itself in a constitution that dedicated a whole chapter on integrity – inquiring where they can get such a lucrative driver’s position.  Overnight, being driver was the most coveted job.

It turns out that, despite constantly decrying the vice, the ultimate Kenyan dream is make way too much money with the least effort. Being in charge of public funds gives one the same status as that of a Fortune 500 Company Chief Executive Officer.

There have been numerous news of heists that have served one core function: to be awed by the mindboggling figures being quoted by the media. Then we move on until such a time we shall be required, as a civic obligation, to be awed by another mindboggling plunder of public funds.

Goldenberg, Angloleasing, Eurobond, SGR, Arror group of dams and the latest, Mara Heist have come and gone. If not, Kenyans shall apply the time tested mantra – forget and move on even if a container of carcinogens is imported, and, which is often the case, cleared by Kenya Bureau of Standards.

The question that courses through the minds of many right thinking Kenyans (and I here I mean any person who could use an extra one billion shillings) is: are we angry enough at rampant theft and abuse of public office?

The answer is: yes. Many are angry at the fact that it is someone else stealing and not them. Many are angry that they have to persevere through a 5-8 job (wake up at five in order to get to work at eight, and leave at five in order to get home at eight) and millions others who are enduring joblessness.

Many Kenyans cannot simply turn down an opportunity to make money through dishonest means. Straight from matatu touts to doctors the potential to be corrupt is limitless. I can’t even talk about the police. In fact, as recognition of their distinguished service, they have been rewarded with new uniforms for one critical law enforcement purpose – to make them visible.

It is not a wonder why Kenyans keep electing leaders with questionable backgrounds. Even if they possess the integrity of pubic lice, they will be vetted, and voted in quite overwhelmingly. It helps if that man is monied, as it helps the electorate to exercise their inalienable right of asking for handouts.

Once a leader has been accused of making away with public money, the electorate will come out in large numbers and – get this clearly – elect them to public office if they don’t occupy one already. This is often done as a sign of protest. (I know one such leader who is already preparing his victory speech for 2022).

But there’s hope. There is always the light at the end of the tunnel especially if you get the tender to supply electric poles. If you are informed you already know that this has been taken.

It all boils down to what an individual feels about corruption. Most people start as honest citizens until they are confronted with a moral dilemma of whether to use money meant to purchase life-saving drugs for millions of people or purchase a private plane.

As Kenyans whose blood can be identified with Wanjiku’s, there’s nothing we can do except accept and move on until such a time we shall be called upon to make poor electoral decisions. These are the only times we truly care about the fate of our country. 

Breaking Down

The sight of your name in my inbox,

Reminds me of you, of the wrongs

Some that I did, most that you imagined

And you blew them up to the right

The songs that we loved to listen

Break me apart with the memories

Unable to think about anything else

Except your love, your touch, you kiss

Without a doubt, you are gone forever

There’s no energy left in me to fight

Every single day there’s this and that

Unable to love each for a week

 There were no lies on my part

And if there were, kindly forgive

If you can, because I never found a wrong

I couldn’t forgive in you

The sight of your name in my inbox,

Reminds me of you, of the wrongs

Some that I did, most that you imagined

And you blew them up to the right

The songs that we loved to listen

Break me apart with the memories

Unable to think about anything else

Except your love, your touch, you kiss

Without a doubt, you are gone forever

There’s no energy left in me to fight

Every single day there’s this and that

Unable to love each for a week

 There were no lies on my part

And if there were, kindly forgive

If you can, because I never found a wrong

I couldn’t forgive in you

Back

She doesn’t even beg to get back

She strolls back like it was all normal

Like it felt all too good when she wanted out

When all I felt was something drain out of me

Something that smelt like life or love

I thought we were done for good

Every single thing we held dear – I

Felt them disintegrate to a point –

A point I didn’t want to try anymore

Neither did I want to care

Yet, when you seem to have made your mind

You stroll into my life like we are some lovers

Who had been away from each for a while,

ours’ been a year – just imagine a year

of waiting, longing for something ungraspable

a part of me died from the constant bickering

and I have often – always -  watered it

with the thoughts of you, wondering incessantly

if I had erred so much to worthy of forgiveness

the more I did, the more I wanted you close by

Review: A Clergy Man's Daughter - George Orwell

In a bid to fill the void that sometimes creeps out of thin air, I chanced upon George Orwell’s A Clergy Man’s Daughter. I had previously read Animal Farm, but it did not register in my mind as a novel worth investing my time on. Just like sci-fi movies I do not find talking animals particularly attractive. Perhaps, I’d find it more alluring to watch a lamppost withstanding the pouring rain, likening its loneliness to my own. Sometimes.

For that matter, I left Animal Farm halfway, just like a million other novels I have, both hard copy and soft copy. As fate would have it, a ninja of mine passed me an assignment, a story to review. Shooting The Elephant, it was. I read the story twice and produced the a thousand words within a record time. many nights later, when sleep evaded, I absently began reading other stories that were part of George Orwell’s collection Shooting the Elephant, which was the title, included.

First I started with the review of the stories. The fantastic turn of phrase was near orgasmic, that is, if you have never had the taste of another’ nakedness – the opposite gender preferably. The review was effusive of Orwell’s stories, saying that he actually wrote what he experienced. He was a police officer, so to say, in India during the days of the British Empire. He actually was born in India.

After five years of service, he visited England and decided that the perils of India were not worth it. he decided to stay and became a tramp. He wrote about his street days, where they picked cigar butts with other tramps on the street. It was actually the first story I read and I was overwhelmed by the way Orwell pieced his words. None felt out of place, all neatly sitting by each other, as the story bowed pleasantly to you, as though you were a powerful king.

I quickly devoured the story, and then another and another. For the after taste of a good story lasts ages after you have eaten, I pored over my usual poring places to see if I can find more of Orwell’s brilliance. You see, the way Orwell writes, does not arouse a sense of pity, even if he were to write about the pain (mostly his pain) of a cancer affliction. He is more like ‘laugh at my pain’ kind of writer.

Luckily I found A Clergyman’s Daughter, which is the story I am currently reading and it is the basis of this piece. (Sorry for the long intro if you are still here). The story features a character named Dorothy, the daughter of a Reverend Charles Hare, Rector of St. Athelstan’s church. Dorothy is a dutiful girl, who prepares everything for her father every morning before going to church for prayers. The morning prayers only attract three people; an old woman, Dorothy and her father. That makes two people in the congregation. Sundays seem have a better attendance by the locals of Knype Hill.

Dorothy takes care of the family’s meals. They are only two of them since her mother died, but they have a housemaid whose brains begin working only after seven in the morning. That leaves Dorothy to take care of chores earlier than that. Now, I don’t really think so highly of girls named Ellen. I will be bound to be prejudicial towards them as has been my norm since I met a girl name Lucy. My recollections of her are actually hazy, but I remember the dread she filled me as a kid. (story for another day).

The family does not make enugh money to make ends meet. The characters in this story do not live in age where there’s Tala and branch, so Dorothy takes everything on credit, including meat. Who does that, you may ask. Apparently that’s the way of white people – to buy meat on credit. Her father, even though he is a man of god, does not allow himself to be bothered by trivial things as providing for meals. He even sarcastically asks Dorothy if has started a poultry farm if they partake eggs twice in a row.

Every morning Dorothy prays that the butcher man does not demand she pays the bill. However, sometimes god does not work that way. The butcher sends the bill anyway. She tells her father about it and he drifts away in the golden days, telling her that there are debts that lasted thirty years back in his heydays. And creditors or shop owners never bothered people. He tells her she can shop elsewhere, and proceeds engaging in fervent reverie of his days, when things were good and creditors did not bother people, at least for thirty years.

As Dorothy goes shopping, vowing to avoid the bothersome butcher, he meets a man known as Mr. Warburton, whom can be described in our local parlance, as a sponsor. He is as unsightly, physically, as many that grace this concrete jungle of Nairobi. Mr. Warburton is widower, and relentless womanizer. He is also rich, certainly, Dorothy tries to evade him, but he is not the kind of man to be let go off easily. He is forty eight for god’s sake. So the daughter of a clergyman and a old man walk around the town giving gossip mongers juicy stories to tell. They have what Orwell calls a connexion, having liased romantically in the past. The town knew about it.

He propositions Dorothy to come to his house that evening for he had a special visitor. The visitor is an author a book Dorothy denies having read. The book itself is sort of pornographic in nature, just lie the way a forty eight year old would like. She agrees after his relentless budging. And she goes out to shop. Just like that, without asking Mr. Warburton for money. And she is in deep debt.

That’s where I am now. I’ll let you know about what happened, at this time next year.

Maverick Chang'aa Makers

Photo/Aljazeera

It is a place where men and women rise every morning to solely devote their god-given talents at – take note of this – being unproductive. On the bright side, these are extreme hobbies of ICU patients, lunatics, and certain animal species, whom, for lack of a better word, I’ll call politicians. I was part of this esteemed entourage of people for one impeccable intellectual reason: to dream-up creative ways of wasting a surplus commodity in our hands which was TIME.

And for most days, there was none. We resorted to raising our antennas really high in order to spot a drunken man or woman, upon which we’d go where he or she is coming from. Sometimes, when they have not passed out, we’d ask them where an oasis has sprung so we’d quench our thirsts. One time, through sheer bravery, we braved fierce winds that blew so hard that it appeared to rain horizontally. In the distance, a dark sheet of falling rain covered in a meticulous manner from earth to heaven. And we were heading that direction.

At times we sat perched on raised grounds, like people suddenly struck by a disease that made everyone hold a solitary meeting and wonder how he or she would spend his thirty hours available for the day. During these solemn moments, I actually could feel my intelligence quotient hurtling down like a Boeing that has been shot down by a rocket propelled grenade. It wouldn’t have been a nice experience for people with single digit IQs – the process would feel like a crushing can experiment, leaving the victim permanently retarded. On medical grounds, however, such a person makes an excellent voter.

On this part of the hemisphere, illicit brew is so rampant that it has been determined to be beyond spiritual redemption. A catholic priest has since urged people to use their heads which is a brilliant piece of advice ever given considering that the head is where the mouth is usually located. The priest seemed concerned by the fact that people are spending their extra daily allotment of hours to come up with ways of ingesting chang’aa. The only person who has so far been proven to be innovative is the area chief – he uses the foot. However, his innovation is so detested that people flee when they see, hear, or feel his presence.

The dens are exclusively manned by brash and bulky women who have since discovered the scientific reasons of not giving a s**t. You never want to offend them because they’ll fire a salvo of insult as if your carbon emission is the leading polluter of the ozone layer. They quietly move in and out, dishing the precious liquid, sometimes covered with sooth, with their sniper-like eyes scouting for the next trouble maker. They make a living this way, undeterred by the threat of arrest, or even death.

As a sign of sharing – but I call it lack of business acumen – these dens serve a paltry of their brews. There’s never a surplus in each house. By eight am, you won’t get any busaa in the entire village. The approach used in busaa is – you blink you miss. Even chang’aa is available in little quantities. They’d even pack them in medicine bottles to give someone the illusion that they’ve drunk too much. You move from one den to another the whole day if you are really motivated to destroy your liver. And folks here are quite motivated. Based on available evidence, heaven doesn’t serve these kinds of liquids, and they are determined to make the best of it before the time comes. Hell, they won’t even go to heaven but that’s not a matter of immediate concern. Perhaps, the last prayers will charm God into admitting them to His humble residence.

Perhaps you could be wondering if there’s any honor in living such a pathetic lifestyle. With enough foresight, you can see that a majority of these people have already time travelled to 2022, and they know how they want their lives to be. And this is it: they want to make one hustler even much richer while they pass on the cherished tradition of loafing time to their children.

On a serious note, that is not the way to live. Personally, I learnt that there is no honor in drinking when you can’t even write about.

***

From the experience, I made a note to stop drinking.

  

If You Must Leave

If you must leave, leave me with my sad songs

Take the memories with you,

For they will be a baggage I won’t be able to carry,

My hands are already full,

With poetry, and, significantly, whisky-

Take my sanity with you, I do not need it anyway

If you must leave, leave me with sad songs, poetry, and whisky

Daughter Of Man

Scrubbed, wiped, mopped,

Bent, crouched, reaching places

That, ordinarily, I wouldn’t even think about

And at last, a sigh,

That a daughter of man wouldn’t find me repulsive

-everywhere spotlessly clean (including myself and the toilet wall)

And then, daughter of man did not show up

Leaving me with cleanliness I hadn’t gotten used

The roaches that listened to my sad songs,

The sad lament of my heart, of longing-

All gone with the subtle whisper of your uncaring attitude,

Daughter of man

Now tell what to do with all this cleanliness…

Tell me, daughter of man

To The Highest Bidder

She asks for this, she asks for that,

Valueless things in their finite ‘quantifiability’

But then, sometimes, things with finite value

Go to the highest bidder,

And there’ll always be the man, richer than you

Drawing valueless souls towards their enchanting light

That must fizzle out in the end

One More Night

It’s hard to believe that a year flew by

It’s hard to know when you are on my mind

Every single second of the day

Some nights I have spent awake

As though keeping a sacred vigil

Watching us disintegrate before our very eyes

 Here I am, stuck like a rock

Spreading my tentacles to feel your cold body once

Just one more night

And slowly get it warm and make everything warm

And palatable

I yearn for a night, just one night free from everything

Free from the hatred you have for me

Free from the guilt of loving again, when you’ve sworn

not to – at least not love me

And spend it loving ourselves, just once

Is it a lot, my dear friend?

Sad and Deep

By the edge of your unremarkable life,

You watch the amber glow of setting passions

The glow of wretchedness erupts

From the depths of your empty soul

And then consumes the little dream,

that you held on to many nights

the little dream that embraced you

when the world became distant, uncaring

break me, break my heart

break me into a million shards of myself,

 I will pick myself up piece by piece, a million times

and, should you not find it enough, break me again,

I guarantee you I’ll never tire picking myself up

Again and again

To A Beloved

Speak to me the silent words that throb

alongside your heartbeat

reveal to me the secrets and desires trapped in your soul

reveal to me the source of your gleam

because you walk me to a sweet dream every single night

I am consumed by your enchanting beauty,

The thought of you sends my heart into delirium,

I want to touch eternity, together with you

And I want it to begin now,

Simply, I want you to want me.

Overtime

There you are, a young man feeling the weight of the world,

on your shoulders instead seeing it in front you

your mind worked overtime to tell you,

after that heartbreak that you were simply not good enough

every single day you single mindedly thought so

and it became so

the songs that you listened to the very day

walking, convening solitude, along the railway

you hated the world and everything its brought along

all you wanted was to exist in a song

for that’s the world where you thought you’d thrive

and for long, you forgot how to truly live

nearly a decade later and the very thoughts crawl

day and night, speaking the same language,

the language that the life on those lonesome walks

walks that you used to berate yourself

telling your own soul how less-than you were

in all walks

existence has become one dreary bore

every single object seems to jeer you

in a fetal curl, you fit yourself in a cocoon,

a less-than kind of cocoon that does not fit anyway

and your dreams poke like tentacles

trying to catch you from drowning

and you don’t. because there are twigs

sometimes, that save you from the grim waters

The Soulless Journey

PHOTO/COURTESY 

For purposes of not offending my host, I’ll say that I visited Cheploch Gorge. Other than the scenic features formed mainly by gully erosion, the area is exquisitely Phot. Forget about making love during the day, unless you are deranged. The tool won’t even rise to occasion. And if you manage to do so, climax will sound the same as a hot iron being cooled with water. I can authoritatively say that the entire population was conceived at night.

The escarpment is quite scenic especially if you harbor no thoughts of scaling it but to just to marvel at the wonders of nature. There are all manner of snakes here, my host assures me of that. In fact he pointed a location where a python was once killed. Even a rattle snake is present in this landscape. However, I was assured that years of human interaction have made these extremely poisonous snakes human friendly. When you encounter one, it will greet you like a long lost friend by sinking its fangs on your feet and injecting enough venom to kill you, as is the biblically accepted human-snake greeting.

After days of toiling in the sun and sweating approximately all my bodily fluids, including seminal, it was time to head back home. A two-hour trek, which was our choice rather than is the norm, we stopped by the tarmac a few metres from Cheploch Gorge. I would have loved to go there and witness the daredevil divers perform their tricks but I was too tired. Besides, my feet were already threatening  me through the standard feet language which is blisters. A matatu stopped and we boarded earnestly, relieved of the heat (I am speaking for myself here) and the fatigue.  There was only one passenger inside, which made three of us excluding the crew.

And there began a grueling and extremely soulless journey to Iten. The matatu flouted every single traffic rule, including the ones that are yet to be formulated. First it stopped at Emsea junction, a man with an indestructibly sheepish grin loaded a milk container, which may or may not have contained milk, but judging from the energy the handlers expended when hauling the container, it may have. He stood there, scanning the environment and returned greetings with such vigour that would have outshone a politician. We stopped there approximately seventeen and half minutes.

A few people boarded including a man who found it prudent to purchase meat which he would transfer more than ten kilometers away. Man, I pitied that meat. The driver kept enquiring who was ahead from his fellow drivers as well as making phone calls. We set off and he pressed the gas, triggered one of the many phone calls he made.

Along the way, we picked women who looked like traders or sort. One kept making phone calls with her mulika mwizi phone, then instructing the driver, who I learned was called Kibe, to stop at certain places upon which people would mysteriously appear and hand her money. She made close to five such phone calls. One woman was unsuccessful in using this technique and was forced to alight and board another matatu to head back. Kibe missed her stop point. Some passengers tried to urge her to use m-pesa but she could hear none of it. It was like convincing her to phone sex a few metres from her man. You would be convinced only if you had two brain cells that worked. And she had plenty of them in tip top condition.

At another stop, a swarm of women accosted us in quite a threatening manner, with an assortment of goods – tomatoes, onions, oranges, and mangoes. They surrounded us with eyes that suggested that somebody’s health exclusively depended on our benevolence, and that we’d be condemned to an eternity of damnation, or worse still, not reach our destinations. Realizing the gravity of the situation, some passengers actually bought.

The matatu continued picking up passengers even when I thought there was no space even for air. In fact the concentration of carbon dioxide exceeded oxygen because there was no space for oxygen to circulate. But people still boarded as if there’d contract a fatal disease if they didn’t board exactly that matatu. I was particularly irked when a man, elephant in size, sigh at the sheer number of passengers, and still squeezed himself in. I heard someone call him ‘mwalimu’ and I pray that he isn’t a real one. We don’t need such teachers, unless they are in parliament.

At some point, there were more than twice the recommended seat size, people crammed in all sorts of formations and positions. I wondered how someone would sit in such an inconveniencing position, and still reach their wallets and retrieve the new currency notes to pay their fares.

As the journey progressed, people alighted until we were nearly the only people inside. The driver meandered the road expertly although he seemed to use his head to guide the matatu through the bends rather than the steering wheel. We passed by Tambach and a feeling of nostalgia gripped me. Four tortuous years. Four year’s worth of tortuous memories that molded us into the fine men we’ve become, contributing wholesomely, despite complete disregard to our livers, to the alcohol industry.

The rest of the journey was uneventful until we reached Iten Town where we boarded another matatu to town. The touts dared us to board if we had souls. And we did, because we had had a completely soulless journey. Also, it offered us a chance to see how Kenyans do not care for the traffic rules, least of all their lives.

Back Like All Was Normal

She doesn’t even beg to get back

She strolls back like it was all normal

Like it felt all too good when she wanted out

When all I felt was something drain out of me

Something that smelt like life.  Or love

I thought we were done for good

Every single thing we held dear – I

Felt them disintegrate to a point –

A point I didn’t want to try anymore

Neither did I want to care

Yet, when you seem to have made your mind

You stroll into my life like we are some lovers

Who had been away from each for a while,

ours’ been a year – just imagine a year

of waiting, longing for something ungraspable

a part of me died from the constant bickering

and I have often – always -  watered it

with the thoughts of you, wondering incessantly

if I had erred so much to be unworthy of forgiveness

the more I did, the more I wanted you close by – my mistake  

Perfect Loneliness

The steady flow of thoughts cascade,

down the crevices that stored your image,

numbed are the fingers that once traced

heavens on your silky smooth skin

and, as if fitted with needles

the thought of yours on my prickle me,

injuring,

  the painstaking slow process of forgetting,

as slow as time, crawls an inch in ten years,

and your picture, engraved in unreachable crevice – the soul

slows everything to distant blur, only you

only you is visible, stark and clear