The Hiatus

the king went on a hiatus 

he needed a break from 

all his nagging subjects 

and came back in chains 

came back a slave 

of unrequited affection 

Meaningless Thoughts

these naked thoughts dance 

in my head, 

like strippers on a pole 

offering no meaningful purpose 

except loaf time, 

rob me the ability to think straight 

beguile me, 

keep me trapped in a meaningless 

trance, 

hooked on something 

both heaven and hell 

know do not belong to me 

and never will 

The Nightmare

 Last night, I was a person of interest in a murder case. The whole incident scared the wits out of me because I kill small insects for fun – people who know me wouldn’t even have the privilege of saying “we know him, he wouldn’t hurt a fly.” And that, my good friends, would have thrown any lingering doubts of my innocence out of the window. It would further throw these lingering doubts down an abyss of oblivion if it were on a Monday or Thursday as they would meet manually propelled projectiles.

We (suspects) were filed into a room for interrogation. It wasn’t really an interrogation but to take a lie detector test. I knew it because I am a true crime enthusiast and I have watched numerous documentaries where suspects are strapped with those strange-looking objects that measure even the slightest change in your heartbeat, skin moisture and even your thoughts.

I knew I would fail the test even though I couldn’t identify the victim in a photo lineup. My heart would be beating like isukuti drums when asked whether I killed the victim. I knew the machine would scream ‘liar’ upon which I might have been executed on the spot. You know how our police work – kill suspects and find investigate later whether they were criminals or not. It takes guts to be a criminal who does not even have an ambition to vie for a political office. I don’t and the lie detector test would definitely pronounce my guilt in a crime I did not even know the victim.

But strange things happen, as they tend to happen in dreams. This was one of them. A mutura seller rescued me. He entered the room and spilled his merchandise, angering a couple of cops idling around the room. They clobbered him like nonsense, ignoring the fact that one of his legs were shorter than the other. He ran away in a pitifully comical way.

Instead of leaving him alone, the police decided to have fun by giving a discernible head start, hopped into their vehicle and gave chase. At this point, I stopped being a suspect and became an observer in the ensuing slow police chase.

The limping mutura guy popped into a chuom. One officer alighted and gave chase. Moments later, the officer emerged from the chuom running for his dear life, followed closely by the limping mutura guy had seemingly gained superhuman speed considering his locomotive impediment.

I stood there wondering what was inside the chuom. My curiosity was satisfied when I saw a monstrosity nibbling the behind of a white guy emerge from the chuom, which had then turned into a cave. Then I woke up from the nightmare.

 

The Unforgiving World

in your still moments, 

you will think deeply about the world, 

it has been cruel and unkind to you 

you think of the burdens 

unfairly heaped on your shoulder 

you fail to recognize the culprit 

who allowed the burdens on your shoulder

and you think the world is unforgiving 

in the grand scheme of thinks, 

you are your real enemy

in an relentlessly unforgiving world 

A Phone Charger Willfully Left Behind

As part of my mission to write something seemingly intellectual (or lack thereof), I will teach you a very important life skill: never ever deliberately forget your phone charger because you don’t want to remove your shoes. Who would do that, you may ask rolling your eyes in a manner that says ‘what is he saying?’

I’ll tell you who would do that. Me. I belong to a long lineage of self-respecting men who do not subject themselves to dull indignities of abiding by a sick and twisted tradition (by which I mean invented by women) of removing shoes before entering a house. I’ll only do that when entering a ‘shrine’ because the blessings from a ‘shrine’ are worth any indignities.

Unlike you, a phone is not a valuable companion. A simple click and your whereabouts are revealed. I am not a criminal, but as a wannabe fugitive, that’s not something I would want. Being unreachable does not bother me anymore. Your woman would still think you are busy shanking another of her species even when you are in the ICU. While fighting for your life, you will get a thousand messages insulting your very existence. Ptoh! Fear women.

I was told to remove my shoes. I squinted at them closely because I almost bought them twice the price if the hawker could hold them for me and I decidedly said, ‘ptoh! If I ‘remove’ them I am dead.’ These shoes aren’t grand in any sense but they communicate to me a vital lesson of survival: ‘good things might pass you by when you are not ready.’ And then I again decidedly said, ‘a mere charger!!!” I wasn’t right in the head and I was ready and off I left.

And now I have to use chargers that only work at specific angles of elevation, 34.89 degrees Celsius, specific time of day and probably its mood, which has veto power. It means if the charger is not in the right mood, it won’t work even if you summon your ancestors in alphabetical order. I hate this charger. It has a couple of sisters – I don’t know if chargers identify as women but why not risk – who have also conspired with it. One discharges and the other gives the following info ’66 hours till full.’ I don’t desperately need a phone but waiting for a decade is a no.

In the meantime, I have to coax the working charger, threaten to cheat with its other sisters, and chant libations at the same time. But these chargers are goddamn resolute. It takes persistence, patience and every other word ever conjured by motivational speakers such as Atwoli.

My phone has to be on somehow, just in case I receive those texts that say, ‘hey mom, nilipoteza calculator. Tuma pesa kwa hii no. 008t3663545.’ These messages are close to those romantic messages you receive when your purported woman has realized her ‘main’ is cheating on her with his ‘main’ and has officially promoted you to the ‘main.’ I dare not miss them because there is nobody to miss these days. As such, there is no other viable option of wasting Safaricom’s text messages I occasionally receive when I purchase data bundles.

 

 

 

The Biggest Crime

the biggest crime you 

can ever willing commit 

is giving someone your heart 

all of it, 

with the mistaken belief that 

it will never be broken

it will be broken into a thousand 

pieces 

and you will be forced to 

give the rest of them 

broken pieces of your heart 

and they will break it even further 

Long Silence

the long silence that punctuate 

our conversations recently 

have had me hanging on a thin thread, 

swinging like a pendulum 

between taunting oblivion and eternity 

the memories of the yore 

flicker periodically at a distance 

beckoning my weak limbs to 

take one step - just one step 

a step closer to your embrace

I take hazy and unsteady steps 

swinging between wanting to you, 

and wanting to forget you 

but then I hear your voice 

and the thread snaps on the side 

that has me wanting you - 

the side that I am familiar with 

the side where silence 

reveals the deepest thoughts inside us 

and reveals our deepest secrets 

I remain hopeful that this silence 

will never lose meaning 

for I wouldn't know what to do  

Do Not Forget Yourself

as you freely roam on this earth
curving your own path in
the wilderness, 

as you stray away in search of 
a path to place the world 

tries desperately to hide 

as you search for a path 

that will lead you to your destiny 

a path to happiness 

I beg of you one thing 

do not forget about yourself 

do not forget to search for yourself 

in the blooming flowers, 

in the age-old rocks, 

in the chirping birds 

in the soft blowing breeze, 

in the erotic of embrace of the wild 

because, as we search for meaning 

in our lives, 

we forget ourselves 

and when we find meaning 

we realize too late, 

that we lost ourselves, 

rendering our lifelong wanders 

meaningless 

These Walls

I guess these walls loathe 

my lonesome laments of solitude 

I guess they are tired of dancing 

to disjointed rhythms of my heart 

I guess these walls pretend 

they are blind 

just not see my sorry self sprawled 

on the bed, ruminating days 

when lonesome moments such as these 

existed in fairytales, works fiction 

but these walls have been my unfailing 

companions 

lending a listening hear to the endless 

laments of my heart 

listening but doing nothing, 

only silently acknowledging their 

presence in my life 

Trouble With Success

there is more to success 

than what we see 

no one ever got it right 

on the first try 

even as we are awed 

by the magic of success 

we forget that there was 

a first try

and numerous failures 

along the way 

what we see is a man who 

got up every time he got knocked 

down to try once more 

the trouble with success 

is that it hides immaculately 

what goes on behind the scenes 

and that is the most important 

because there were days heroes 

felt like giving up 

there were days they had no energy 

but still got up and worked on their dreams 

success demands getting up 

even with the most justifiable excuses 

we see the finished products - 

an incredible song, poem, novel 

or work of art 

we see the complete athlete 

and never think of days he trained 

to push himself beyond the possibility of defeat 

Third Round

I have dusted my gloves 

in readiness for the third round 

I got knocked out once

but I rose each and fought again 

I'll watch myself walk 

down the familiar road 

with my heart pounding in 

similar uncanny rhythm

I'll be alone listening 

to the voices in my head 

tell me there might be something 

amiss, or something good 

I know I'll do a good job ignoring 

the negative 

I want to make amends 

although I know I am not 

supposed to 

there is nothing to prove 

except test my resolve once again  

and prepare for heartbreak 

once more 

The Weird Feeling

the stalling and morbidly weird feeling 

that often assails as if something 

great or not 

is about to happen 

and you are stuck, unsure of what to do 

as your mind races around 

a race track, doing crazy things 

except keeping still and letting you 

concentrate on important matters at hand 

The Trouble of Falling In Love

the trouble with falling in love 

is believing you'll never be hurt 

you believe the illusion that your 

love will keep them 

and when everything falls apart 

you will be an empty shell 

trying to hold yourself together 

Dear Reader

Hello, 

I hope you are doing good. 

I would like to let you know that you 

are the only reader who ever checks on 

this blog. It would be nice if you once left

a comment or your footprint. 

I do not know you but I hope to make you 

an acquaintance if we have never met already 

outside this platform. Get in touch of you can. 

Cheers.  

Lover's Comforting Lie

 How I'd hate in telling you
the lover's comforting lie
that I'll love you just the way
you are
no words ever sounded so good
as if laced with a hypnotizing drug
I'd love you to be more than
what everyone sees
I'd love you to aspire to be a better
person
I'd love you to aspire to something
powerful
I'd love you to reinvent yourself every day
not succumb to an anodyne self
and force me to love you just the way you are
because I will not
and if I do, I'll only pretend 
because I also know 
without a shred of doubt
that somewhere along the road 
love will stop being blind 
and you may see why I was a mistake 

An Ode To Ugali

I love ugali. Admittedly, I was 'forced' to love it, more like an arranged marriage, except the absence of options. An arranged marriage is worse when there are options. When there aren't, you will grudgingly learn to love whoever was chosen for you, because - get ready for the groundbreaking revelation - you have no OPTION. In a nutshell, that's how I began a lifelong affair with ugali.

We ate ugali for breakfast, ate it for lunch, and ate it for supper. It wasn't a big deal. We did not know that something else existed apart from ugali or its related variations such as porridge and mkarango. If it was possible, we'd eat ugali accompanied by ugali.

I learnt the other day why it was impossible. I haven't looked at it the same again. A few foreigners were asked to rate ugali and they came with one unanimous conclusion - it is very TASTELESS. I have interacted with ugali all my life and I had never thought of it as tasteless.

It forced me to reminisce my primary school days. For those who went to boarding school, I know they understand the kind of torture we went through. Most of it revolved around food. Our experience (or at the very least most of us) at the fabled KHA were tough. I can legitimately blame it in all my addictions.

Nothing ever came close to the trauma we experienced in boarding. We were fed with just enough food to keep us alive and endure a few strokes of cane from time to time, especially for people like me whose IQs then competed favourably with donkey hooves.

I remember how I'd wait anxiously for the bell to ring for meals. Immediately after meals, I'd begin the anxious wait for the next meal. If anything KHA's food did not fill up your stomach. It made you hungrier.

It turns out that the go-to meal was ugali. The sight of large ugali was probably arousing at the time. We had developed a secret and strict code of eating it. We'd begin with veges using the scorched earth policy. You'd never see a trace of anything remotely related to the badly cooked cabbages or sukuma wiki.

I remember one female teacher chanced upon this sinister ugali-eating protocol. She pitied one boy who got a one-in-a-lifetime opportunity to have his plate replenished with the badly cooked mbogas which was a delicacy by the way. It had to be - we had no choice.

However, when the female teacher looked around, she realised that all boys did not have vegetables on their plate. She might have thought there was an anomaly somewhere or the cooks deliberately denied boys veges. We must have laughed because she did not know out secret code.

At the time, ugali was not tasteless. We loved it the way it was. As far as we were concerned, ugali was blameless and upright. We even began trading ugali for bread. It was simple, you gave another person ugali and the other person would repay you with bread.

I loved ugali so much that I often traded it for my bread. The bread wasn't that big either. It was an eighth. But both commodities had equal value. Half for half, full for full. When I talk about equal value, I do not mean the entire loaf, but just the eighth.

Since I wasn't big on bread, my memories are slightly skewed towards ugali. There was something controversial about those who loved bread during our time at KHA.

Now, it has been revealed that ugali is tasteless. One person even likened to wet cement. However, it won't break our tight relationship, which is strengthened more by KHA memories.

Although I do not look at ugali the same way, the love for it will forever remain

  

No Lie

I have not heard a bigger lie 

than one perpetuated by 

infatuated lovers 

they say they love each other

just the way they are 

what a bunch of hogwash!! 

I'll not love someone's daughter 

just the way she is - 

man, I gotta have standards 

or bare minimums 

she must have a verifiable source of income 

because it's what I must have - 

but for me it'll probably be just an income 

I'll not tolerate her acting fishy 

fiddling her phone in a suspicious manner 

I have no interest in her phone 

I will never even attempt to check it 

But if she smiles shyly when a notification 

pops up 

or leaves the room when she gets a phone call 

she has to cook 

she has to clean 

and I'll stretch my feet on the sofa 

no lie 

and many other things that I 

may think about later 

strangely, I'll expect her to know them 

I Don't Envy Your Love

looking at you at arms length, 

I thought there was more to you, 

only accessed in secret places, 

like your heart, or a dark place 

then I knew you, and bridged 

that uncertain stretch between

unfamiliarity to friendship 

and we became more than friends 

it was exciting in the beginning, 

well, all relationships begin

with that sinister excitement 

and the hope that it will be alright 

we worked to maintain decorum 

to present ourselves in ways 

that wouldn't have the other 

bolting for the hills 

but then you grew comfortable 

after knowing all my secrets 

imperfections and what not 

you had made it, I guess you thought 

I no longer envy your love 

I do not crave it as much as I used to 

it wasn't even love 

it was a convenient arrangement 

to waste each other's time 

A Battle With Self

when truth and pain merge, 

out emerges a soldier 

worn from a long battle with self 

the invisible scars don't speak 

but mutter amongst themselves 

of the needless adventure 

the soldier suffers from PTSD 

he won the battle with self 

but the war still rages on 

never unending 

Abstract Artiste

I looked at the canvas 

a little longer than it takes an artiste, 

I am no Picasso 

A few scribbles, random lines 

and I declare my work of art complete 

an abstract art 

I have lived far too long, 

with the hope, slowly merging 

with despair, 

that there was an artiste inside me 

ready to conquer the world 

but the artiste never shows up 

he sends emissaries 

with letters of jumbled words 

vainly apologising 

but the letters often seem to dance 

on an unmarked grave 

Can You Endure

can you endure long silence 
endure my seemingly unwarranted 

moments of listless solitude 
can you endure the same response, 
when you inquire about 

my meaningless brooding? 

can you endure days I'll long 

for peace more than your kiss? 

can you be still strong

after wondering what's amiss?

can you endure my nonchalance 

my carefree attitude

my cavalier approach to romance 

can you still stay with my wanton mood?

Splintered

I am basking in the undistinguished
glory of splintered dreams 
the derailed course of my life, 
offers not the perfect photo opportunity 
to project an image of success 
I am, by a design, a man who 
inadvertently got satisfied with very little 
and every step, thereafter, 
was all about accomplishing the
bare minimum 
but trust me, I know how long a man 
can last on bare minimum 
and it's not that long
barring constitutional intervals 

Mental Disorder

I have an undiagnosed mental disorder, 

as sinister as it might, I think people 

like me need recognition, 

right from the United Nations 

to the CBOs tucked in the armpits 

of uncivilised natives of Kainuk 

I am telling you, I am mentally ill 

my thought process is as flawed, 

as the next Mathari patient, 

but I am free like a molecule 

and that worries me, it worsens 

my condition 

sometimes I think I am walking 

corpse, 

the next I am more alive and eternal 

like the word of god 

because I am ill 

but my condition is undiagnosed yet 

and that gives me no peace 

at this ungodly hour of the night 

The Wilderness of Life

wander through the vast 

wilderness of life, 

be wary of the compass 

for your desire is to get lost, 

if not, it should be your creed 

for you will find out you true self

in unfamiliar places 

define yourself through strangers 

and find your true purpose 

in our own meaningless existence 

wander through this wilderness 

be wary of those who sing praises 

they do not mean it 

Who Needs?

who needs a hug, 

when a hug, 

can't be frozen 

and stored somewhere, 

somewhere easily retrievable? 

who needs a heart, 

when it can be easily stolen, 

and given to someone else?

who needs a soul when 

you wouldn't ever know 

what to do with it 

or if it even exists? 

who needs to live 

when each we crawl closer, 

unwillingly, 

to our own demise? 

Who needs to ponder all

these, 

when you can live, love and laugh 

the good things 

and the bad things that happen? 

Back Up

I have travelled  way down 

the least desirable road, 

The climb back will be stiff. 

and difficult 

It wasn't the way I wanted 

but I thought it was cute 

now I believe I was stupid 

the regret is 

Wandering Heart

I felt my heart slip away, 

and float, like smoke, 

through the invisible crevices 

and wandered away seeking 

your lukewarm embrace, 

to brood the distance memories 

fan the dying embers back to life, 

to warm us again 

until we can't stand each other. 

as I set here, content without a 

heart, 

I hope it used the correct path 

to find you 

I am aloof, unenchanted by all this 

because the scars are still evident 

yet they aren't scars worth 

celebrating, 

they are invisible scars that never 

fully healed 

A Scarcity Mindset

There is no sure path to sadness 

than the constant nagging thought, 

that you'd be happy every where else 

except where you are 

Tell me what sadder

than the idea that you'd be loved 

better by someone else than 

the person you are currently with 

what leaves you with a sore taste 

more than thinking you deserve better, 

a better job, better house, better family 

your reality seems like a trap 

stop seeing life from a position of scarcity 

it blinds you from all the blessings 

the abundance, happiness and joy 

a scarcity mindset will leave you miserable 

Places You've Never Been

there will be a thousand sceneries, 
breathtaking, picturesque,

some will leave long lasting impressions 

on your mind, 

while plenty will leave you unfulfilled

in the sense that you'll never be 

happy wherever you feet have taken root