Wednesday, 30 August 2017

ANOTHER EMPTIER PART

A part of you feels hollow
End to end nothing but a void
Debauchery creeps in
It often finds solace within

You don’t look anyone in the eye
They’d peer into your soul’s lie
And how hard you acting your own life
How long you’ve since ceased living

Another empty part of your grows
As if by magic, ensures you’re bereft
With it you swim to newer lows
And you-you don’t even know when to begin

Not caring 

Friday, 21 July 2017

BETTER YET

Skip the nuance and insinuation
Better yet tell me from the hails
The cradle of your soul; my ails
Stop torturing my imagination

May be if I had oil wells
Or better yet gold mines
May be you wouldn’t think twice
Or better yet not think at all
Of availing that which my heart craves 

Should have a gun
Or better yet a nuclear weapon
For me to earn my respect
May be we’d be buddies


The Heartbreak

The wind, having encountered little resistance from the card board reinforced wall, blew with vengeance, permeating straight into his bones. It manifested itself in the clattering of teeth and occasional shivers that he wouldn’t hide. It was however a wonder since he lay deep inside a pile of clothes, which he had put to reinforce the four worn out blankets that had seen more nights than his age. It was November, and November did what she new best-be chilly as hell.

Kip remembered the words he had been trying to concoct for his beloved. He was a poet. Or a wannabe poet. Either way he was just a poet without aspirations of rising above the legacy of Shakespeare. He was wise enough to know his limits. And so he typed on his worn out Nokia phone, amidst the chill. The clock was ticking towards midnight. I’ll receive a reply in the morning, Kip thought. And what’s better than receiving a long romantic message in the morning? Gold perhaps.  A jackpot. She was his gold and his jackpot. He read it slowly, like it was another poets creation, and he a mere student trying to wring meaning out it. Like god was pleased with his creation, he saw it was good. He hit the send button and switched off his phone to save its battery life.

Often in my day dreams I think about you
How you came along and changed my life
And all of a sudden it feels there wasn’t life
Like I had been waiting to really live
For one person who means so much

I see love beckon the sparkle in your eyes
That laughter of yours takes me past the skies
Sometimes I think you are not human
How you make my heart race, like am crazy
I don’t know many things but I know
I’ll give you my everything and a little more

Among the many things you are
Include class, magnificence, divinity, stars
Not leaving behind your gracious heart
Nursed my own with your impalpable sweetness
Inspire eternity to crumble beneath your feet
End to end no one ever compares to you


The cocks began crowing before Kip had even dreamt of her. At exactly six o’clock, the alarm went off. For once he began wondering why he did set the alarm in the first place. He did conjure up enough excuses as to why he allowed himself to be disturbed by the alarm, and conclusively dismissed it as an act of laziness. He adjusted his body strenuously among the pile of clothes as he reached for his phone. The alarm went off and message asking him if he wanted to switch the phone on. Kip chose to. A message sneaked in immediately the phone came alive. A numbing sensation took over his stomach. He couldn’t read it again and hit the delete button. It was better when it didn’t exist. 

Friday, 7 July 2017

ONCE A SUNDAY

Sunday sat there on its holy ass and its holy place, as usual. I love Sundays because ladies embrace a certain obscure sense of decorum, covering all their vital body parts for once even though they had been out and about, half clad and smoking shisha the entire Saturday night. Some will don sun glasses to hide their blood shot eyes dilating, trying to stay afloat in the deep end of hangover. It’s none of my business though. Men of God have to eat, men of God have to have an aesthetic atmosphere as they preach to desperate humans, about the need of planting seed. How do you save money in someone’s account and expect it to multiply in yours? As he cruises in top of range cars and preaches about how God is merciful, always think, unless it hurts.

It’s not a breathtaking sight, seeing people throng to their places of worship. On this day I make special attempt to stay in bed all day long, without attempting to even move a muscle, only rising to make noodles and back to bed. This Sunday, though I am twice unlucky. No three times unlucky. 1. There’s no water 2. I won’t have my noodles 3. I have to get out and witness people who seemingly have been struck by a bout of holiness. For two days in row, the taps have been empty, emptier than a politician’s promises. What sucks when you have no options? Not me. I create options; and so I create a craving for chapo madondo.

Once I alight at Ambassador, I knew where I was going. There’s this guy who praised chapo za Muthurwa, in the same relish a man would in describing a woman’ s derriere-big, curvy and beautiful to look at just as it would to devour.

Muthurwa. There’s always a sea of people every day, even Christmas, I should think. Those Kyuks never go on a break. You’ll find them having spread their wares, eating a huge chunk of the road, albeit shamelessly. Some shout their prices, some just mum. People move by, oblivious, as if these traders are non-existent, worse still invisible. Just like everyone else, I squeeze myself through that narrow entrance. I almost bump into a girl in a jeans skirt and a red t-shirt. In such situations it’s advisable to stand your ground lest you begin playing a game of obstructing each other. What’s worse than that?

I find my way; or rather follow the scent of chapatti. There are empty stalls! I want to run around and scream to whoever has ears that I have discovered empty stalls in Muthurwa but then I remember it’s a Sunday. Before long I am just where I want to be. Men clad in dirty white dust coats knead flour, some make small balls of it, and others are rolling them while watching the one on the pan. Hunger makes you blind to so many things. I mean look at street children. I find a spot nearly empty because I don’t want people watching me eating so ravenously. They throw you pitiful eyes that seem to say ‘kwani huyu hajakula miaka ngapi?’

After giving out my order to a bulky jovial woman, I scan my environment without seeming to intrude into people’s personal space. It’s all men here. It seems like a battlefield. There was a couple, a middle aged man, a woman with a shaved head and a kid tucked between them. The woman was feeding the kid with what I hoped wasn’t from the place. They chatted animatedly, engrossed in each other’s words to notice their surroundings. The man is lucky, or rather among the luckiest chaps. He can bring his woman here and get away without bruises. The current generation of ladies frown upon such places and should she get wind of the fact that you were seen, even detouring through Muthurwa, you will be blocked without notice. Blocked everywhere, twitter, facebook, gmail, yahoo…name it.

I settle on my food, biting huge chunks of the chapatti and scooping the beans slowly, enjoying every moment of it. Once someone asked me my favourite food and I answered ‘the first food I’ll lay my eyes on when I am ravenously hungry.’ This right here was definitely my favourite. I order one more chapatti.

While I was about to clear my plate, a well dressed gentlemen walked towards the food stall. In tow was a beautiful lady dressed in red. The bulky woman beckoned the gentlemen and he heeded. To my surprise the beautiful lady followed him. According to my estimation, a woman of that stature, a woman who had taken time to shave her eyebrows only to redraw (it must be painstaking) deserved a five star kind of hotel, not the lowly of the lowly Muthurwa. She was dressed in a red dress that went slightly above her knees, which would definitely reveal her sumptuous thighs. She had those eyes that peered straight into your soul, straight into your value and even where you’d be in the next five years. And she had heels too.

The gentleman converses in whispers with the attendant (these places don’t have waitresses). Moments later she brings out a plate of what looked like mashed minced meat, with too much soup in it. I pay her and leave. But questions lingered in my head, which I longed to ask.
How do you get such an urbane lady to eat in a kibandaski? For some of us such kind place is unheard of. Even a woman two weeks in the city won’t allow her palate to taste such kind of deplorable food, in deplorable place.


Next time I’ll make a point of taking one to such a place. I’d tell her she needs experience first. And it’s not sold anywhere. She needs to prove her mettle, that whatever happens in the course of the relationship, she should be able to stick with me through thick and thin. 

RENTED DELUSIONS

Truths are rented delusions
Passed through gleaming eyes
A simple pledge to stupidly be awed
Disguised a cushion, of human frailties

The pursuit of uninsured dreams
Knowing without acknowledging
The ‘ass’ hidden in the word assurance
“You can fly,” the heart hears her say

And the mind seeks illusory thrills
Conjures up heavens and eternities
A thousand lives in a world
 Lit only by a mere smile, a heart beat

In perfect order in its own chaotic nature
The heart heeds the beckon of eternity
Without asking, ‘where is Methuselah?’
Wasn’t he ever once in love?


THE COMPLEX CASE OF ‘WHAT IF’

What if the world isn’t round as its purported?
What is darkness is a fallacy?
The sun remains in its place, it never sets

What if knowledge is a mere suggestion?
A nuance of man maddened by identity
What if all people who know are indeed fools?

What if death is a transition of lives?
From one world to another
What if the next, excepting biblical,
 Was way better than before

What if the first man didn’t bother with another’s head?
About its ability to grasp bogus ‘organised knowledge’
Would we have exams?

What if man learned how to manage his greed?
Would it be the ultimate form of knowledge, the zenith?
No one, nothing, would live a deprived life

What if man thought more about his next door neighbor?
More than how much money he’s about to make
Wouldn’t the world be a better place?


Monday, 26 June 2017

WITHOUT THAT SMILE














The laugh, originating from deep within-unfeigned,
Had become a soundtrack to the movie Loneliness,
Caressed me in the was way moon does to earth at night
And you filled every part of me with undefined longing
The kind of longing that stretches time, each tick tock
Succeeding each other with distinct clarity
That every moment without you, without that laugh
Without that smile, without you close to me
Would be- without doubt-one long spell of a time