And,
for the love of things,
frowned upon things,
things of the world,
a man smiles at oblivion
And,
for the price of dreaming is too high,
and the lazy bones creak under its weight,
dreams demand more than one can give
the slow ebb of time passes by.
before you bring me a cup of poison
look at the disjointed bones
disjointed dreams,
and worry not about why I am who I am
the essence of life wanes
as the clock ticks -
a silent diabolic tick.
A signal to an impending doom
Where are the crevices,
nooks and crannies
to hide a weary soul
from the vagaries of living
The toils.
The frustrations.
The debauchery.
and bars set set too high
let me sit on the sina taabu
and ruminate, one more time,
for the thousandth time,
of this bleak existence
I have grown accustomed to these pains,
these exquisite pains,
pains that glitter inside my bones
For in feeling them
I am filled with dread,
the ever-numbing dread that
I am still alive
the sun unwraps darkness
revealing a gift to mankind
a gift of endless toils
for it is the price we pay
if only to stay alive
the gift of light is fine
a fine for our desire for exquisite
or unrefined living
or for survival - it does not matter
And when you smiled
bathing the night sky with an alluring gleam
I knew there was much more to it
than mere infatuation
There was more to those pearly white teeth
revealed to me under the night sky
You asked me to hug you
God, you asked me to hug you
Like I did not know what a man was supposed to
Because I did not know what to feel then
I wasn't sure how to act
But then we lived through the awkwardness
The awkwardness thawed
and warmth slipped into our hearts
melting every fibre of resistance
With a face of grim concentration, as though you are being watched by an enthralled audience, you deliver a prophecy: ‘ii ni ile wiki gas itaisha.’ You see, the conditions are perfect – you are broke and have no prospects of seeing any money in the foreseeable future. the trouble with the prophecy is that you do not know the exact date or time the gas will sneak a surprise on you. But you have a rough idea: it will happen when you are jovial, when you are halfway cooking ugali, and at approximately seventeen minutes before midnight.
It just happens that when you have no money bad stuff and
surprises sneak up on you. It is in the constitution under article (7) (f).
There is nothing much you can do about it except chin up and get used to it. There
just isn’t any school, or app that shows you the percentage of gas left in your
cylinder. And you, right there, have the audacity to think that we are
civilized? Well, if you think so, why don’t you cook with it?
At that point you have no energy to resist the thought that
some people’s lives are far much better than yours. People who use firewood to
cook. First of all, there is a way food cooked with firewood tastes so much
better. It is as though there is a hidden cooking intellect hidden in the
sooth-producing source of fuel. Second, you’d know in advance when you are
about to run out of firewood, and plan your cooking. There is no way, in a
hundred years (unless it rains), you would wake up in the middle of the night
to make a meal.
The last time you checked out, there was a student who had
invented an app that would tell the amount of gas left in your cylinder. It
involved a laptop, and some application that eludes even your wildest
imaginations. It would save you a lot, that app. But you’d have to make that
university student rich first. Which might be something you are reluctant
because you cannot figure out how such a man’s brains works while yours only
comes up with the most mundane stuff like: ‘let me have a drink. I may have
ideas.’ Then you have ideas, and it all revolves around having another drink.
That goes on until your wallet begins making hearty jokes when you tell it
about other better ideas. Usually it is the following day when you wake up with
only 50 shillings and an unopened packet of condom.
the head feels a little light
a testament of bleak and blurry thoughts
running havoc, yet running things
and the strides, leading astray
adopted its purposeless
each metre gobbling up remaining active brain cells
and there was no guilt whatsoever
because it was a day everything changed forever
and strange gathered around,
as though the camp fire the listen to a sage
of a man well traveled,
well travelled not beyond the walls of his bedroom
consuming thoughts of greatness
of vanities
of the consuming aura of penury
but not today
because today everything changes forever
the beguiling sense of much sought affection
usurped senses, dreams suddenly stalled
for she stood and said; lets go
and the men scampered
and a chapter began
a chapter that's still being written
