Ask My Shoes

Ask my shoes, they’ll tell you the secret

Of why I am not talking to you anymore

Like why my feet are reluctant to walk

And find paths the lead to you

Ask my shoes, and you’ll hear them protest

They sit by the corner, feeling lonely, and black

Desolate and unwanted, because you saw me with them

Because they were not like other men's shoes  

Because shoes maketh a man, they didn’t mold me

They came short of creating an ideal man

A man deserving your undying affection

I might as well been barefoot

Ask my shoes where I have been

All the ladies I have been to

And they will tell you without saying a word

That I am lonely and desolate as they are

Mkubwa's Consignment

The consignment belonged to a ‘big man’

They said ‘mkubwa’ as though he is omnipresent

They called him with reverence only reserved for gods

And when the consignment was found to be contaminated –

Not just contaminated but was full of carcinogens

We protested vehemently, braced teargas and water canons

Because ‘mkubwa’ is our man – and saying anything bad about him

Makes us sufficiently threatened

When the big man was arrested the other day

We felt our idling days lacking flavour, and we hit the streets

How can they not see that is perfectly normal to steal money –

Neither your mothers – but belonging to sick mothers and children

How obtuse can the law be? Or the law enforcers

Who cares when mothers die delivering babies

Who gives a damn even when it takes several days to

The nearest hospital

They arrested us too, them morons

We went to keep ‘mkubwa’ company

They kept him in a self-contained cell

While we communed with our shit, and the stench from

'unbathed' bodies,

We ululated when we saw guards taking chicken to his cell

We ululated even more when we saw ladies –

Our wives, sisters and friends – line up to ‘know’ mkubwa

He is ours, we muttered while eating half-cooked meals

While he ate the best, including our hopes – yet we didn’t care

From Lie To Lie

The horse that you ride is called lie

Galloping from lie to lie

Trampling the tenets of trust

And, over time, you appear

Same as the aesthetic appeal of rust

lie to lie your mouth spews

even the sacred vows would be a lie

only backed by the congregation

who think nothing more than the food

they are going to eat or just ate

and the man of god is up to no good.

What remains of you is a skeleton

No one can put life into you

Because all you do is lie

Your all life is a valley of dry bones

Prophet Ezekiel cannot speak life to it

God won’t even speak redemption on you

The Dancer

O, look at that agile dancer

Her graceful moves strips,

Even the hallowed of men,

The ever pricey decorum

Look at that purple dress,

How it fits her so snugly,

As though it was part of her skin,

Holy men’s stray at her sight

Look at how she holds her glass,

As though it were filled with holy water,

Yes, it sure is, for Jesus made it,

Instead of milk

Hear the music booming,

As though revelers are partially deaf,

Some attempt dance moves,

Yet manage to look like frail leaves

Stuttering in a fierce wind

It’s time to head home,

Many to angry wives left in the cold,

Some to cold homes that embrace

The voids they’ve been seeking to bury

The Lifetime Partner

I watched the essence of life,

The very ingredients that make life worthy,

Emerge from the shine in your sleeves

The rich laugh that you wear on your sleeves

Made me fall in love with the idea of a life,

A life marked by your graceful presence

I fell in love the with the idea of listening,

The echo of your heartbeat in mine,

As well as your nourishing breathe

I fell in love with the idea of seeing you grow old

And yet still find you as beautiful as the first day

I laid my eyes on you

Forgive the indelible transgression on my person

For some of them make me who I am

Don’t fall for the idea of an ideal me

I am a thoroughly imperfect man

The Drunk Lady

She hadn’t realized how drunk she was until she stepped out of the door. For a woman of her class, she appeared, jutting out distinctively in a dull masculine den, dressed in relatively expensive boots – or they weren’t, who cares about the price of women’s boots – a tight fitting blue trouser and a cheap sliver-colored jacket. She also had a baseball cap, perhaps signaling her lack of patience in a salon, listening to women drone on and on about their marriage woes. She is too free and free spirited at that for idle talk spun by women under the cage of a masculine authority disguised as love.

You watch her walk out and stop by the door, her weak legs slowly giving in like faulty springs unable to sustain the weight above it. You watch her summon the last of her energy towards the wall and leans against it with all her might. With soaring empathy, you want to help her get home safely. She is mumbling under her breath and your vain attempts at lip reading – that’s why footballers cover their mouths when talking to one another – tells you that she saying; ‘shit. I am too drunk. Shit. Shit. I didn’t think I’d get to this level.’

Before you make your mind to help her, her guardian angel appears by the door and walks her out of the dinghy bar.  You can tell how much relieved she is for bringing a long a companion who’d become her feet when the toll of inebriation would disable her locomotive ability.

It is as if you know her. But your knowledge of her does not extend beyond hearsay. But then again, just like a church, nobody really knows anybody. He or she goes attends to church regularly, but you don’t know the demons they hide in their closets. You probably know who they are married to, and their children, and nothing beyond that. And for her, they said she is a soldier’s wife. And that she’s a Cleopatra in that den condemned by Christians for eternal condemnation. They said the soldier is in Somalia, probably a service man deep inside the heart of the devil.

You remember thinking that if it was true, that indeed her husband was indeed a soldier posted in Somalia, the he got a raw bargain. He’s dodging bullets to earn a living and support a wife who checks into a bar as early as eight in the morning. Every damn day, you will find her, ‘removing’ lock. On the rare days you checked in during such earl hours, you found her. As a man unable to project the same kind of moral standards on yourself, such a woman does not the definition of a true woman.

The Sacred Toad

I had – I still do – certain reverence for toads that bordered on superstition or plain fear for certain actions that appeared like rituals. You see, every time a toad wandered into the kitchen, mother would sprinkle a little flour on it and leave it where it was, not even trying as much as ‘chase’ it away. It had a name – Tala Kogo. This act that appeared quite random scared the shit out of me, so much that as a kid who loved killing small animals for fun, Tala Kogo was completely left to live.

It wasn’t until a few days ago that I accidentally killed one of these ‘sacred’ amphibians. It was not my fault for I was out and about cutting napier grass for the cows when I slashed the creature with a razor sharp panga. All its intestines spilled out which led me, from years of experience, that it was beyond being rescued. I left it there, wondering whether it had relatives that loved it who would then say nice words such as ‘she was hardworking and loving…it is a pity that we lost her to the cruelty of humans…’ and then inter her.

As I continued cutting the grass, which I think is an equivalent of chapatti to cows, I encountered small accidents. A bruise here and there, which bled as though I had ruptured a vein. I thought the creature must have actually been a little sacred, what with the sprinkling of flour.

Speaking of sacred, I nearly chopped off my left hand’s middle finger. Not the entire finger but the nail itself. It was a Sunday. We were cutting boma rods – I with a borrowed sickle. A cousin of mine was playing gospel music on his techno phone to make up for the fact that he was supposed to be in church being concerned with his spiritual needs and not cutting grass. A while back – it’s decades actually – we decided that it was totally uncool for us to go to church. 

Although we do not go to church, Sundays are exclusively set aside for relaxation. It is a day where each one of retreats to their sanctuaries, ask this or that from their personal gods. As we cut the grass, the music emanating from the cousin’s phone kind of became a detractor to the stream of thoughts my mind churned. As I wondered why the guy played the music, I lost concentration and the sickle cleanly chopped off my entire nail, leaving a tiny bit near the base. There’s nothing as painful as chopping off your nail with anything serrated. Of course it is second to knock on the testicles, but I reserve pain rating to another time. I rushed home holding my finger to prevent leaving a trail of blood on the way.

I washed it with salt solution but it still bled. I tried everything, including brake fluid to no avail. I tore a piece of cloth from a worn out t-shirt and wrapped it. It stopped bleeding, leading me to think that I had at last arrested the bleeding. That night, a slept while flipping a middle finger at mosquitoes and other nocturnal creatures that bayed for my blood.

The following day, I woke up as usual, except with the knowledge that I was excluded from any activity that involved the use of both hands. If eating was such an activity, I definitely would have starved for I can’t fathom being fed like a baby. As I took tea, accompanied by a distinct whistling sound, my body grew warmer and the bloody finger began bleeding again. I had lost a lot of blood the previous day to a point that I actually got scared. I remember feeling a little dizzy following the loss.

It was then that I was forced to make a drastic decision – go to the hospital. I couldn’t stand losing any more blood. And I left immediately after breakfast, glad that the finger absolved me the strenuous exercise of deciding whether to take a shower or not. In less than an hour, I was the Flax Dispensary, waiting for my turn to be treated. There were many sick people, including children who were being taken for immunization against the various diseases I care not remember. Some wailed ceaselessly, while mothers wore worried looks on their faces. Some adults were sprawled on the grass, as though their only available option was death.

I neglected the part where I bought a card. It costs twenty shillings and I wonder if that is legal. I have been to one dispensary in Nairobi where the card is given to you free of charge. Patients buy it unquestioningly. It is part of the treatment process, and they have accepted it that way.

When my name was called, a nurse attended to me. She asked me what caused the wound and I told her it was a ‘ringa.’ I don’t know if she understood it or she just felt that it was wise to ignore it. She took out the container containing iodine whereupon she realized that it was empty. She then shouted to another doctor, talking about whether the supplies have been ordered. The doctor – I don’t know why a male attendant is referred to as a doctor – assured her that they were on their way. She leaves the room in search for a medicine which would enable her to administer a tetanus jab on my person. I use her absence to scan the room for any evidence of serial killers. Haha. Actually, I just looked around the room to see the medical marvels that either occur in the room or information that might be of particular interest to me. What captures my attention is a hand drawn bar graph showing the number of people under anti-retroviral drugs. Finally glad to put into good use the numerous bar graphs I drew back in school, I read the number of people under the drug. The highest bar read thirty on a certain month. I remember thinking that the number was too high then the nurse came in.

She asked me to remove my shirt for her to administer the jab. She was cute, alright, but in a motherly way. I obliged. You see, I work out from time to time, and so my biceps are little hard. She asks me to relax my muscles but I couldn’t. I do not fear injections. I only fear certain species of reptiles such as snakes and slayqueens. Otherwise, injections do not faze me.

I forget. She had already dressed the wound. After the tetanus jab, I left for home. I did not even want to linger around the shopping centre for while – or until darkness set in. The throbbing pain would not allow me.