journey through

A thought to the withering maize plant Look up you dying maize plant. Close not your eyes to me. Are you the plant i dug into the soil about a month ago? Are you the plump yellow seed i put to bed in the softest of the garden soil? Are you the seedling i watered and weeded when you head pocked out into the day for the first time? Look up to me, stop bowing your head in shame. Look at my face, look at the tears streaming out of my eyes. Are you sulking away just because the sun is too hot? What happened to your faith? What happened to you who grew up with such vigour that the rest of the plants envied you? I am ashamed. I pity the fact that you give up this soon, I despise you for choosing death when you can hope for tomorrow. Can’t you just wait a single day? Can’t you get on your knees and pray the skies yield tomorrow? What will happen when the first raindrops pound the earth? Will you be there to feel the relief and the joy? Look at the weeds by your side, look at them and be

Let me run for the hills I can’t deny the fact that we are all falling for each other’s charms. I can see the shy smile when you meet my gaze and my quivering knees when you shake my hand. You have a hold in my heart stronger than I have ever felt before and yes, I think I am falling in love. How else can I explain the frequent daydreams and the erratic beat of the heart? How else can I explain the bells that toll in my head when your image swims into focus? How else can i explain the poetry that floods my heart when i think of your beautiful smile?   I fear though my fair lady, i fear. My fear is unlike that of a sheep and a lion, or that of a servant and a cruel master, it is that which rises from the loins, gnaws at the heart and spreads all over the body when reality sinks in. I fear tomorrow, i fear tomorrow with you and all it will bring. My prayer, let me run, let me run for the hills. My fingers may as of now be bleeding poetry and my tongue, fried in the oil of sweet-

My father wrote to me Yester night I received a letter from miles away. The postage stamp on it was one of a man in a leopard-skin skirt and a spear in his hands and war-paint on his face. My father he wrote to me. He was telling me to be a man. In his letter he told me of his life story, one that he had done hundreds of times before but it sounded all new again. My father told me to run away from the allures of the strong fumes of gin and not to yield my tongue to the strong taste of brandy. He told me to leave smoke to the trains and vehicles with faulty engines. My father told me to keep off the fleshy thighs of prostitutes in the streets, to close my ears out when they breath their seductive, lust-sodden words into them. My father told me to never shed tears when the one I love leaves my nest, but to rise, pick up the pieces and walk without looking back. My father wrote to me. He told me not to spend all my money inside the dimly-lit nightclubs in the hidden corners of

What next, Kenya? My country, tell me, where shall i hide my face? In Tanzania? No, some high-profile man already sneaked in and polluted the environment. In Uganda? No thanks. There an old dog still sits at the gate watching and waiting. Shall i go to some offshore island and fit in with the people? Uhm, the thieves stashed their Eurobond loots somewhere there. When i look to my left, i see a half-tarmarcked road, money ran out. On my right, a farmer is sifting grains between his fingers, his face a mask of sorrow. The cereals board already have enough yet ten lorries belonging to the area MP pass by on the way there thrice a week. The woman in the market laments day and night about the sky-rocketing price of onions, of the poor education quality in school despite the exorbitant fees. In my country everybody is being brought up and taught to be a good thief, to steal without leaving traces, to rob, kill and maim as long as you can grease the wheels of (mis)justice. What next, Ken

  I AM NOT MAN ENOUGH FOR YOU? Do you remember the day we met? The shy smile as you looked down on the ground and me, beaming with pride that i was finally winning the heart i had run after all my life. Remember us, two village fools deeply in love with each other? Remember the many times we ran away mid-tasks to have some private time and on coming back you lied to your parents about the long line at the posho-mill? What happened to all that love? I was happy for you when you passed your exams. My queen was clever and beautiful, who would ask for more? The day I bade you goodbye at the bus-station, you were going to the university. You remember me holding your hand, refusing to let go and your eyes, they were wet with tears. I missed you much, it was only four months, you said, then i’d see you again. You were right, i saw you again. But was it you i saw? I saw a woman with clothes tighter than her skin and your lips? Had you joined a cult that made you drink animal blood? The