So Little Done, So Much To Do

When I said that my twenty four hours

Aren’t enough nowadays and wouldn’t mind

A couple of hours added unto me

Some doubted my time management skills

They missed my point.

You see, there is so much in all this

I need to explore statutes, legal dicta

And legal authorities

I have to watch the telly to find out what is

Transpiring all over the world

I have to meet beautiful souls and hear their voices

I need to walk to the forest

And watch the Little bee eater, bustard

And hornbill in ther full glory

I want to hear the  warble of nightingales

I want to hear the chitter of raccoons

Or even the cock-a’doodle-doo of the rooster

I need more time to read all the poetry blogs

I need to read all the best books

I need to have time to change the world

I need time to follow my path

And when I am at my deathbed

Like Cecil Rhodes I will say

“So little done, so much to do”.

C) Lorot Salem 2011

From a prompt by Carry on Tuesday #107 


Task was to use the last words said by Cecil Rhodes, "So little done, so much to do".

Towards a Definition of A Song

They hear mechanized sounds

From broken guitar strings

And old, decrepit pianos

At better times, they mix discordant

Tired sounds from their sound softwares

And they call this music

What music?

I want to hear their voices

Whether they be guttural or saccharine

I want to see their mouths round

Belting a tune from within their depths

I want to hear their voices

Without the noise of machines

Sing me a song live

Don’t lip sync

I want the quietness of the moment

Then hear your voice rising up

Up, up

In one song that will remain

Long after you have sang

Then I want to hear the serenity again

This I call music

C) Lorot Salem 2011

 From prompt in Poetic Asides With Robert Lee Brewer # 133 on "Priorities"

Of Clouds: The False Rain Maker

Image supplied by Theme Thursday

My Son, Son of the Bull,

Clouds are our ancestors too

They tell us so many things

In wisdom, in careful measured words

If you see the clouds

Azure, as innocent as a calf

In a pen, don’t be deceived

In my time I have seen them quickly gather

And pour like shards of glass on my bald

And when I am drenched scatter

Away and let sun shine

Letting people wonder who,

In his madness, poured me bucketfuls of water

Then there are those dark clouds

Hanging atop Kacheliba Hill

Dark, furious, deathly

As if they will flood the hill itself

To add effect, the clouds rumble

And throw in a few flashes here

It sends everyone in panic

Soon, drying maize in the homestead

Is rushed to the hut

Wet clothes hurriedly picked from thorn trees

Children pinched to stay in the hut

And then, in wicked sense of humour,

The clouds clear away

Laughing all the way

But perhaps in guilt

They let a few drizzles here

Hardly to clear the dust

So son, Son of the Bull,

Of the knowledge of the clouds I cannot

Pretend to have

I once heard a Rain Maker in the village beyond

Who, with the experience, mistook cirrus clouds

For cumulo-nimbus clouds

Then who am I, a mere pair of half-shut eyes

To interpret the divine nature of the clouds?

C) Lorot Salem 2011

From a prompt Theme Thursday # Clouds

My He-mages

Image credit: google

Lodged in my cranium

Are a thousand sketches

Images,maps, drawings

Cluttered on the floor of my mind

Blown by the wind of time

Nonetheless there notwithstanding

In my mind are drawn

Longitudes and latitudes, pixels of photos

Circumferences, radii

Not exactly scientific

But not hazy enough

I can tell Pakistan from Bangladesh

I can detect the face of a serial killer

I can tell the face of a hard knock from

One about to commit suicide

I can tell a fake Picasso’s paint

I know the Breakfast of a Blind Man

For for four solid hours I looked at it

To see the blind man in my mind’s eye

To visualize what oil did to canvas

To produce a work of art

See, I can remember all this

Because unlike insipid raw data

These images are embossed on my mind

They are a part of me

With them, I replay clips

Daily

The horror I saw on a scared face

The tilted eyebrows

The twitching lips of a liar

Matter of fact, I don’t remember them

For I didn’t forget them anyway

C) Lorot Salem 2011

Shared with Jingle's Poetry Potluck #36 Sketches, Images, Impressions

Chocolate Sensation

Photo supplied by Poets United

Kinsman, when I came to the City of Lights

I chanced upon something:

Not the sour milk we ate with ugali

Not the offals we roasted during Sikukuu

Not the bone soup we drank

Kinsman, in the City of Lights

My tongue tasted something

A thing you taste and you think,

“Are these foods of my ancestors?”

I admit it I hadn’t seen such a thing before

It was food wrapped in a colourful wrapping

And as I tore it up, the brown gripped my eyes

It was like a dark species of boiled sweet potatoes

It hardly filled my hands

Then I held it like this

Slowly, slowly into my tongue

And as my canine bit it off

The sweet taste danced in my mouth

Sensually, erotically

Kinsman, I closed my eyes

To let me savour such sweetness

Despite their insistence, I bit off

The bar, one canine biteful after another

Soon, the bar was off

The wrapping was in my hands

Decorum aside, I wiped the last traces off

To feel the last moments of chocolate sensation.

C) Lorot Salem 2011

Notes:

Ugali- Kiswahili word for an African meal made out of maize or sorghum flour.

Sikukuu- Kiswahili word for ceremony.

From a prompt by Poets United Thursday Think Tank # 50 Chocolate

Lorot Son of the Hills' Apology

I am having a crazy schedule nowadays. My apologies for that. Something triggered me today to remember something I wrote sometimes back in my other blog, Lorot Son of the Hills. Now, here's my own version of a defence I put up for 'corrupting' the sons and daughters of the hills. I had been 'condemned' to die and  I had to put up one hell of a defence. I had read up Socrates' Apology and this that I have written mirrors my own imagined set of facts.

In my defence, I write:

My Lords, poets are a gift from God. They are the music of the world. They are the reason of the world. For poets dissect into the human soul to expose the malignant tumours which men don’t see and which ordinary eyes ignore. Poets are the paintbrushes that stroke the future in so vivid terms that they are close to us even when they are in the distant future. And you don’t see many poets. True poets speak to the society, they bear the message. And they are hated all around them. Many are killed. Many are hunted down and tortured and eventually die slowly.

At the end of my defence, I finish thus:

If I be condemned to die, I request a small favour from you. Let my children be never taught poetry. Let them be never told about the tales of the hills. Let them be denied all the links they had with their father. Let them not be corrupted by my teachings, let them not be the consumers of distorted truth and sentimentality. Let my grave not be marked. Let me die in oblivion. No tears should be shed. No regrets should be borne. Let my children steer clear from the corrupt nature of their father lest they be accused of ‘corrupting’ other youths. Let my poetry die and the tales of the hills be forgotten and shunned. Let it not be remembered. Let me be ridiculed and mocked by you my accusers and never should you, 10 years, 20 years, 50 years, 100 years from now ever change your minds about now for I am a bad person, a poison to the society. I stand accused and condemned before you men and I am ready to die. Grant my wish. See you in the Hereafter, sons and daughters of the hills. I am done. I am peaceful. Let justice be met.

You could read the whole defence here.

Your poet,
Lorot Son of the Hills

If God Was One Of Us

What if God was one of us

Sleeping under a tree shade, chewing on tobacco

Head balanced on a three-legged stool

What would we think of Him?

What if He came to borrow salt

At the doorsteps of our huts

And on second-thoughts

Also asked for a pepper

What would we say of Him?

If God sat with us

In Mwenge House

Watching English Premier League

Will he sit pensively or throw up his arms?

Will he do a Post-Match analysis?

What if he disguised Himself

As a thief

Would we do him a Mob Justice

And burn him with a tyre?

What if God was a noisy neighbor

Would we challenge him to a verbal match

Breathing fire?

Supposing God appeared on Local Telly

And said, “God here speaking,

I have checked in town,

Am fielding ten questions from you”

Naturally, one cynic would call

Saying, “Tell that to the birds

Your gimmicks won’t suffice”

Another would say,” Strange,

Question though, could you

Be running for presidency?”

Irked, another would retort,

“No way, our laws won’t permit that!”

An SMS would read, “God, do something

About your servants preaching seeds than repentance”

If God was one of us

Am afraid we would despise Him!

C) Lorot Salem 2011

From a prompt from Carry on Tuesday # 106

Task: To use a line or lines from Joan Osbourne's song 'One of Us'.

What if god was one of us
Just a slob like one of us
Just a stranger on the bus
Trying to make his way home

Use all or part of it within your poem or prose

I Have a Dream: Lorot's Version

I have always been inspired by Martin Luther King Jnr. Especially his “I Have a Dream Speech”. Whereas I apologize for dragging my ten-pence piece in a speech that has outlived him, my dear reader, please accept this amateurish attempt.


I, Lorot Son of the Hills, have a dream
I have a dream...I have a dream
I have a dream that one day
The long night of buried dreams
Would usher in a new dawn of revived dreams

I have a dream that one day
Intellectual fraud would end
And society would be made simpler
By Truth and love for humanity


I have a dream that one day
On the plains of Kacheliba, on the rocky terrains of
Kiwawa and Kasei and the treacherous gullies of Mtembur
On the lakeshores of Lake Victoria to the Tana Wetlands
To the dry patches of Marsabit and Wajir and El-wak
I have a dream that one day
Like the rain, all the people of Kenya
Would be drizzled by the cooling drops of National Cake

I have a dream that one day
When I go to Government offices
I would not be judged by the tatters of my cloth
But by the even fabric of my heart

I have a dream that one day
Leaders would be chosen
Not by the fatness of their bank accounts
Nor by the bellicose they spew forth
Nor by the imaginary enemies they fight
But by their Idea-o-meter
And the pulse of their dreams

I have a dream

I have a dream that one day
Gaza Strip, West Bank, Lebanon
Would be mentioned for right reasons
Like the buzz site of bees
Or some cultural heritage sites
Or some serious exporters of peace

I have a dream
That one day I won’t see smoke
Clogging my nostrils
That I can smell again of nectar

And of earth
I have a dream that these words
Would have a life of their own
Ringing true from the unwashed face
Of a sleepless woman in Alale
To the creased face of a teen

In New York
To the turbaned head of an Afghan boy
To the weary brows of an oil rig worker
To the uncertain eyes of a child in Africa
To the abandoned brides on aisles
To the sunken ships, to the mangled buses,
To the crashed planes, to failed rockets
To the unknown soul
Speaking of his misery
Giving him hope
Re-telling his life

I have a dream
I have a dream that this dream
Would be part of the bigger dream
Of each one of us
In this wonderful world


C) Lorot Salem 2011

Poet(ess) Convention

Adopted and opened for signature, ratification and accession

Entry into force 1 April 2012

Preamble

The Poets Parties to the present Convention,

TAKING DUE ACCOUNT of the unparalleled efforts of Poets and Poetesses throughout history in their artistic creations to mankind;

CONSIDERING that the gallant efforts of the Poets and Poetesses have either been recognized less or not recognized at all in nearly all spheres of life;

RECOGNIZING  that the province of poetry has always been either met with lack of understanding, sheer cynicism or other human obstacles placed on the path of poetry;

APPRECIATING that a poet or a poetess just like any writer sometimes undergoes a period of mind block occasioned by many and varied factors thereby necessitating for  preventive  measures such as prompt sites, picture inspirations, memes and such other tools;

TAKING COGNISANCE of the custodial role that poets and poetesses hold for mankind’s progress and the causes to be pursued to address the ills and find solutions;

Have agreed as follows,

Article 1

For the purposes of this Convention, a “poet” or a “poetess” means a person capable of forming words into a poem in its different forms and styles. This definition extends to those who also imagine themselves to be one even though the only poem they have written dates back to their formative years; a “prompt site” means a website dedicated to issue prompt to poets and poetesses to keep them writing; it also includes all other materials capable of triggering the imagination of a poet or a poetess; a “poe-bloggers” means those poets or poetesses who post their poems on a blog or a website.

Article 2

It is permissible under this Convention to exercise creativity in weird times and places. Whereas the Convention does not guarantee compensation for the adverse effects of such, poets and poetesses can wake up at 1 a.m or write poems while bungeeing or in hot air balloons. This is taking into consideration that the art of poetry comes at unsual times and places.

Article 3

This Convention actually permits plagiariasm! As long as a poem is not desecrated, altered, changed into any other form without giving credit to the author.

Article 4

For the sake of humanity and mutual affection, it is hereby prohibited for a poet or a poetess to willingly and recklessly use such arcane and obtuse language to conceal their meanings and to leave English Poetry Professors guessing the intention of such a poet or a poetess. In addition, those writing poems that are so understandable as to bring the honourable art of poetry into disrepute would be barred from continuing writing.

Article 5

Considering the great role that Mr. Linky widgets play in Prompt Sites, Poets Parties to this Convention would be committing a punishable offence if they linked their poems more than five times in the same Linky Widget. This will be taken with the seriousness it deserves so as to end the intimidation to easy-going poets and poetesses.

Article 6

The present Convention shall enter into force on the next National Poetry Month.

Article 7

The original of the present Convention, of which the Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish texts are equally authentic, shall be deposited with Lorot’s Poetry blog. In witness thereof the undersigned plenipotentiaries, being duly authorized thereto by their respective minds, have signed the present Convention.

{You could plagiarize! As long as it is within Article 3.}

Month of May

Month of May gets me so uneasy

You see, as a child you are woken up

Even before Jesus

To go till the farm

Weed finger-sized maize

Loam soil gets stuck on hoe

You keep removing it

Millet porridge for some reason

Is not there by 11 a.m

As you dig, dad keeps saying

“You see that thorn tree T-H-E-R-E?”

“we must weed till there”

Thorn tree is VERY far

 (trust my judgment )

You dig, you dig, you dig

Then sometimes in Mid May

Rain plays silly games

And all weeding becomes sun fodder!

Come next May

The same weeding

Dad says, “This is our year

Let us cultivate more”

You weed, weed, weed

Rain plays silly games—again

Dad says, “This was very close

Next year we try to plant early”

Well, dad gets right sometimes

Rain doesn’t disappoint

But you stay at the farm

Screaming and banging metals

All day to chase birds

Then one Sunday,

ON THAT DAY,

Monkeys

Get ideas and invade the farm

We get  one sack

Dad says, “ Very very close this year

We need to do something with the

Monkeys”

So we invade the small Shabaha hill

With Kenya Wildlife Service wardens

And scare the hell out of those monkeys

Come next May

We weed, we weed, we weed

We harvest well

Dad says, “ See son, we got it right

This year”

But when dad takes it to sell

The Government says, “Look, there’s a surplus,

A market glut”

Surplus in Turkana as they eat wild berries

Dad is annoyed, frustrated

I remember the weeding

Dad asks them, “ How kind of you, you remind me

Of those monkeys”

Well-intentioned, no doubt, sarcasm

If you may say,

But Government says he insults them

So they grab dad, throw him in jail

For abusing them

Dad gets out

Come next may

Dad is still farming

He says, “That was very very close

If not for the surplus”

That is if the rain, birds

And monkeys don’t play silly games—

Again.

C) Lorot Salem 2011

I Sing For You “Yoo”

(I dedicate this poem to my lovely mum, Mrs. Paulina Maya Choram, and all mothers on Mother’s Day 08/05/2011)

Yoo, away from the village

Everyone is calling this day

“Mother’s Day”

I have seen it everywhere—

On TVs, in papers, on Facebook

Which will surprise you

And everyone here, Yoo,

Is decorating her mother

With a status update

Or making that occasional call

Or buying a rose

Or getting a gift

Yoo, as for me

I will serenade you with a song

To sing of your gentleness

To sing of your smile

To sing of your hope

What gift so lasting

Can outlast words written?

Yoo, what gesture so vivid

Can surpass my imagination and love?

Yoo, how do I celebrate you

Along other mothers if not by a song?

Yoo, the mention of your name

Is as sweet as bone marrow

Your love is as steady as the stones of

A fireplace

And your smile, yoo,

Is as warm as a cow’s stomach

“Riziki haivutwi na kamba”, you told me

“Mama ni mama hata awe kiwete”, you reminded me

“Usiibe wala usinyang’anye”, you warned me

“Enda usome usichekecheke na watoto wa watu”, you advised me

If only this world was contented like you

If only people talked much less like you

If only they lived at Shabaha

To learn humility and simple things of life

If only we had more mothers like you

Not so much because you are a saint

But because you live with hope

And your mistakes make you human

Yet you still inspire, minting virtues

You don’t parade these before mortals

You don’t brag, you don’t complain

Three things I ask of

Tororot, God of the Rising Sun:

One, that He keeps you long

That you may eat in the shade

Two, that He keeps me

That I water that tree

Three, that that tree

Feeds many others

Notes:

Yoo- Pokot name for a mother.

Riziki haivutwi na kamba- A Kiswahili saying meaning that you should not depend on the fortune of others and that you should work to earn your living.

Mama ni mama hata awe kiwete- Kiswahili for ‘ your mother is your mother even if she is lame, or rather in politically correct term, physically challenged.

Usiibe wala usinyang’anye- Kiswahili for ‘neither steal nor forcibly take’.

Enda usome usichekecheke na watoto wa watu- Kiswahili for ‘go and read, don’t laugh with people’s children’.

C) Lorot Salem 2011

Toe-nometrics

Students, welcome to our toe-nometrics class

In last class we said that there are

Two types of toes:

Bully ones and bullied ones

If you can remember

We said that bullies

Break from the mould

They seek attention

And the bullied

Are conformist

Not even smelly socks

Ruffle them

Today, we move a step

Further—

Q= Toe A (βo) + Toe B (β1) + €

( You! You at the back, stop frowning

That is just a formula!)

Get your variables

Calculate for me

Then draw a toe-nometric graph

Before the next class tomorrow

Any question?

C) Lorot Salem 2011

For a prompt by Poets United Thursday Think Tank # 47 Toes

Nairobi People, Where Are You Running To?

Image credit: google: corner.youth.cn

You Nairobi people amaze me

You are always running!

In the morning, even before cows

Get out of cowsheds, you hit the streets

A frantic pace, a small run here, a dash there

Tell me Nairobi people, where are you running to?

And when I see you eat

You keep looking at your watches

Chewing more than you can swallow

Holding a newspaper here, checking the phone there

Watching 1 O’clock news and gossiping over the counter

Done, you clutch your briefcases and dash

Please answer me, where are you running to?

Nairobi people, your city stands tall

Fixed to the same spot, aloof, lethargic

Yet you who occupy it disturb her serenity

And meditative pose with the stampede

Of your feet and your hurry

Your vehicles drive deadly speeds

Your tongues speak fast,

Tell me Nairobi people, why the hurry?

How will good ideas perch on your heads

If they are not stationary, if they gallop and trot?

Stop the chase, wake up and see the sunrise

Feel your heart beat, sit under a shade

Feel that moment, close your eyes

Be still, let urgency scuttle past you

Sit back, be renewed

Time to slow things, feel the rhythm

Watch the sunset, hear the cowbells

Feel the warmth of the fireplace,

Never run, just walk, observe

If only you Nairobi people did this

You would have seen the beauty

Of a bird’s dropping on a statue

Or the skilled beggars on abandoned alleys

Playing songs from bad radio speakers

Or old couple adeptly crossing busy highway

Or moving lips of people in their monologues

Or Bus Preachers with raptured voiceboxes

Preaching the message of Eternal Hellfire

And you ask, well, please don’t shout…

If you were patient, Nairobi people,

You would have seen the hawker

Selling cockroach insecticides

Yet  immediately sell umbrellas

At the fall of the first rain drop!

Or notice the irony of a church

Adjacent to a bar business

Or measure the country’s economic growth

Using a smile-o-meter pa-smile- capita

Not those arcane Economics functions!

If you weren’t in a hurry

You would see that occasional academic

Standing beside the road, trying to order his theories

Grappling with Einsten’s Theory of Relativity

The Schroedinger equation and such stuff

You would see him scratch his head and ruffle his coat

His eyes fixed on some pothole or space

But you wouldn’t notice such things,

Nairobi people, you are always running

And am afraid you left life’s lessons behind!

C) Lorot Salem 2011


Shared in Thursday Poets Rally 43 ( May 05-May 11, 2011)