Friday 30 September 2011

Asiyesikia La Mkuu Huvunjika Guu*





The task was to write a poem inspired by the colour red


Link


Kinsman, there you lie
Split into two
By ilat, the god of thunder
Not a drop of blood
Not a struggle for life

Whatever lies of you, kinsman,
Is bad sight for my eyes
Choking our breaths
Confusing our minds

As you lie there
Your akala shoes strewn
Your snuff bottle by your neck
Your lukup by your side
Your ng’achar a step away
Beside your lifeless body
I find it hard to be a man

But, Kinsman, you had been warned
Of stirring the wrath of ilat
Who defied the gods and lived?
Who poked the eyes of ilat and lived?

As I was told
You were seen in a red shuka by the mukuyu
Who wore red, Kinsman?
But there you were
By the riverside, in a red shuka
Like a child throwing sand on a beehive
Ilat rumbled but you defied
Had you pictured what would be of you
You would have thrown that shuka
Ran and made peace with the gods
Second time there was no rumble
All people heard was a subdued scream
And then this—
Flesh severed into two
Head to toe
Jutting eyes
Lifeless.

You had been warned, Kinsman.




Notes:

Asiyesikia La Mkuu Huvunjika Guu*- This is a Kiswahili saying or 'methali' which warns people to listen to their elders failure to which they will 'break their legs'.

Ilat- The god of thunder among the Pokots.

Shuka- Swahili for bedsheet, night wrap. The Pokots wrap them around their bodies as their clothing.

Akala- Traditional shoes made of Michelin tyres worn by the Pokot nomads.

Ng'achar- Traditional stools worn by the Pokots.

Lukup- Traditional walking sticks used by the Pokots.

Mukuyu- A type of tree.


Haiku: Echo-ruminations



The hills never bow down
Else, Pilgrim, how could
They echo a haiku?




For Haiku-Heights, Haiku Heights Challenge






Echo Bonus:


When I took up this challenge by a wonderful haiku community, I had not written a haiku. 

Well, that might not be accurate. 

I could have written it without having known that it was a haiku. As the Challenge ends today, I feel glad to have taken up the challenge. My haiku are still nascent but with time I will perfect them. 

I feel good when I parade my failures. That way, I will have some evidence of where I came from. 

For those who had found time to read the pieces, "asante sana".


Sincerely,


Haiku: Rhythm


Link



Riziki dances to chakacha
A burning chungu
On her head

She gyrates her hips
As a boneless dancer
Satiating patrons’ eyes




For a prompt, Haiku Heights Challenge




Haiku: Charm


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Warm, inviting rays
Touching Kacheliba Hills
Coyly, ever tenderly

Peep through door hinges
Cowbells, hyraxes shriek
Morning’s seduction



For a prompt, Haiku Heights Challenge



Haiku: Poise




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Poisoned arrows balanced
Betwixt bottles reeking of yokozuna
Lazy heads finding sleep on them




For a prompt, Haiku Heights Challenge


Monday 26 September 2011

Preamble to A Drafter’s Rejected Bill



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i can conjure situations
flip through endless possibilities
by the stroke of my pen
who be that sinister, evil psychopath
that i will devise?
what be the future 100 years
from now?

through the years
i spend my time
refining the skill
staring at empty shadows
deep into the nights
revising documents, reworking
sentences, 30 times, 50 times
painstakingly editing drafts

“you do it effortlessly”
“you are damn good”
so, we sit with policymakers
read through bills
“strike that”
“no, that’s not comprehensive”
what they propose
what they deem  important
is like confetti dipped in mud
but cheerfully, i ask them
how it will work
upon which they get a revelation
of their “ideas” and “policies”

but you cannot arm-twist me
into writing bad law
i am a prophet staring
into the future
with my pen poised
to the boundaries of
imagination
no surveyor delineates me!
i have tucked with me
the combined histories
of the world, their politics,
their fears, their hopes
their collective stature

yet, you who instruct me,
are you willing to respect my art?
are you ready to treat  me as a professional?
i will not lose my sleep, though,
mankind’s approbation or opprobrium
comes least
let me be, let my work be
its feet clamped into Now and Future
conjuring scenarios upon scenarios
if that be, that will be my crowning moment!


Premonition




Link


The cap of the hills bow
To the majesty of the winds;
Inside caves the drops of mercury
Trickle, tap tap tap
Treacherous slopes invite him
To the voices of men long dead
Echoes, false voices, real voices
He listens but discerns not
On the rocks are graffiti
Of displeased countenances
Scowl here, smirk there
But his eyes are blind

To his death, the false voices call him
Trotting long distances
Among the lush vegetation
He walks unaware
Of the tolling bell
Not even the dirges of the birds

He should have seen it coming
The premonition
As the beckoning stems of miraa
Invited, the whiff of death
Caught his nostrils
But he smelt of the fragrance
Of fresh leaves of khat
As the fumes rose to his bronchus
It was late
As he plunged, head-first
Onto the jagged edges of kadam rocks
Death is like a song
It can soothe but can sting









For a prompt of Carry on Tuesday





To use the words below in a poem
“He should have seen it coming” The opening words of Howard Jacobson’s novel ‘The Finkler Question’.


Fare Thee Well, Mama (Eulogizing Professor Wangari Maathai)



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“As I conclude I reflect on my childhood experience when I would visit a stream next to our home to fetch water for my mother. I would drink water straight from the stream. Playing among the arrowroot leaves I tried in vain to pick up the strands of frogs’ eggs, believing they were beads (emphasis mine). But every time I put my little fingers under them they would break. Later, I saw thousands of tadpoles: black, energetic and wriggling through the clear water against the background of the brown earth. This is the world I inherited from my parents. Today, over 50 years later, the stream has dried up, women walk long distances for water, which is not always clean, and children will never know what they have lost. The challenge is to restore the home of the tadpoles and give back to our children a world of beauty and wonder (emphasis mine).”

--Nobel lecture of the late Professor Wangari Maathai  (10 December 2004)




As I was walking to school today, I froze in my tracks when I heard from Maina Kageni, a commentator at Classic 105 FM, that Professor Wangari Maathai had passed on. This was hard news for me to swallow especially considering that I had honoured Wangari Maathai in this blog sometimes earlier this year. To be precise, on 5th March this year, I had written a poem to honour her and had even made an effort to send it to Greenbelt Movement Kenya for onward transmission to her. I remember feeling so good to have her read the poem. I knew she was busy as a "citizen of the earth" and that just her smile was enough though I would have saved her reply as some sort of an "autograph" had she replied to it. You could read it here.

All that Mama Wangari has done in her life is public information and I need not enumerate them here. But I had always dreamt of one day meeting her in person, shake her hand and tell her most sincerely “hongera mama” and encourage her to keep up the good fight.

I always hoped that I will sit with her and talk with her about what inspires her and draw from her cheer.

But last night, my role model, as I am told, succumbed to cancer in Nairobi Hospital. My sweet mama was no more.

This however doesn’t stop me from decorating her even in her death. For I know that mama will still watch over and smile on us, maintain her cheer. In fact, I will plant a tree and call it after her, water it and watch it grow. 

I refuse to believe that Mama is dead. She lives among us. She lives in my poems. She lives in the trees. She is the air I breath. Her soul is in Uhuru park. Her soul is roaming all over the world. My mama still lives on.


Meanwhile, the world continues to decorate her. CNN captured it thus:  World Mourns Passing of a 'true African heroine'



Link


Fare Thee Well, Mama
(Eulogizing Professor Wangari Maathai)

Mama, when the cowardly cells of malignance
Put you down, multiplying
Slowing down your spirit
Stilling your spin of action
How I wished they knew you

You had been in the struggle before,
Though in different circumstances
And even with greater selflessness
You would have been put down then

Why not?
They pulled your hair
They could have fooled with your air
Silence you, torture you even

So here I am, mama, writing this poem
On a chilly, sun-less Nairobi morning
Wishing to see you hug a tree
Or walk with Obama
Or planting trees
Or telling us to obey nature

Now that you are gone, mama,
You are here, your voice in the winds
Of Karura Forest
When I caress a treebark, I feel your imprint
When the birds chirp, that is you, mama

So, why should my eyes well?
I will go to the forest, feed a baboon
Wash my face in a waterfall
Then I will plant a tree for you mama
I will call her “mama” after you

I am only afraid that
There will be a 21-gun salute
To “honour” you
As if those gun powders are mulch!
Then some kind soul
Will read  a “treatise” eulogy
As if your life was spent on brickwalled forests!
Mama, I refuse to admit you are gone
Because I see you everywhere
Pity those cancerous cells
They don’t kill a “phoenix”.





Here's a youtube video titled 'I will be a hummingbird' about our sweet mama. Enjoy it.


Thursday 22 September 2011

Haiku: Phoenix


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Phoenix phantom dwells in me
In body and soul—
I can rise from ashes.



For a prompt, The Heights of Haiku Challenge



Haiku: Lost


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Briskly, I criss-crossed the city
Looking for Hazina Towers
Near Utalii Lane

My pride wouldn’t stoop
To ask the good guard
So I walked some more


For a prompt, The Heights of Haiku Challenge











Haiku: Water


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Behind the hills, water flows freely
Drank by tired pastoralists
And more by thirsty cows

In the city, they sell water
In packaged bottles
Gulped by travellers


For a prompt, The Heights of Haiku Challenge




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