This Lady I Loved

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Matters of love always confuse me

Why is it that when you love someone

So much so that the mention of their names

Causes you goosepimples

Yet they wouldn't care a jot?

And why is it that the one that loves you

Always calling, always being kind, always loving you

This one you ignore her calls and never care for a minute?

Why is this so?

This is my love story:

Once upon a time

On the slopy grassy fields of my heart

I had love...I loved this fair lady

So I sat down one night

With a dictionary, a writing pad

and love buzzing in my head

I wrote my first draft letter

Cancelled it, wrote another, cancelled it

Finally, I wrote her the final copy

With the best handwriting that my English teacher

Would have praised

Then I sprayed it with a little perfume

So that when she opens it

She would be hypnotized by my fragrance

Many weeks later, I got her reply

Nay, my own letter

With a red pen, she had corrected

my spelling errors, grammar, subject-verb, coherence, whatnot

Below it, she had written:

'6/20 Fair. Proof-read your work!'

As I sat in the dormitory

My cube-mates laughed irritatingly

Some leaning on the wall, others holding their sides

I wondered what was so funny!

But undaunted, I gathered my broken self

And carefully planned and executed my plan

So I joined the Scouts, the Y.C.S, the Drama Club

the Child-to-Child Club, the History Club, the Language Club

All to impress her

But she never noticed the passing shadow of my left ear!

Her friend actually confided in me

That she said that 'I am all over the place-

As if I wanted to be the Board of Governors Chairman'

So I changed my tact

And turned to my books

I read to impress her

To show her that the brightness gene

Was passed down our family line

And that I was the next best brain

The world was to worry about

Oh, how I Immersed myself in books

I made calculus sound like market chatter

I read ahead of the teacher and asked questions

Just to prove my worth to her

I carried around those big voluminous Physics books

And made sure she saw me

yet if she asked me why electricity wire lines slacken

I would collapse ( Well, she would have taken my brightness away)

All these I did- but she hardly noticed me!

Then a friend suggested poetry

I also tried it

I had to read Mills and Boons

Romance novels, David's Rubadiri

Songs of Songs, the Horn of My Love

To capture well the emotions of my heart

To tell her that if what I was going through

Was part of her 'Love Test'

Then my commendation was long overdue

In that poetry, I combined assonance, alliteration

imagery, repetition, onomatopoeia, love-manio-poeia

And so many other poeais-

All to good effect of

Telling her that I meant what I said

I went to the trouble of asking my English teacher

to 'look at it'

Before I send it 'for publication in the papers'

After this, I surreptitiously slipped the poem

Between her biology book covers

She read it later that night, came back next morning

Hollered at me: 'Salem, poetry is not my thing!

Plus, I-DON'T-LOVE-YOU!'

'But....'

'Shhhhssssh'

Then she slapped my poem on the desk and said,

'Here! Leave me alone'

I wanted to tell her it took me one week to write

that poem but I had been shhhed.

But I did not leave her alone

It was as if for every drama she unleashed

I loved her even more

All I wanted was for her to listen to me

To tell her that she was 'killing me softly'

All I wanted was to play badminton with her

Play so well, dazzle her with the shuttle cock and the racquet

All I wanted was to do anything for her:

Write for her her notes, answer for her questions in class if need be,

Assist her with maths problems even if I was a dummy, hear her fears

and hopes, motivate her, encourage her, do anything to marry her!

All I ever wanted was one micro-second of her attention, one twitching smile,

One laugh, just one coy, shy look

All these she eluded from me

I would sit in the study room

And hear her whisper:

'Salem, all along I always loved you...

I still do, always will'

My other part would say:

'C'mon, Salem, who are you kidding

Never worked, never will...no hating,

Just a brotherly truth...don't shame the

Brother-dom'

I would discredit this voice and feel pain

Stab at my heart

An image of the slapped poem on the desk

Would blind me

I would see her sashaying away, away from me

And there I would stand

Pleading with her, beseeching her, begging her

Calling upon her to give me an 1/8th of a chance

Just one conversation, just one fleeting moment

To shed her a tear

But she will be gone

And I will sit in the study room

Reading, re-reading, de-reading

One line or a paragraph

For the next two hours

And never understand a comma.

C) Lorot Salem 2011

Remember This, My Daughter

For a Prompt from Poet's United Thursday Think Tank #42 Love

                                                  [image from google: atbrownies.blogspot.com]

My daughter, do you want me to tell you

How I met your father? How it all begun?

Blow off that smoke first, this hut is stuffy

Not doing good to my already teary eyes

( Daughter complies. I told you romance taglines

Have a way with the heart, huh?)

T’was one Sunday afternoon in the marketplace

My daughter,

When your father saw me

I was dressed in my lorwaa, swaying this way that way

In free Kacheliba wind, trapping breaths of men in my aura

My legs oiled with ghee, my hair burnt with hot broken pot

My neck straight like an arrow, my eyes dimmed with “innocence”

I had heard about your father

He had tore a live leopard into two

And still had the nerve to skin it

Word had it that he was once stepped on by an elephant

And in his manliness, he only winced

Such acts of bravery, my daughter,

Drew me to your father

But for the heck of it, I played the hunted antelope!

But wait till your father stood before me

His tear-a-leopard-bravado all gone

His wince-instead-of-crying all faded

Him standing there, just a man

As if he is before a shrine fiddling with two competing wishes!

Now see him, your father,

Standing before me, breath stuck high up his bronchus

And me, sizing him up, feigning impatience

See me tilt my eyebrows and ask ‘what brings you here?’

See your father fumble with so simple a question

Talking about the latest floods of River Suam

How the sun is burning so, blah blah blah…

Now see me growing impatient

Snapping, simulating anger

Tilt your microscope to my heart

The laugh I give for your father

The love I secretly habour for him

My daughter, but of feigning I didn’t for long

Try as I did ( I told you he tore a leopard?

Not accurate: he tore into my heart too, although in a softer way)

We secretly met in posho mills, on river paths, in the sorghum fields

How blood rushed to my head, how those hands felt warm

How tranquil we felt just the two of us lying on sand at night

How deaf we were to the laugh of hyenas and cowbells of lost bulls

Your father could joke to me that the witch I had gone to

Did a perfect job

And I could joke to him about the “sun is burning so”, blah bah blah

( At this point, he could tug at my necklace and “choke” me)

My daughter, I only loved your father

I swore by the graveside of my grandfather to love him alone

And these breasts you suckled bear me witness

If there is love other than that, my good daughter,

I don’t know

And when your father came for aloto

They gave forty cows, forty goats, four beehives of honey

And four containers of kumiket

Because I was the jewel that I was worth

How beautiful I felt, my daughter

Milking the cow in my homestead

Stealing glances at my man taking sour milk

How beautiful, carrying the seed of my man

In my womb, eating anthills in my homestead

How beautiful I felt if I dared unmarried women

To lift up my lorwaa, to mock a curse

Because I was the wife of so-and-so

And as the years grow, my good daughter

Seeing you grow to be a woman

Your blood rushing just like me

You also feigning impatience

You also deaf to the laugh of hyenas

Remember this, my daughter, you live

In a war zone with flying bullets

With no rules to decorum

It is upon you to exercise judgment

Not to be in the crossfire.

C) Lorot Salem 2011

Lorwaa—a  Short, Sexy Pokot traditional dress.

River Suam- a river in Kacheliba, Pokot North District, Kenya.

Posho Mill- a flour mill.

Aloto- a Pokot marriage negotiation usually done the whole night. The bridewealth is usually negotiated upon the whole night and a consensus reached in the wee hours of the morning or shortly before dawn or morning.

Kumiket- a Pokot traditional liquor made of honey. It is usually drank on special occasions especially during marriage celebrations, when some rites of passage are being conducted et al.

If I Could

If I could clasp at the hand of time

I would freeze it at this moment

Wedge it in-between our palpitating hearts

Oblivious to the cacophony without

If I could hypnotize the moon

I would draw its magnificent rays

To light crooked shadows

Of cracked walls and forgotten footpaths

If I could entrance the love goddesses

I would gather Eros, Cupid and Venus

I would charm Isis, Ishtar and Aphrodite

To feed us with ambrosia and

Aphrodisiac

If I could say my wish

It could be to flee with you to the Maldives and

Pantai Pasir Hitam

Sit in Beachfront Deluxe

Inhale  tropical sea breeze

See ancient fishing jetty ourselves

Sprawled in the black sand

But here, my earth goddess,

Under the shade of our oron tree

We will sit on dusty sand and talk

Talk about egrets and elephants

And uuhhhm- Us.

C) Lorot Salem 2011

Teach Me Again How To Love

Teach me again how to love, dear son
Teach me again how to love without resistance
Show me how they do it son
How you actually do it, my son

Son, I once loved
Without restraint
Bought roses and cards
Called nth times a day and night
Skipped a heartbeat when my love
inched close to me

I once loved, dear son,
Penned the loveliest poems a man could write
Spruced with imagery
Personified by Cupid
Styled in the most astute devices that
poetry had not invented

But all that is gone, son.
So teach me how to love again, my son
To love and never imagine hurt past gone
To love as if love is a river flowing to eternity

Teach me again how to love, my son
Show me the excitement I once had of love
Spurting in my heart
Teach me again how to love.

C) Lorot Salem 2011

Write Me a Letter

Write me a letter, Sweet One,
A letter whose first paragraph will cloud my eyes
A letter with Englishicated English
A letter with words like perambulate
A letter with a dedication of top ten songs
A letter perfumed and dusted with powder

Write me a letter, My Beloved,
In your slanting handwriting
A letter that I will read in class
And all my friends will turn green with envy
A letter that I will keep under the pillow
A letter which if your parents saw you will be excommunicated

Write me a letter, the Pupil of my Eye,
A letter that has never been written by any other lady
A letter that I will read in class, in the loo and deep into the night
A letter with the last paragraph that will defy comprehension
A letter that will make up for our long distance

Write me a letter, the Breath of my Voice,
A letter that will remind me of the sugarcane we chewed
A letter whose words will jump from paper to heart
A letter that will bewitch me
A letter that will be shy yet bold
A letter that will be uncensored yet suspense-filled
A letter of friendship yet intimate

Write me a letter, the Goddess of the Hills,
A letter that has never been written by a lady
A letter that will pulsate in my heart
A letter that can sing
A letter that will remind us of butterflies and bees.

C) Lorot Salem 2011

Daughter of a Woman

My bull with crossed horns, Longolemwai,

Witness this, Witness this, Longolemwai

When we were trapped in the crossfires of the bullets

Trapped in panyirit thorns in no-man’s-land

Trapped in steep gulleys with no food to eat but among’oo and angalalio 

We did it the two of us, just the two of us

Witness this, Witness this, Longolemwai

The daughter of a woman has trapped my heart, Longolemwai

The daughter of a woman is making my heart go in circles

The daughter of a woman, my bull, is like sour milk

Served in dry season

The daughter of a woman is millet porridge with milk and pyöpay 

The daughter of a woman has the eyes of gazelles

The daughter of a woman goes to the river and oh, the way she moves her hips

The daughter of a woman makes my blood boil

I can jump and hit my head on heaven

I can jump and make a hole on earth with my feet

The daughter of a woman has trapped my heart, Longolemwai

Witness this, Witness this, Longolemwai

My bull with crossed horns, Longolemwai,

The daughter of a woman has trapped my heart, Longolemwai

C) Lorot Salem 2011

Orpheus and Eurydice

I will retell the story of Orpheus and Eurydice anew

I will make it real to us

For I don’t like sad twists.

I will not recount about how the serpent bit Eurydice

For that makes me jittery

I will avoid the Underworld, the Lethe

Pluto and Charon and the Styx

It convolutes joy within me

I want to talk about Orpheus, the Harper,

Of how he could sing and charm the Underworld

I want to capture the spirit of his song

That rent the air and warmed up Sisyphus

I want to paint a picture

Of the harper

That sang to the heart

That won Eurydice

How with only a harp he stirred up

The soft emotions of the Underworld

To bring her back to life

That is the story I want to retell.

C) Lorot Salem 2010

Narcissus and Echo

Such is the tragedy of the handsome
immortalized in the story of Narcissus,
the son of a god.

And such too is the tragedy of the not-so-beautiful
Captured by Echo, a nymph.

For both are accursed:
By Hera the Queen of Mt. Olympus
to ricochet in echoes
By the Maiden
To die to be flowers.

For to love is to give
And to be loved is obedience to the realm.

C) Lorot Salem 2010

Echo of Laughs

I have thought fair and square
Of expressing this fond feeling inside me
That yearns for you
That longs for you
That cannot explain the hollowness in my heart

My heart is like a bird-out of the nest
Whistling and chirping in the early morning
Singing one message
For the other birds and the neighbourhood
To hear.


How can I express it, dear,
The radiance of your face
The softness of your mellow voice
The tenderness of your smile

I long for the day, the hour
When together, the two of us
Shall talk to each other
And smile together in merry
And carry the echo of our laughs in our minds

Honey, that day I shall let open my heart
For you
Close to you
And listen to your whispers
In the privacy of our occasion

Let that day unfold, Angel,
For me to shower you with my love

C) Lorot Salem 2010

Trapped

I feel trapped in a snare
Poetically created
And for some reason
My instincts are honking horns!

You see, oftentimes Poets
Are misunderstood.
Their words are multi-layered
So is said

But am no poet now.

I should be understood
For what I am saying now.

Love Unending

I read Mills and Boons today
From cover to cover
And took notice of: And they lived happily ever after.


The author spun the love story
Wove it with the yarn of affection
Sew it with the strand of romance
Took it through love unimagined.

So I saw this love grow
From disdain to denial to dependency
The two love birds excited my imagination
What love!

And in this story is our story too, Sweet one,
Ours is not written within book covers
You will not see it in Mills and Boons
It is not created by the imagination of man.

It is a story we write everyday
In the morning, when I stare a little longer into your eyes
In the park, cuddling you and staying around listening to our hearts
In the evening, when I say bye and holding your arms a little longer
In my dreams, you running as I chase you and finally getting you


We are not fictional characters
Our love is not a story
Our story has no end

Such is our love, Sweet one,
We spin it with the yarn of our presence
We saw it with the uncertainties of a genuine love
Love unending. Love unmeasured.

C) Lorot Salem 2010

SMS, With Love

I think love is a yeast
that froths the brew of our creativity

all over a sudden
our numb minds are stropped
till they gleam with ideas

take me for instance
English to me sailed by boat, so they say,
but for the sake of my love Wambui
i thumbed my phone keypad all day
till i sent her this message:
Sweet angel, in thine mind, body and soul I am trapped
I think slow, remembering your flow before this blow that kills me
slow; I have stooped low, please love me

Mind you I had enrolled for rhymes in poetry class
and flopped-twice
slow/flow, blow/low rhymes
are not mine
for copyright purposes include:
c)SMS, with love

Please tell me what you think

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Beauty Ne'er Seen

In high stead of artistry
To rival Picasso et al
devoid of occasional lapses
was her voluptious curves modelled

And devoid of any wear
is a man driven up a wall as fair
So is a woman's body:
A shrine to roast the best of men!

C) Lorot Salem 2010