The Boy Who Carried the Family Door

I read in a book that when Chernobyl happened,

People were told to vacate their homes

But a son carried their family’s door.

That door bore their memories.

The wood was an imprint of their souls.

They felt it, they saw it, it was part of them.

So the son, against the warning,

With the door on his back

And severed memories of their beloved home

Behind him

Cut through the bushes.

O, I cried.

That door was radioactive:

Dangerous yet a beautiful tragedy

I would have done the same

To carry memories with me

To grab the door- knob that my great grandfather’s fingerprints

Lie spread.

To feel its grains, its dents and curves and smell it.

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C) Salem Lorot/ echoesofthehills 2017

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For Poets United’s Midweek Motif- Door

Canada, Are You Listening?

I have read a heart-breaking development in Ottawa, Canada which has prompted this heart-rending post + poem from my Koko, Sherry Blue Sky. You might want to read it so that you can understand my consternation too.

I want to give it a voice too.

This is in response to Kim’s prompt this week on #Passion. You might want to visit and read other worthy poems on this prompt at Poets United.

~

Canada, what spell are you under

So odious, so ignominious as not to make you quake?

What detachment has visited you

As not to heed the plaintive breasts of a people disenfranchised?

What brass neck, what chutzpah impels you

To drown the din of reason floating in the air?

Canada, show me the trick

You use to wax your ears from Nishiyuu

Teach me how you do it, Canada

I mean, is that how you give audience

To Theresa Spence, the Attawapiskat Chief?

Is your memory so short, Canada

As not to realize that a march led people to freedom

And that not even the blizzard and the wind

Deterred them?

Have you forgotten the vanguards who braved

The water-horses?

Can you really STOP

What appears to be the Grand March

To seek audience in the great Temple of Truth?

Thus, let it be then

That what is imprinted in people’s hearts is laid bare

In Parliament Hill

Let then the shame, the disparagement reek to high heavens

Let the furrowed faces of the marching people

Let the broken beads of sweat drip

To add salt to the tawdry conscience of a Nation unkind

For if Canada truly can’t hear the din of the gathered mass

At Parliament Hill

Then it should bear the vacuity it has set her people in.

THINK BIG: BEN CARSON

At Poets United Thursday Think Tank, there is a prompt to write a poem inspired by a book one has read or is reading. I have read hundreds of books now from as diverse areas as possible but the one that will always stand out is THINK BIG by Ben Carson.

I read the book after I had finished form four.  I wish I had read it earlier.

Never have I been influenced by a book than THINK BIG. The acrostic stands for:

T -Talents/time: Recognize as gifts from God;

H -Hope for good things and be honest;

I -insight from people and good books;

N -Be nice to all people;

K  -Knowledge: Recognize as they are key to living;

B -Books: Read them actively;

 I -In-depth learning skills: Develop them;

G -God: Never get too big for Him.

I also read Gifted Hands (perhaps contrary to what should have been expected since it came first). You see, in the village where I grew up the danger was that there were a lot of uncertainties about the future one had on education and being “different”.  So, we read because that is what we had been told to do. And when one finished form four, one knew that that was it.

Then THINK BIG came into the picture.

I was opened up to a world of a thousand possibilities. I was given a pedestal where I could stand and say, ‘yes, folks, I am here to rule the world’.  So, urged by Ben Carson, I grew from that timid, cocooned village boy to one ready to take the world by storm. I wasn’t very sure about doing Law then. After that, I believed it earnestly. In my learning at Campus, I read intently. I never read to pass exams (though that was the ultimate goal, unfortunately). I have always tried not to be narrow in my reading. So, I don’t read Law only. I read spiritual books, I read biographies, I read proverbs, I read history, I read novels ( classicals come into mind such as Charles Dickens, Leo Tolstoy, John Grisham, African authors notably Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Chinua Achebe, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Kenyan authors especially Meja Mwangi, David Mulwa, Dawood—honestly, I cannot name all of them). And there are philosophical books which I admire a lot. The thinkers such as Ralph Ewaldo Emerson, Voltaire, Friedrich Nietzche, and many others, in their books, expand our minds to such elasticity they can never be the same again.

Well, now to the poem, inspired by the book THINK BIG.

So, someone thought that by holding a gun he is so powerful?

Fingers on trigger, ready to rip, where is power in that?

I say a book in somebody’s hands is the most powerful

I know of countless little frames who with books

Have wielded so much power by thought

Their fists are this small, their bellies are these small,

If you met them in the train station or somewhere near a mall

They will be your ordinary guy

But verily verily I tell you

If you measured their minds by ounces

The kilo of their thoughts will break the weighing machine

Such are books, such are thoughts

I don’t know of any other way

To improve one’s welfare than through books

Believe me, I tried mediocrity and it didn’t work

I would watch flat-out dimwittedness cascade before me

And I would swat it hard only for it to taunt me

Been years now, I hear she lives in another town

Well, I confess, I can’t fight

So, for a few hours reading

Brushing through what others before me thought and said

I am called a genius!

The other day, I ran through the inventory of my wealth

Hardly any apartment nor car

Just stacks of books

When time comes I will tell my children,

“Children, I was a wealthy man, of that be sure,

Not your ordinary trappings of wealth

No, in these books I leave you, search for Truth,

Rub minds with the great sages, aim for greatness

Ordinary people strive for food, clothing and shelter

Great people strive for Essence, Spirituality and Higher Realms”

How Times Change!

Link

The Old Man taps his snuff bottle gently

Then peers into a distance

As if in a reverie:

A bad mannered young man

Wagged his fingers on his face

He winced, and hoped

That lightning never struck him

Another tail of a goat blew dust

Into his eyes with his big motokaa

And now, so many miles from the market,

He had forgotten to buy his tobacco

His nose, like pepper on wound, irritated

When his feet was light,

He could walk from Nasal to Nauyapong’

Swift like an antelope

When he was this size (so young actually)

Donkeys carried posho and never stirred dust

Then, if somebody’s bad whispered

Was caught in his ears

He could tear him into sixteen pieces

How times change!

Poem written in response to Poets United's The Thursday Think Tank #86 - Rebirth

The Apparition

(For the Poets United's The Thursday Think Tank #61 - She)

My sight of her sticks out—like a sore thumb

The kamdelen-infested eyes, bare-feet

Parched mouth—words of sorrow

Spoken, frail frame of wasted body

Thought I, weighed down by

The sultry air this woman carried:

Where was her elegance of kidong’a?

Which wind would flutter her lorwaa?

From a corner of a shop I watched her

Carrying a malnourished baby

She could have been 14

Yet she could have been 40!

You my Elders, unshackle her

Free her! Untie her!

You my Elders, bring back her innocence!

Bring cheer to her face!

You the owners of traditions

You are busy hunting the egrets

Unaware of the vultures hovering over your heads

One day, Kacheliba Hill will rebel!

Lorot Son of the Hills’ Notes:

Kamdelen- Pokot for dirt in the eyes.

Kidong’a- A pokot traditional dance.

Lorwaa- A Pokot traditional dress.

Serious Grass Business

(Prompt: Poets United Thursday Think Tank #59 Grass )

Let me wear camel-skin pair of shoes

Walk the walk of a herdsman

With far-flung clouds teasing above him

And the mist of hope lost

In a sweltering heat

What will I feel?

If I had an AK-47 on my back

A dozen arrows and the right instinct

Pray, from what will they protect me from

Unless I shot at the heaven’s tap?

He will walk on and on, that herdsman

To the point of listening to his footsteps

And after many days

Behold, he will lead his cows

To a no-man’s-land

Where one minute egrets

Abound and the next vultures prey

Life and death

For many months

This will go on

This little hobby of looking for grass.

C) Lorot Salem 2011

Journal of a Pokot Market Boy

(Prompt: Poets United Thursday Think Tank #60 Market Days

Lorwaa-dressed pretty Pokot girls

Men on shuka, cattle bells heard from afar

Mitumba sellers, Rock hotel abuzz

Blaring loudspeakers of crusading pastors

The concealed whistles of lomedos wooing their girls

Car horns, vegetable vendors, shop sellers

It is market day, Kacheliba

It is a one-day affair

On a Sunday.

A week long dazed small town

Comes to life

Once again

Cattle sold in the open

Hot tea served defiant of the midday sun

Feet oiled yet get dusty all the same

Loafers strolling aimlessly with prodding sticks

Clever goats partaking of maize vendors’ ‘wares’

Bicycle riders with missing bells

Careful buyers bargaining for hours

Patient vendors sweating in the sun

Sugarcane packed under ses tree

Thirsty bestraddlers of the market

Crouching on their knee-caps to drink from kisima

O, Kacheliba Market Sunday!

C) Lorot Salem 2011

Answer Me, Dear Writer

You who create words, tell me

What is the use of the space bar in your keyboard?

When you hit that key almost with irritating certainty

Don’t you realize that you create destitutes?

Why should you stir division and call it elegance?

C) Lorot Salem 2011

For a prompt by Poets United Thursday Think Tank #57 Loneliness

Inside a Night-Time Poetry Journal

As the cow-bells draw near

The golden sunset rays arcing

Darkness fast approaching

Old men trudge past hurriedly

Women with sacks on their backs walk fast

Soon, the fireplace is lit

The smoke-filled hut resurrects

Children play with moths

As mothers adeptly cook ugali

While milking cows at the cowshed

Laughter abounds

Of the cleverness of the hare

Or the gullibility of the elephant

And as the merry floats into the night

It mixes with the howl of the winds

Perhaps as a befitting valedictory

To the wonder of the African night

C) Lorot Salem 2011

From a prompt by Poets United Thursday Think Tank #58 Nightime

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

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

How To Create A Mad Man

You stood there, Kinsman,

in the caves of Mount Kadam

In search of miraa

Propelled by instant wealth

If you chanced upon Mercury

So you walked endless miles

Entered caves, weaved through darkness

Unbeknownst to you

Drawing closer to the spirits that rule Kadam

You were irking them, putting your life

To their path of vengeance

You defied the counsel of the old

Never to set foot into the caves

For echoes of dead men could be heard

But you despised them

No you walk around in the village market

Laughing like the dead---naked

Had you listened to them

Had you not set forth to Kadam

May be your story could have been different.

C) Lorot Salem

For the prompt of Poets United The Thursday Think Tank - #46 Monsters

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.