Ode to Nelson Mandela

African Son, Child of Earth
The Great One, The Horn of Peace
Embarrassed I am to pen a poem of your profile
I am a nonentity.

I have read your biography
I have read your speeches
I have watched mankind welcome you
Just to be close to who you really are.

But I have no inkling of being in jail
For people's liberation.

Now in sunset of your years
With power struggles
Famine
Poverty
Corruption
Our continent is still poisoned
Mzee Madiba, what apt lesson should we extract?

What lesson of selflessness
Told to the world at Robben Islands
Should we seek?

Mzee Mandela, African Son, Child of Earth
The Great One, The Horn of Peace
What tribute do we pay to our fallen gallant fighters
For self-determination?
What shall we say of Sharpeville and Sisulu?
Did our forefathers have to die in vain?
Where is Matunda ya Uhuru?

I have an idea, Mzee Madiba
Let every elder from every hamlet meet you
Let them pour libation and ward off evil
Let them unearth arrows and bayonets
Let them speak blessings.

Call this meeting soon, I beg of you
Let our sons and daughters who lead us converge
Let them tell the elders why they are poisoning our land
Let them tell us why they keep kola nuts to themselves
Let them tell us who bewitched them with failed leadership.

Call this meeting soon, I beg of you
The Great One, the Horn of Peace
Then call poets who can chew words
Let them sing for peace
Let them sing dirges of buried dreams
Let them chastise our sons and daughters who shame us
Let them craft rhyme and meter to laugh at us
Let them satirize our pretence and hypocrisy.

Call this meeting soon, I beg of you
The Great One, the Horn of Peace.

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

God’s Own Timing

Mortal Man,

Suffer, Mortal Man, Suffer

Find comfort in the solitude of your worries

Look back to the day gracefully

Never whine, never curse

Armour yourself with faith of a new day

Don’t worry of tweedle little things

Dream instead of all possibilities

Wrought by big vision and big faith

Mortal Man,

Forsaken you are not

Clay is made brick in furnace

Gold is not gold without heat

Darkest it is before dawn

I have seen men rise from grass to class

Why should you despair?

Mortal Man, stand firm

Your foothold be the Mountain Peaks

Your grasp be the Stars

Your hope be Transcendent

Your Faith be to Tororot.

C) Lorot Salem 2011

Plundered Dreams

This is no chitchat

Of bush romance.

This is no idle talk

Of women in well.

This is no gossip

Inside a barber shop.

Words that can make or break nations

These words are,

Emotions that can draw blood

From the skulls of killed soldiers

These emotions are,

Grief that can explode

Hearts of the oppressed

These grieves are.

This is no Bush-Romance-Chit-Chat

An Elegy it is of borrowed dreams

Coarse conscience

Mutilated mien

Choreographed calmness

Stale stance

This is not an idle talk

A commentary it is of broken pieces

riddled roses

Flaring flames

Sickening sirens

These words

Are the buried bodies of plundered dreams

Mocking their epitaphs.

C) Lorot Salem 2011

Of Legal Realm I Speak

Of Legal Realm I speak

Of Laws of Men and God

Of Crimes and Punishment

Of Jurisprudence and Maxims

Of Legal Realm I Speak.

I Speak in legal jargons

As if I am possessed by the Spirit of Lord Denning

I think in three dimensions

Talk like an orator before hang

Spilling law most hidden

Of Legal Realm I speak

Of Laws of Men and God.

C) Lorot Salem 2011

The Law Is An Ass

So you heard the acclaim, friend

Of the double attributes of the self-same ass

Inside the Halls of Justice

Robed judges and murderers wield war

Coded in tacit technicalities

Worded in discreet Latin and English

The ass carries the baggage of man:

crimes, punishment,

remedy, redress

It pulls cart of victim’s plea

But when the ass rebels it kicks

It is no respecter of persons

Paupers and kings

Lawyers and citizens

All drawn within

The radius of the incensed ass

So you are right, friend,

That the law is an ass

But if I may hazard

Why is your breath foul and incestuous mouthing ass

Intoned with twice as much a derogation as of an expletive?

C) Lorot Salem 2011

The Street Lawyer

I fancy myself a lawyer in the streets

Hereinafter referred to as Street Lawyer

Dressed not in crisp dark suits but ordinary street wear

Carrying not wheeled suitcases but newspapers and legal journals

Seated not in posh law firms but Aga Khan Walk and Job Corner

I am a Street Lawyer.

You will not find me in Conference Halls

Or Seminars

Chatting about Thomas Hobbes

I am a Street Lawyer.

You will find me in Studios

Canvassing on Hague and Rome Statute

Giving a legal angle to every current news on Telly

People think I am a mad man

Walking with torn pieces of Law Reports

People mistake me for a lunatic

Reciting maxims and Latin and sections

That makes me no less

A  Street Lawyer.

I am the law in motion

Not static in phlegmatic law handlers

I make law rotate and spin around mouths of men

People love me because I am their bridge, their Moses

I read sections of the constitution

And explain them as if it is a Class- Two- Baa- Baa- Black- Sheep- Rhyme

But I am friend to Tear Gas Canisters

For I also speak the Human Rights Language fluently

Thrice I have been poisoned, twice shot, dozen-times jailed

On trumped-up charges

For I am a Street Lawyer.

I speak straight and narrow

Even against the highest in the echelons of power

If I see travesty of justice, I cry murder

If I see sloth of the Legislature, I harangue

If I see the police killing aimlessly, I climb Street Lamps in protest

If I see Press gagged, I walk with them with mouth sealed

If I see my country steeped in impunity, I go on hunger strike

For I am a Street Lawyer

I speak the language of the common man.

C) Lorot Salem 2011

Your Honour, I plead guilty!

Your Honour, I plead guilty, if you so wish

For you glare at me in your horn-rimmed glasses

Dressed in red to welcome scums to halls of justice

Nose twisted heavenwards as if to ward off the stench of my crime.

I plead guilty, Your Honour

For you are impatient with me

You insist in ‘Guilty’ or ‘Not Guilty’

Blind to my ‘let me explain’

Eager to send me to oblivion.

I wanted to explain to you this thing slowly

The way men do

But you insist in barking at me

How will you know how it all started?

Is this the way people handle issues?

Your Honour, I am the wronged man here

I should be the object of your mercy

I can’t afford the price of a lawyer’s tongue

Every time I want to talk my way, you block my path

How can truth be found, Your Honour?

That is why I will say I am guilty.

But if we were in the village

I would call everyone and pass through the thighs of old men

And if I lie I die

Simple.

If I were in the village

I would drink from a calabash to declare my innocence

I would stand facing sunrise and say,

“Kinsmen, if I stole from Lokwarasia

then as the sun rises this morning, let me die with it in the evening”

And if I lie I die

Simple.

But here I will plead guilty.

C) Lorot Salem 2010

Goat Case

We gathered today under a tree

To settle a case of a stolen goat

And what a hard case that was!

The Accused stood in rebellion saying:

Kinsmen, which goat did I steal? Whose goat have I stolen?

Under a tree, today, we listened to this Goat Case all day long

Examination-in-chief, cross-examination

Evidence adduced, presumptions rebutted

Flared up emotions, plea for justice

And so all day long we listened to this Goat Case

Under a tree

Till we reached this verdict:

Both parties will avail themselves the next Market Sunday

Accused will carry a kid, victim will come with the mother-goat

If the kid runs to the mother-goat, the case is settled!

Market Sunday. Kid runs to mother-goat.

Case settled! Accused to pay fourteen goats and kumiket for judges.

Next file please!

C) Lorot Salem 2010

Law

If I were to postulate what law is

As Professors are wont

I would posit:

Law is what we think it is

An obfuscation of legal scholars

An enigma.

Why, defined law is everything we think it is

Which precise words can’t wholly describe

It is the minstrel to men

It is the arch-enemy of anarchy

It is what is in the bosoms of men

Not codes and statutes

It is imprinted in the conscience.

Law is not an UFO

Law is not an extra- terrestrial

Law is a citizen recognized by man.

C) Salem Lorot 2010

The Judgement

In my chamber I sat to write my Judgement

After a long day in courtroom brawl

Weeks of arguments, defence

Legal tussle, pleadings

Hearing

I sat with Law Reports, Statutes

Handwritten case summary

Reviewing every detail of law

Every principle

Every issue of contention

I sat to write this Judgement

That will stir nationwide controversy

Of a Judge-turned-judicial-activist

I marked all issues in contention

Read my case summary again and again

With the aid of steaming dormans coffee

This Judgment will be due next week

And what an uproar it will evoke!

I will read it to the packed court

Slowly and steadily

Like an epic tale

I will comfort both the plaintiff and defendant

Soothe their conscience

For a while

Then throw them to disarray

With a legal bonnet thrown into the mix

It will hit them like a thunderbolt

I will read this Judgment to them

And set a precedent in uncharted waters

Journalists and commentators will be thrown off-balance

They will postulate the import of my Judgment

And quote biases feigned as principles

I will sleep in the chambers tonight

Till I finish this Judgment

For the Judgment will be out in the next 48 hours.

C) Lorot Salem 2010

Political Speech

This is meant to be a political speech

I have to say this early because it will screech your ears

And tug at your heart..wrench it even

For we have grown apolitical

Traded our voices, our freedom

This speech will capture that dream

That was conceived times past

But is kicked around in non-recognition

This speech is the tablet of the people, the masses

Their commandments to the powers-that-be

That it will not be business as usual

For in every hamlet and slum, every corner and abode

This speech will be carried through

To give a re-birth to that dream

To dramatize the upsurge of the downtrodden

The masses will gather to hear the cause of their suffering

They will boil in their hearts

They will seethe, they will simmer

They will constrict in their throats

They will unite

They will join hands and join the dots

The bits and pieces, the odds and ends

The downtrodden will rise out of their slums

To carry this message, this political speech

And make it their own

They will ignite fire in their marrows

And blaze in their eyes

They will heave with disgust

To hear about this dream they once had

But was snatched away from them

They will envision the lost opportunities

The smokescreen

The bluff

The stooges will quake in their boots

Listening to this speech

For it will not be heard and forgotten

It will plant the seed of another dream

A dream bigger and grand, a dream that will never be stolen

It will shake every corner of slums

It will fire up the masses

It will cause a seismic twist to the powers-that-be

For this speech is a political speech

Written by the blood of the slum-dwellers

Carrying the breath of debased men living in misery

Inked by the lost dreams of youths in garbage mounds

Nursed by the bare-chested mothers with malnourished babies

This political speech is not written actually

Because the illiterate masses will not read them

It is the wind of hope blowing across the slums

It would not be comprehensible

It will not follow any style

It will not bear any introduction

It will not have any conclusion

It will not follow any particular pattern

For this speech is a speech of revolt

Against structures, layouts, formats

It is not pre-defined

It will lump everything together

With no specific order

Yet remain true to its message and intent

This political speech is not actually political

Because it is not empty rhetoric and witchhunt

But it could be political, if you think about it.

C) Lorot Salem 2010

Please Don’t Insult My Profession!

I have pretended to be even with you

Even as you call me “a defender of thieves and murderers”

I have smiled even as you joked that all lawyers will go to hell

Matter of fact, I have been seething, boiling within me

For apart from saying them

You have had to laugh sarcastically and held your sides

As if you had just revealed the most hidden truth to man

But I have been quiet.

Friend, for your sweeping statements

I have shared with them with pain

But had no nerve to counter you

All the while hoping that you will tone it down

But to no avail.

For seven years, friend

I have trawled through legal textbooks

Thumbed finest Judgments from Lord Denning to Madan

Sieved through Journals and articles

For this profession

I have read through Philosophy and Psychology

And various legal systems

Just for this profession

And in all this time, friend

I have captured themes of justice, of fairness,

Of rights known to men, of court structures

Of sentencing, of what underlies defence

For instance, friend, did you know that

I am the mouthpiece of my client but still an officer of court?

Did you know that if a man “kills” as you say,

I would want to aid the court to leave no doubt about the propriety of his actions?

Did you know that if the court finds him at fault I should

Be thanked for leaving no doubt as to my client’s guilt?

But I have chosen to keep quiet

For all this you will never understand—

After all it took me seven years to decipher them

All that I ask is to exercise restraint before firing your salvos

C) Lorot Salem 2010

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

Midas’ Touch

How would it have felt to King Midas
talking with Dionysus, the god of Vine
to have a gold touch on everything?

how did it feel to lay his palms on anything,
just anything
to turn it to gold, instant wealth?

for a moment, what would have been the joy
of creating wealth with bare hands
with a touch
just a simple touch?

but such is the folly of the touch
King Midas surmised
with a touch, everything is turned to gold
trees still and unmoving
handshakes solid and brittle
food turned to gold

though precious, mortals,
gold can’t give us warmth
for therein lies the irony of the Midas touch

C) Lorot Salem 2010

Memoirs of a Lazy Academic

I carry my satchel around
A gift from a Conference I attended in Witswatersrand
I have the academic gait, the slight bent of a contemplative philosopher
In my satchel I carry the Oxford Law Dictionary, Legal Articles and Journals
Newspaper Cuttings from Law Reports, torn pieces of my random law thoughts

You see, an academic I am
A legal scholar
I have mastered APA, MLA, Turabian
I can tell a thesis from an abstract
I can tell works cited from reference list
I have read the finest legal texts legal eyes could read
I have pored through seminal rulings and judgments
I have torn through labyrinth of legal texts in search of law
I am the best gift to the scholar’s world
Something of a published legal scholar acclaimed

Let’s say I am not published
Just yet
But I am publishable

My problem is that those research textbooks have caught mould
And have this smell of a treated biological specimen
Every time I open them to read through legal lines
My nostrils prick and are choked

I have no issue with going electronic
After all the world has gone digital
Save for my eyes
I read a few lines but my eyes get teary, bleary
All online content get blurred

So I prefer to walk around with my satchel
Protruding my stubble of scholarly beard
Quoting John Locke and J.J. Rousseau and legal maxims
Tracing law to England and Rome
Regurgitating old notes of my dead professor
And serving them as if they are fresh legal gems of yesterday
I critique judgments even when I have not read them
I postulate how I can write to journals
After all I am the modern day academic
Yet to be published.

C) Lorot Salem 2010

E-blows

I am a tall, lanky fellow
With no much strength
Of a seasoned boxer

So why dare me to a physical fight?
Why are you raising your fist, brother
Challenging me to a bout
When you know I am not a fighter?
Why are you rolling up your sleeves
And charging like an incensed bull
From Ikolomani?

Don’t challenge me to a physical fight, brother
Invite me to an E-fight, E-blows, E-boxing
There I will sit and pontificate arguments
Throw e-blows to you in calculated diction
Use every word of English to whip you up with reason
Pen the most scathing diatribe to irritate your spleen
Throw in sarcasm in quick succession
Mock you with voice of reason
Show you that we invented this game

So keep away your fist brother,
Breath easy, unroll your sleeves
I am of small frame
Against your thick build
But I will fight you with words
Not with sword.

C) Lorot Salem 2010

Fare Thee Well O Little Bird

Fare Well, Fare Well, O little bird

Flap your wings with merry

Sing the beautiful melody of your gracious life

As you flee away

Remember the nest and the nestlings

On the canopy

Of the sturdy tree you perched on

Your home

O little bird, O graceful bird

Fly to distant azure skies

Pierce the airy air of newness

But

Dear little bird

Of colourful yellow wings

And smooth even feather

When you are done

Soaring the endless skies

Come back home

On the outstretched arms of the canopy

And conspiratorial welcome of wind’s hum

O dear little bird

Come back home—to roost

C) Lorot Salem 2010