Ngonzi

Shall I compare her to an orange sky

where evening drizzles dice Kazooba’s parting rays

into a million crystals of sparkling gold?

Is she the temple of mystic myth

where proud Kwezi wakes from her day’s rest,

as loyal Sirius rouses the stellar host to its watch?

Is she born of the magic that turns men from their pursuits

and blinds them from the pleasures and adventures

dangling in life’s streets and corners?

I am a bamboozled...

Have I told how her presence calms everything it touches?

How the dwellers of my mind scour their hovels

for paints that can mark the way her aura animates walls?

Questions pounce in my head like government spies

prying confessions out of a blameless man.

They ask me why my thoughts consort with her smile,

as if I would know why they won’t leave her side.

These ponderings demand resolution!

Will the wind ferry words to those gentle ears

that hear life dancing to drums

where I perceive only racket and human strife?

Will it leap across this wall of miles

and tell her I am coming to conquer her soul?

Will it write her odes describing the visions I dream

when our spirits meet in a silent moment?

Or will it read her verses pronouncing why

I would laugh with her for days that fill time

as grass covers the earth?

Ngonzi of the gait so graceful,

You in whose eyes mountains become mounds.

You to whom the trees bow when you walk past,

Whose voice is the song in the morning bird,

When Kazooba meets Kwezi at first light,

Light a fire and warm a peppery soup,

I am coming to take you.

2016

When I Die

When I die,

Do not cover me with marble and concrete mixture:

Wrap me in neat bark robes,

and plant a seed of avocado tree where I rest;

so that once upon a meal, in the sweetness of its fruit,

mingled with roast ground-nut sauce and steamed yams,

my seed shall remember,

that once stood one who loved strong and lived light.

When I die,

Do not ferry me in a drab, dark-coloured procession,

nor wail in woeful keys and moan in dreadful songs:

Dress light and play fight,

make merry and pass the brew.

Build a great fire where in life my head went to rest,

and trade stories of times fond;

Laugh hearty with cheer, for death is only a passage,

and life,

is for the living.

When I die,

Do not sing songs from foreign lands and tongues,

for though I live in times conquered by alien kind,

I hail from a land old and proud.

Fill the night with songs from our land when I part;

such passage sets the soul off with high wind,

and I have yet,

some distance to travel.

2016

Twebaka Tuulo

I

The Men in power have guns:

If you have none, you’d better run;

else bang-bang,

they’ll shoot you down.

Forget about doing your country the service,

of minding the quality of public service:

for your labours you’ll receive such reward;

anatomical liquidation-

or worse, economic strangulation.

The Men in power have guns,

And long have they sold all conscience to the wind:

They’ve got your money on their mind,

and should you think of changing kings:

they will not hesitate,

to shoot you down...

                        II

I heard a tale of a man who cried foul,

because a big-eyed upstart jumped the cue.

But when came his turn to be The Man,

and The Man in power would not budge.

Our man became an upstart too,

caught a bad case of the joker,

and bought himself a conscience transplant.

With his wily bag of cards in tow,

he sought asylum in the plotters’ garden,

And now they hail him as a hero-

them whose struggle his webs entangled;

“he’s got miles of road sitting in his coffers”

“he will make The Man lose sleep at night”

Never mind that his miles cost taxpayers their due,

politicians have only interests, not sides;

But I pay them no mind, for I sleep light;

the economy is tight-

and I simply can’t afford to sleep at night.

III

I heard a voice on the radio say,

“the problem with this country,

is that the people are too docile,”

I found him funny...

Guns and votes are costly things to buy you know;

and if The Man does not have his guns,

the taxlady will cut you no slack;

when her hounds come pounding at your door,

then we shall see if you will sleep at night.

“Ugandans must wake up from their slumber;

they must reclaim their country from thugs”

Of what slumber does he speak...

Abantu tebakya komba yadde mpeke ya tuulo

Basula bayiya.... embera mbi!

Gwe ob'olina obudde bw’okunyigira abasajja

abalina emunddu nga emitima gyaffa dda,

kwatamu ko. Tokomba passi.

Your anger cannot stop their bullets,

so stay sharp and play it smart.

Maybe someday, 

your heart will change this place...

2015

The Place Where The Sun Shines

The country has fallen to the hyenas:

Basic needs ail from jobless weeks,

As youths without connections slim.

Workers survive on loans and alms,

As public servants puff up on bribes.

Villainy has toppled the state,

And restraint abdicated parliament;

The national treasury is a bonanza,

And allegiance is to your tummy,

In this country..

In this country,

Ambition is no field for common benefit;

It’s a ring crammed with vicious canines,

Where deep bites reap fleshy rewards,

And the boldest heists lift entire clans.

Lawlessness is the Law in this country,

And nothing is sacred-

Not the cherished altars to foreign gods,

Or the unsung temples of yester gods.

Leadership is dead,

And the nation is spent of tears to wail.

In this country,

Teachers pretend to teach,

As students pretend to learn.

Extortion suffocates enterprise,

Like a fat woman sitting on a baby’s nose;

For money is rare as snowflakes in sand,

So the simplest solutions die in wombs,

While the best thieves gain prestige.

Alas, the sun still shines,

And the gods still don’t smile.

Great minds flee the borders,

But the goats still eat grass,

And the cocks still crow,

And the Hippos still yawn:

And the fish still stare,

As rulers fatten on the nation’s hope,

And fear pollutes the air with apathy,

              ..........in this country

2015