Father To Son

Son,
What has become of you?
Who is this I see before my eyes?
Why the ice-cold glint in your eyes?
Is this what I raised you to be?

Come now Son,
Mend thy tongue a bit-
Do not be too bold before your elders,
Keep your head a little lowered
Do not look your elders in the eye
It is not right, Son, it is not right

So you chose to shun me now
Must you call me a useless old rug too?
Be I not the first man you admired?
It is not a man that insults his father so.
You say the food I offer disgusts you,
Were you not raised on it?

Go ahead Son
Go then to your wigged breasts
You seem to find comfort between their legs
If it be so, I cannot stop you
Even a monkey cannot teach its young to climb
Mark this Son
Her comfort will poison you



©2003

Melody

Resonating joy
of my weary aching soul
Sing to me sweet nightingale
Sing to me a beautiful song
Sing away my winter’s moon
And wait a while
As I wish away this equatorial winter

The stream dances up the cliff
I can almost hear its sweetness
As it caresses the bedrock
Cool me sweet stream
Lend me your scintillating calmness
Lend me you
Lend me your streamness

Melody
Resonating joy
Of my aching weary soul
Dance
Dance like a desert maid of old
Dance away this grey noon
And carry me away
Far far away
To your soothing lofty lair

Nyakaisiki

Nyakaisiki
You of surreptitious booty
Whose skin
Smoothened by the ghee
Is the delight of the hills
That roll to where the eyes can no longer see
You of teeth as neat as maize kobs
Of hair so lush
As the unending green
At the foot of the mwitanzige
Dance
Gyrate in the light of this fire
Round which the lads are gathered
From the Kafu to Nyangahya
Mesmerize them with the brush of your kanga

Yes
Drive them wild
Drive them mad
So that they can sing your name to the clouds
Yes
Yes
Shake them with your voice
Pinch their ears with songs long forgot
Hold them in trance
With your dreamy gaze
Bury them in the bosom of your image
Fill them with your intoxication
The intoxication of your illusion
Sweep them your waving hips
Giving them the drink of your aura

Seasoned daughter of coffee and matooke
Keep those boys in your bosom
Don’t let them leave us
Don’t let the city swallow them
Sing to them
Sing to them the songs we sung by the well
Return their minds to the laps of their grannies
You must not let them forget
That they were first of this land
Before they were anything else

The Reawakening

The land stretches for miles
Like a roving sky without limit
The hills bow in respect
To the gallant scion of this noble land
As they make for farms to till

For years we have lived in quiet
Burdened with the shame of our humiliation
We of the valiant hue
Sons of Sol
Daughters of Kwezi
Crowned with the crest of Rwenzori
Draped with the splendor of the Sipi

We shall rise
We who once ruled these plains
And tamed the beasts of the green
We shall rise
For the sons of men have woke

Reflections

From the west
Came a tongue
That followed the bible
And the gun

One slavery went
Another set in
I became a squatter
On land that was mine by right

It was inevitable
Society was changed
And with it, I had to too
So now we are lost
Divided and conquered
Someone light a candle
I cannot see where I am going…

©2003

In The Eve of A Journey’s End

Lo our days of yore
Past like a wind ablew
As if they never were
O what days we saw
Yon in our days of yore

We danced to music apast
We danced to music anew
Simmering with youthful exuberance
Filled with the passion of age
O how we danced
Yon in our days of yore

Now in my rocking chair
The wind caresses my face
Whistling gentle tunes in my ear
Calling back those days of yore
As the sun sets before me

Images of yore flash in my mind…
Lads dancing in the sun,
Elated to have damsels in hand
As the skies grew red around us
And the moon shone bright on us.
Life was full then,
But never so in the end

We flourished in the beauty of youth,
Hypnotized by the rhythms of the drums
O how I relish in reminisce
Of those days of yore

In The Shadow of Darkness

There is a beast with five heads that rummages the land.

It devours the earth that bore, burning the crops that feed us,

And eats away the season’s harvest;

When the farmer has broken sweat, it breaks his hoe to two!

We are helpless, we are hapless. How can we fight?

When everywhere we turn, it eats the road before us…

The one face it hides in the cushioned comfort of tinted four wheelers,

Without a care for the millions that suffer its apathy

As it feeds on their blood, its talons clawed deep so they won’t run.

It slumbers in exotic silk. Lumbers with exotic dinners-

Not a care to our famished bellies and tarpaulin housing.

The one head wears wigs and boots, pretends to be our friend

But puts us in iron cages each time we cry out,

Stifling our voices with a wild smile at the fall off its gavel.

It takes our sons in the dead of the night. Beats our old men with its sticks and guns.

And then it says, “I am here to protect you”

The other calls itself our voice- its sly arms wrapped tight round its rotund belly-

But one by one, our children die in cold hospitals jammed with the stench of

Hopelessness,

While those who survive are turned to vegetables in the schools they build.

Our produce rots on the bad roads it promised to fix. Still it is mute,

Lest it runs out of promises if it takes away the problems that bind our feet.

The one speaks of hope, wears celestial garments and teaches us foreign tongues-

‘We must keep our peace’ it says ‘this is not our home’

But how shall we keep our peace and bide this home without a name,

When we pay to build its house, and feed it with the sweat of our labour

While we are left with nothing but rags.

The one is the head without a face. The head we cannot see.

Its eyes are as many as ours. Its ears even more, reaching places even we cannot.

It is the thief that cannot be heard. The silent teacher…

It steals away the ways of our people, replacing them with those we cannot comprehend.

It is everywhere and nowhere. It is the heart of the beast!

© 2009