African Poetry

THE POEMS

FIRE FROM THE SKY

The once snaking gurgling monster

Time-defying, ever-flowing oldster

Is licked near-clean by the quiet drought

Her diminution wrought distraught

Lain betwixt her hunger stricken arboreal hosts

Emaciated, unattractively scaring akin ghosts

Crawling slowly to die somewhere undismayed

Petitions unsaid and intercessory unprayed

The tranquil of the fresh breath of Nyamindi waterway

Is taken by the acrid gusts of aquatic decay

As her remnants lovers slowly but surely fry

In the fierce fast-falling fire from the sky.

A DAY’S END.

I have seen the sunset.

Filling the western sky with orange.

Fiery clouds escorting the sun home.

Dispatching an aura of golden rays.

Bidding farewell the long shadows.

Calling tired farmers back home.

Inviting the host of the heavens.

I have seen rubies in the sky.

Appearing one after another.

An invisible hand somewhere.

Along the horizon unseen.

Switching them on to light the earth.

Twinkle diamonds twinkle

Red, blue, green twinkle.

I have seen a beaming face.

Peeping at me from the dark horizon.

Then shyly sailing high.

Racing against the wispy clouds.

To join the radiance of her daughters.

Smiling all the way to the constellations.

Blazing beauties of the night.

THE VILLAGE.

Cock-a-doodle doo.

Pigs snorting and grunt.

Bleat baa the sheep.

Hidden in the trees squeak the squirrels.

Gobble gobble gobbling turkeys.

Low oxen moo the cows.

Hohi-a-hohhle hi

Bray donkeys so similar.

Rolling on the red dust.

The village.

A swallow-tailed bee-eater.

Calling and singing.

A green barbet, dark brown head.

Answers the call.

A red-capped lark, black bill.

Entertains the morning.

An emerald-spotted wood dove.

Seated lonely somewhere.

Coos to the extravaganza.

The village.

FAIRY CHARMING DAISY

Fairy charming daisy

Streaming in from the east

Fairy charming daisy

Where do you live in the east?

I guess you came from the pixies

Those who dwell in the village of the beauties

Who dance in the night

And feast in the morning light

Under the babbling brooks

Reading love stories from fairy books.

Hey! You are now doing your bewitching smile?

Fairy charming daisy

How beautifully you smile.

Fairy charming daisy

I love you so!

You smile well because

You have been born so to do

And brought forth to please the sun

But hold up your face

And I will kiss you true.

WE LOST IT.

My great grandfathers wore dreadlocks

Yet stood firm, proud as peacocks

Patrolling their territory paddocks

Today they are a source of mocks

A representation of sheer evil

In the world we foolishly call civil

Like an attempt on a biscuit by a weevil

We lost it.

Our great forefathers drank milk

And then over the mountains take a hike

Had absolute no need for a bike

Treated all men with respect alike

We are taking concoction for drink

May never cease to suffer sick

Rounded and diabetic as tick

We lost it.

They went to schools to learn practice

Learnt virtue and shunned away vice

To obey all the elders without a voice

Then there was little necessity for police

We are learning to sit all day in office

To treat subordinates with blowing malice

Learning theory, understanding without choice

We depend on book, written advice

Alphabets unlike words know no justice

Scratching as mice full of lice

We lost it.

ENTICE ME.

Entice me to follow you.

To have the same school of thoughts.

You can define God in a name.

Entice me to believe that.

You can hold him in your understanding.

Confine him in your ideologies.

Entice me my dear.

Music genres can contain him.

The one that holds the universe.

A zillion light-years wide.

In the palm of his hand.

Hair styles can define his worship.

And he has meted out the heavens in a span.

Comprehended the dust in a measure.

Come on and entice me.

Let me believe you for a second.

That he can be comprehended in a dance.

Who weighs the mountains in a scale.

And the hills in a balance.

Laid the foundations on the earth.

Increase your efforts my dear.

You never know for sure.

I might just be convinced.

BIASED LOVE.

Doesn’t knock in your heart

Just comes in with a start

But in hers it does knock

Unwelcomed, sent off and heavy lock

Locked out without a second thought

And in your life painfully caught

To love and not loved back

To find love and to lack

Golden bitter cup of suffering

Crushed, but bravely bearing

Almighty lord above

Shake me up a little to remove

The heavy yoke of biased love.

I CALL IT NOISE

The music disappeared

Into the blues

Those soothing notes

The elixir to the soul

Devoured by a wordy hullabaloo

The one that draws a rabble

In place of dancers

The maniacal drumming

A rhymy confusion

The one they call music

And I call it noise;

Unnecessary noise.

EULOGY FOR OUR GIRLS

I see a flash

A sight to behold

The work of an immortal sculptor

Walking straight in elegant pride

Worth of a princess of the sun

Firmly transfixed in her twelve

Moving into the emptiness of an invalid society

Her innocence screaming

In an unchallenged clarity

And only twelve moons

The framework of her modeling salivates

Wolves in men

Who’s been exposed to the virus

Emerging from the bushland of their desires

To seek their vengeance in a fanatical hatred

And poor me the princess

With the sex lunacy roaming the streets,

Sanity of abstinence is the greatest challenge.

Swung from poverty to adolescence

A pendulum of fates

Hunger at home for the family

And her homestead a moonscape of desolation

The two hundred shillings does the trick

She trades out her innocence

And virginity too; a girls pride

And alongside the legal tender

Comes the virus

The minute monster

Savoring a society of huge minds.

There is the tuberculosis

In a hospital ward

Full of undug graves and shrines unnamed.

Drawn into the vacuum of her fate

Eyes wide open in dismal finality

The princess

Lie in freeze frame of death

A pyramid of events

Moulded out of her last several terrible seconds

Lamentation for the society

A dull eulogy for our girls.

A JOKE

A joke is a mock

Merry though black as coke

Stupid yet doesn’t provoke

Through your ribs it’ll poke

Down the spine a firm shock

Last, in the throat it’ll dock

A joke is a lock

A swift heavy rock

On your neck a sweet yoke

Nearly makes you choke

Though not as smoke

A touch of gentle stroke

As sure you can’t revoke

A joke is just a joke.

AT THE COUNTRYSIDE.

I got blow-out on my hair

Am at the countryside

A mixture of emotions

Envy, admiration, hatred

And jeering too.

I got sunglasses on my face

That gives me

The unwelcomed company

Of confused glances

At the countryside.

I got a necklace around my neck

Glittering with life

Never puts it down even at sleep

It is not “manly”

At the countryside.

BEFORE I SLEEP.

Under the cover of blankets

My eyes close up

Opening my mind to a misty world

With shadowy outlines welling up

From the bottomless depths

Of foggy long times

Shaping the mosaic of my imagination

Into corresponding dreams

Standing guard

At the outpost to my consciousness

Just before I sleep.

CHURCH DEMON

Sent away from the church

To keep her hipsters away

And that almost transparent dress

That terminates

Several inches above the knees

Told that she was,

A stumbling block to the sheep

Soiling the mind of the male congregation

The pastor still in the brackets

Denying the chosen ones

The power of the Holy Spirit

And the Spirit of God was moving

Above the surface of the waters

When Adam and Eve were very naked.

Told she stirred the Spirit of desire

The spaghetti dress

Starting too early and ending too late

Cooking immorality in the society

Hungry men, say lustful

Evil minded

Yet they claim the Spirit reigns

Overcome by their selfish nature

A willing Spirit

But a weak flesh

They blame it on the church lady

And I have never seen

A bull rape-and-murder

And never seen also

A dressed freshian cow

And they call her church demon.

CONFESSION.

Oh my! I am so selfish

Do I have to confess this?

Of course

Oh no

Then I confess.

They came asking

That I may at least come closer

I couldn’t

Am soooo selfish

I thought they would take away

What doesn’t belong to me

Mine and yet not mine.

I confess

That I have a sticky hand

Not that I take

But because I just can’t give…….

Now, wait a minute

Am I supposed to be confessing to you?

While you know who the owner is?

Of what am afraid to give.

Tell me,

Do I have to give my love to anybody?

When it belongs to you?

Mine and yet not mine

Oh!

I confess that I am confessing.

I MUST NOT

Preserve the culture I will

But not overlook the spear

Planted at the entrance to my hut

Nor will I the owner

In bed with my wife

My daughter’s joy will not be taken

By the cut of an ancient knife

Should I sell out?

An incumbent generation

To an out-of-time tradition?

I must not.

I REFUSE.

Steady will I fly like a kite

And say that with all my might

Like an eagle in flight

I refuse to accept my plight

Decline to disappear from the sight

Won’t give up my light

I refuse to go down into the night

I refuse to give up without a fight.

I TOLD THEM.

Didn’t I mean it?

Or wasn’t I serious just a bit

When I warned of the gruesome pit

Ahead and soon they would hit

Was I performing a funny skit?

The day they refused to admit

That joining would bring no benefit

Just pain and no profit

The best option was to quit

But they wanted to wait

And see as they are used as bait

I can do nothing now but sit

Because I told them.

They are now quiet

Full of reckoning and regret

Wishing they listened I bet

That to stop a fired bullet

You must require a metal jacket;

Before you meet a pickpocket

Your wallet is not stolen yet

My words they needed not interpret

Either that they did not get

Or they simply chose to forget

When I blew a warning trumpet

I know that am not a prophet

Just a pen-and-paper poet

But I told them.

ILLEGAL GATEPASS

Before my tender lungs

Have known an inflow of breath

Or my eyes seen

The beauty of the daylight

Before I have come to know

The Taste of Colostrum

And before my new skin received

The caressing warmth of the sun,

Mama,

You have handed me

An illegal gate pass

Past the birth canal

Shattered my candid destiny

The president of the land

Flushed out your liberation

From the bondage of poverty

And fangs of disease.

IT IS YOU.

Who is this that he talks about?

That has ran his mind fantasizing

This that makes him write

Passionate love poems

When he should be concentrating on his lessons

His classes have become second

After this angels that he speaks about

Who is she?

It is you.

Why doesn’t he tell us frankly?

Who she really is?

She who he loves so

That it makes the others envious

Of such deep love

From the bottom of a man’s heart

Blessed be you girl

That is whoever you are;

But it is you.

Smile girl with the angelic face

Give all of us a show

Let us see what the poet says

How true it is

You who I say that my soul craves for

And my heart all extended to

Smile dear smile

And stop to pretend that you do not know

That it is you.

I call you my first lady

But it is you daughter of the moon

You that compete for beauty with Venus

The goddess of it all

Let the sun stop as a witness

Of how much I love you

And I will call out the rainbow

Write on it for the whole world to see

“My love belongs to you”

To you my dear.

MY LOVE ONLY FOR YOU.

Down the dangerously steep mountains

She powerfully gurgles down

Clear and powerful

And ultimately into the sprawling Mwea plains

And though out of the steep

Still deliver her intimate brand

Of current flow power.

Sneaking silently around the curves

Bending towards her destiny

She now only whispers

A low murmur of liquid advice

“Please don’t

Defy, misuse or pollute me

For I love you

That’s why I came”

And I love to admire

The immense beauty of her flow

Old yet powerful

Her steps gaily like a fairy

And her loins a mass of turbulence

Her valley heavy with vegetation

A forest out of a scary fairy tale.

But I love to watch her

Slim body

Snaking to the direction of the slope

The dance of white foams in the current

As she churns her way to the coast

Releasing a cold radiation

A caressing chill

The beauty of her source

The snow-capped lofty mountains

I can only give my love to you

To you my darling

That can only be

River Nyamindi.

NO THREAT

You feel threatened

That university is my institution

And high school yours

Should it happen that;

Angels dropped from the blue heavens

To spark this hearty passion

Then you are my angel

And if queens descended

From the medieval times of Vikings

To rule our hearts with roses

You are the queen of my heart

So if the case be that;

The highest institution of learning

Flowered ones to be treasured

You are my campus girl

And should you think you are not,

I have declared you one.

ON THE FIRST DAY I SAW YOU.

My hair stood on end

And I strongly felt my pride bend

I was afraid you could hear

As my poor heart beat frantically with fear

That I would not please you

That you would overlook me

On that first day I saw you.

Walking in springy steps like a fairy

And wearing a smile that melt my heart

Met in a handshake,

Felt the tender touch

I still couldn’t out make;

“Aren’t you hugging me?” Ouch!

On that first day I saw you.

Hoped that the handshake

Will go above the elbow

Felt my mansion of desires going loose

My submarine of hopes going afloat

My dove of love on the shove

On that first day I saw you my love.

RED MONSTER

I saw a very old woman out in the cold

There was rain

There was a hyena

Eager to take a piece of her

And she cried out feebly for help

And she was answered

Or rather she now had company

A red-eyed and horned monster

It trampled on the only hope she had:

The feeble voice

Muted like a zombie

And the beast

Coughed out a fire of destruction

Breathed immobility in her

To eager but not quite able

To lick away her life as well.

Helpless, rejected and dejected too

Talk of desolation and poverty

Never again back to her land

Her only inheritance; and heritage too

The woman dies of hunger and disease

The monster wags its tail in joy

Then turns back and leaves her

Unburied, unattended, unmourned

Left her for the hyena to do the rest.

RESPOND DEAR

Is there more that I can do?

Tell me that I may hear

I will readily do that

Sacrifice all to do it

Open up girl to my pleas

And respond that I may know.

Not less than four letters

Have I jotted in a row

All in the name of love

Have you ignored it?

Please don’t

And if you have,

Do not keep it in your heart

Respond that I may know.

Do not keep me any longer

In the painful suspense

Poised between rocks of anxiety

Finding the delay irksome

Itching for something to happen

That you will let me know

What you think of me girl

Is there anything

That I as a man have not promised?

Paradise, Heaven, Stars, full moon

And even the rainbow

Haven’t I girl?

I now promise you my love

But do you promise yours?

Respond please that I may know.

REST IN PEACE DAD.

Horror horror horror

Sorrow sorrow sorrow

Why did it have to happen?

You birds in the air

What were you doing that you did not sing

Songs to keep our dad from leaving

To hold him a little bit longer

Listening to your sweet moving melodies

And you sun

Oh mighty ruler of the daylight

What were you doing at the tropic of Cancer?

When he fell to the dreadful cancer?

Pass on to Capricorn and do not hover

Above the region of the equator.

You are to blame you stars

That moved your wings so gaily

And caused your eyes to twinkle so merrily

That you got the attention of our beloved father

Caused him to leave us

Mesmerized by your beauty

Hide your fire you stars

And keep the charm of your beauty

To them that are worth its attention

But why our dad?

Who had given all to charity?

Sacrificed what a man can’t; a family

And got a larger one of twelve thousands

Taught us how to live

And lighted the path of glory for us

Our hearts are stone-heavy

At the loss of our beloved dad

We loved you dad and still do

And know that you loved us too

But it had to happen, rest in peace.

And you moon

You know how he loved to smile

Then you stole the chance

And smiled so charmingly wide

When all his sons were asleep

And your charm attracted our father

To come to the broad heavens above

You are to blame too.

But I now give you the assignment

You heavenly dwellers

All who contributed

To the departure of our dad

Sun shine upon him all the days

And make your sister the moon

And her maidens the stars

To attend to him for eternity

Oh mighty ruler of the daylight

Make the birds to entertain him

Till all of us meet him some day

Let your golden rays surround him in majesty

Give him your seven-colored scarf

The rainbow medal

For a life lived to the fullest

And for a race run, completed and won

We shall miss you Geoffrey Griffin

Rest in peace dad.

SCHOKO PRO.

Scatter and throw,

Seed to sow,

Virtue to grow,

Schoko pro,

I love you so!

TEENAGE WOMAN.

My two decades of existence

Keeps me glued to the classroom furniture

And the male colleagues too

Not leaving behind the city lady

The holidays argue out my freedom

And am let loose into the countryside

To the domicile of origin.

This company that I need so.

Of the human species xx

Looking for all but to naught.

They all be teen mothers

Trampled roses, imprisoned souls

I miss the beauty of the flowers

And the noise of virgin laughter

Cruelly held away from me

By these a bit too early mothers.

Nothing seems to get better,

For the light denied countrysiders

Will a sight appear in the sky?

Or an angel drop from the heavens

To bring a huge handed message

To grab the fifteen years old woman

Back to the classroom

So that am not a grandfather

At thirty years of age

Slacken your pace oh teenage woman!

TELL ME A STORY.

I can’t sit around the fire

To listen about the ogre

Who swallowed a whole village

The hare and the hyena

Because my forty years old Grandma

Pursues her Master’s degree.

Can you recall any mama?

Your eight-decade granny told

Of the times the animals spoke

So I can tell it to my daughter

And charge her to pass it on

Speak life to the ailing heritage,

Please mama,

Tell me a Story.

THANK YOU GOD.

Thank you God

For creating beautiful flowers

Flowers that have sweet scents

To keep all of us here merry

You put flowers

In the beautiful garden of Heaven

But I think there is one that is missing

Please check for a flower

Of the species of my first lady.

Thank you God

For making twinkling stars

And put them in the sky

But in the constellation Homo sapiens

A star fell to the earth

The star my love.

Thank you God

For creating beautiful angels

Angel Michael to defend us

Angel Gabriel to give us your message

But isn’t there an Angel missing in Heaven?

Yes! I saw the other day

Right here with me

Please let her stay here

This angel of my heart.

THIEF MESSAGER

We sent him to represent us

And he obediently went

To represent himself

Never forgot us though

Remembered to turn back

To bite at the fingers that fed him

To kick us in the groin

As he filled his granary

Time is up!

He hasn’t passed our message

He is cunningly back

Asking us to give him

Vouchers for his greed

Our votes

Prove to me my people

Something is between the ears

Send him away

This thief messager.

THIS SHADOW

It is a slow but fast shadow

This thing they call, I think exams

The shadow starts

With the rising of a new year

And sets when least expected

Sets on all its subjects

Creating a feeling of terror

That in the meantime

There will be no sunshine

This shadow.

The dark sets in

I have to balance the accounts

And quote Hyde vs. Hyde

The first day

And the darkness still prevails

I expect sun next

But am supposed now

To assume the boring role

Of the Kenya revenue Authority

This shadow

The economist, the auditor

They can make businesses

But what can they do about

The much I have to do?

To determine the marginal cost

Whatever that is

This shadow.

WHERE WILL I TAKE LOVE?

Heavily loaded my heart is.

Full of love and wonders untold.

Overflowing with passion.

Soaked in affection immeasurable.

Dripping tender gentleness.

Longing for just a response.

Fair damsel of motherland.

Displayed for you did I.

The shape of my heart.

Let you in the secret chambers.

And you turn your back.

As if nothing happened.

Who?

Who then beauties of the land?

Who shall I give?

Who will have this precious stone?

The one the builders rejected.

Throw the jewel to the dogs.

Because my child refused.

Or else anyone;

Where will I take this love?

GOOD NIGHT!

Kiss your pillow for me goodnight

And when tomorrow’s bright

And the morn’s full of Wednesday light

Smile for me though out of sight.

THE CAT.

Upon the arboreal dozed and limb,

Extended coccyx serpentine loose,

Throne of inspection, tenet and dumb

Stillness hunts akin stealthy Mongoose;

Except for the natal locomotive

Soft deep sufficiently immense purr

Emanating from some industry; effective

In the cover of the thick supple fur.

The lord of his unconquered empire,

Thrives on flesh and quenches on milk,

Wintering unperturbed reading the fire

That flickers, gleaming his bed of silk.

Ever landing on appendage quadruple

Acrobatic athlete not soiling once his back

Consummating in strict concealment marble

Couch of perpetual indulgence buried black.

 

[Type text]

Stanley Mungai

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Tag der Veröffentlichung: 31.07.2014

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Dedicated to Shammah