Tuesday 17 June 2014

Crying For A Death Bed



Man,
 Isn’t it a bad way to die when a crook with a cock-head hits from back?
Spraying bullets at you,
Or having to at stare this fellow in the face as he shoots you
First at the place between your legs, then your tummy
Waiting for you to move closer to the wall,
Then smears the wall with your head-blood
He gives Fatuma’s husband, that man who loaned you money to take Amina to form one
The same dosage, only rougher, more ruthlessly, violently!!

Mzee Juma was from the Kiosk
He had negotiated with the shopkeeper for one hour to get Unga for his hungry family
Still chanting prayers to Allah when the bullet halved his spine
No time to look back, no time to remember, few minutes to die
He dies holding the 1kg packet of Unga firmly
Hoping his wife will find it and cook some porridge
And get some energy to wail, and, cry for him

Man,
Don’t you find it cooler at the death bed, far much better than the blood bathe
Unable to remember the decades,
With a blurred image of the war in Burma, many worlds ago
Telling your sons not to fight for the plots
Listening to the slowing heart-beat, giving you a few more seconds
Then closing your eyes, dreaming the last dream, the last dream
Family and friends won’t wait for some Lenku to say it is some Raila
Or some president to read a poorly written speech by a university student
With long empty words, empty words, emptier than a bachelor’s fringe.

You see, man,
Matata, the NSIS guy deployed here became a mnazi addict
His trousers smell the pee unwashed for days
And his mouth will scare the mortician, when he dies
Afande and his friends always walk to the shore, to wait for the fishermen
They take kitu kidogo. Everything is theirs, even the fishes in the deep seas
Then they swirl their potbellies to the brothel
Pummel their way to the girls sent by their mums to sleep for Unga
Threaten them. Make violent sex to them. Without a penny!
As baldhead gunmen spray bullets to Mpeketoni, the bank, the hotel and the grotesque police station!

Man,
The TV in the new pub showed an advert which fights crime
Safety is me, safety is you. Nope, safety is them
I hear once the cameras are put up here
Those hell-bent baldheads will get scared and run sea caves
Then the commissioner’s car will be removed that black thing which makes us not to see him
And we will be safe. Peaceful.
Man before then we will die, die and die, till the news reach state house
And the helicopter gets repaired to bring the cameras.
Man, I will go home early, such that when they come to kill me
I will be on bed, fast asleep. Then I will die on my death bed.

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