Eyes of my village town

the village town rushed to meet me.

In;

a rushed, round high whirl wind.

the folks call it a whistle.

The dust handed me the childhood memories

wrapped in a newspaper spread

the one the president calls  a meat wrapper.

After shaking hands with the dust

and wiping out some of it that hung on my eyebrows

I saw Juma.

Juma is always seated at the naked foundation stone

On the first turn of the right.

He was seated here in March 1996 when I went home

For my first midterm break in high school

In 2002 during the rainbow elections

and in 2015 when we buried the last ancestor.

Always say hi to Juma, that’s the law.

Hand Juma a twenty bob bill, that’s the law.

Let Juma carry your bag, that’s the law.

Don’t call Juma over, walk to his sitting point. It’s the code.

From where Juma sitteth,

I could see the thigh of the town

To a point where it gave up to two beaten paths

Looking like legs of a malnourished child.

The eyes of the village stay in the tired shops.

The eyes are taken out every time a native stranger

Arrives from the city. The eyes are like camera lenses

They capture, at first shot;

The colour of shoes

The car number plate

And the dress of the lady on your side.

These eyes will see you till the day you will come -

Hearsed.

Some wells just don’t dry

when the wind came he let it blow his shirt, like a balloon.

He was listening to something that sounded like a poorly dried

leather skin drum. 

The wind was carrying sounds of beats from a poorly dried animal skin drum.

and then he saw it.

a silhouette of human trying to rise from the ground.

he helped the creature to its feet, it staggered onwards.

No word.

he rested in the trance.

listened to the song of the wind.

listened to the beats of the drum.

even heard the thud of the creature, falling again.

before Shiro tapped him on the chin, let’s go home,hunnie

Shiro was rather quiet, even for her quiet standards

she cooked white ugali and peppered eggs.

they ate silently. 

     before he broke the news of his fight

with his Indian boss, Shiro told him that she had just

left job after her supervisor insisted on southern rewards.

would you marry me, they asked each other, like a song.

the power meter read 0.8 and it made a very disturbing melody.

in the death of the night they sat on the bed. the Hunters choice

     brandy tasted like sugarwater in their lips.

Some wells just don’t dry.

Of Cracks and Fortunes

There was a crack on the front wall of the pigsty. Ugly worms squeezed out.

She smiled.

She remembered how he kept talking about the past as if it will happen tomorrow.

Now he was dead. She looked at his picture one more time, and deleted.

He will wander for love, she swore.

In the streets, he scoured the books until he found Ken Follet,'s Dangerous fortune.

The worms kept squeezing out of the pigsty. She smiled again.

the last ancestor

In rainy seasons, the stream between our home

and the primary school would scream

at night.

So loudly, so disturbingly:

that the old woman who lived behind the inland church

chanted incantations cursing the orgies in the stream.

On arriving at the accident river (named so

due to the souls that got swept away

during the first world war as men ran away

to avoid being whisked away to go and fight for

the queen of England);

the stream would go quiet, and villagers

would say

the river has closed.

Ndetema, the village loudest drinker

cursed the gods and took a long sip of

the kamba wine. He smoked the tobacco leaves

dried at the fireside,

and dared Mulungu to increase the waters.

we have never seen him since ever,

maybe he was eaten by the ghosts of Indian ocean.

then we always talked about the incredibly old woman

whose house overlooked the river of accident,

the many days she shared the bed with snakes looking

for a warmer shelter, in her zero roomed hut.

when she died the birds came for the burial,

and it was rumored snakes were there too.

in her hut hang thirteen maize combs,

her only possessions, her insurance for drought.

my grandpa knew of her death without anybody telling him.

said the woman was the last ancestor.

On the Pole

Her hug warmed my chest as she entangled and said

‘nimefikiwa’.

I don’t remember her as beautiful, even with my stupor.

She was just a plain girl with a spectacular talent.

Then swirls and sweeps, bumps and humps, yummy gummy,

deep and no eye contact with her crowd.

the crowd cheered.

She left the stage and came up straight to me, fell on my lap.

Nobody noticed. Eyes were already on the next dancer.

the next one was round and hot and fake and painted.

she asked me, will you come again?

I said, yes. She asked, yes?

I said, yes. You are a very intelligent dancer.

The Battleground

Aloof

Perplexed

Stupid. I thought she would never think about me.

                        Confused

                        Losing patience

                        Inept. Her heart was in need of water.

My remoteness couldn’t read the sign.

Then in one cool

afternoon

I asked her to

come to my place. I freaked

out before

she could get

here.

She likes the conservative dress code

ironed skirts and white blouses that get washed, folded

and carefully placed at the corner of the suit case.

To wait for the Sunday service or a date.

Her shoes are between flat and high,

leaving her legs lean and clean

albeit the sun tint

As a result of her distaste for long pants.

In my crib

I kiss her

Love her

Adore her.

                        In her crib

                        She kisses me

                        Loves me

                        Adores me.

My heart is in a serious need of water.

I prepare a dozen

breaking conversation

sentences. I will

start by being

sorry that I had to

raise the topic. I couldn’t

gather courage to

speak about it, so I

curse myself and go quiet

for three months.

In between I indulge in imaginations and writing

always fighting to keep her away from my head.

I buy books from the streets, Wensley Clarkson

Hollinghurst and Adichie’s yellow sun from textbook centre.

But I get fucked up when my book man offers me a present,

of Lucia Whitehouse’s The Bed I Made.  She comes back to my thoughts

like a poorly fed ghost that has to catch up.

In my head

I make babies with her

Shower with her

for one last time

Then I give up.

                        In her head

                        she makes babies with me

                        showers with me

                        and gives up.

she steps into the empty valentine.

She calls Alvin, on the morning of the valentine

Maybe Alvin is the one,

because he has been pestering her for eons

Eons, eons

Orato eons.

She does it with tears

As if she just squeezed onions.

We will be us.

Perhaps,

For the valentine we can take a walk around the streets

of the city in the sun.

Red dresses and men with bouquets

Rushing to deliver them before they wither,

and glasses of red wines, red like blood,

filled up along sweet melodies of Celine and Shania

Or the Coldplay whispering sky full of stars.

In those red dresses, red wines and red roses

I will show you how love dies.

I will remind you that in 2004 I dropped a red rose

into the eternal home of my lovely auntie

A painful reality that roses are bloody thirtsy.

On the valentine, I will show you men blowing air

into the mouth of love praying for resurrection

While in their pockets the phone beams in fury

as Lena, that girl who sells beer at the Club Geo

tries to announce the good news that she has cooked

a French delicacy for the valentine night, with some

imported Marseille wine. The wine has a special touch of

an enhancement for a whole night of kisses and blisses.

I will show you the sadness in happiness

The pretense in smiles and grimaces in laughters

and the left side of Rouse where her sweetest darling

pulled hair from, last week when they fought

over a dildo found in Rouse’s handbag.

Jeff will turn late for the Valentine date, at 10 O’clock.

Curse his boss and whine about quitting job

for a self thing. Yet again.

That is before her cat sees the red stick oh his collar shirt

and a smell of Givenchy inside his pants.

They will fight and break up. This valentine.

I will take you to the highlands where Peninah will serve us tea

She will look at you badly,

badly because she loves to see me alone.

She serves me tea, the big mug, with smiles and grins

Making me go agape on her honey pot, you know,

She always keeps the twenty bob change.

I always ask, does she smile to me or the twenty bob?

Don’t worry about her though, in her league there is Code

Remember Code? that bloody bastard who walks around with me

He loves boasting about his bedroom exploits.

You see, Cher, we will go home after the tea

buy half-a goat meet and sukuma wiki  from Mama Moraa

we will light the candle as we always do

eat from the same plate and drink my Asconi wine

Then, just like you, just like us,

wait for the valentine to pass.

We will stay away from red things, we want life

we don’t want death and blood.

As we swim in the richness of our veins,

and arrogance of our arteries

resurrections of love will turn to ghost dreams

and in the clubs

red roses will be smashed

red wine will be poured

red dresses will smell beer

Love will die. Ours will live.

Trance

Trance

Terem terem

                     Row row row the boat       dolphin? no, no, a big fish

And winds carrying  spirits of demons ………fighting

Fighting against incantations from witchdoctors

                     And curses from Pentecostal pastors who behave like Yehova equals.

Then the cajoling feeling of a snake licking the thigh of Eve

Soft tongue, a great feeling……so soft, who wouldn’t love that?

                        Terem terem.

The jungle

                        the jungle where lion is the king but the bee still stings him

Te lion just shakes off, whirls the tail and runs after the dik dik

                        Like ladies outside 680 chasing the baldhead Italian gambler

The lion chases the dik dik, the lady chases the dick, for meat for money.

At the Weston             at the Weston the manager is drooling over a playing field

                        What a car park, perhaps a swimming pool at the far end

Fuck the poor school kids…play at your balconies or buy a PS

(The manager whistles Bob Marley’s Buffalo Soldier as he notes    some evils on paper)

Fighting on arrival                               fighting for survival

            If you know your history, then you would know, where you are coming from.

Terem terem

                     Row row row the boat       dolphin? no, no, a big fish

And winds carrying  spirits of demons ………fighting

Fighting against incantations from witchdoctors

                     And curses from Pentecostal pastors who behave like Yehova equals.

Then the cajoling feeling of a snake licking the thigh of Eve

Soft tongue, a great feeling……so soft, who wouldn’t love that?

                        Terem terem.

   

The Painful poem

The painful poem,

Of a president so dissident, that he signs into law

A bill that illegalizes this painful poem

In the pretext that he is giving Kenyans security.

A painful poem that images how the Shabaab must be scoffing us

Laughing at us for our cluelessness, carelessness and recklessness

On matters national.

The painful poem that,

even the political science professor supports issues because they are CORD

or because the issues are Jubilee.

Conjuring  demons of thoughtlessness to dine in the library,

Amid shots of Viceroy, of a girl and glasses of Namaqua.

And ululations in defeat, celebrations in turmoil

As Bishops, pastors and all men in white

Join in the game of taking sides, blindly, ignorantly and blow-fully.

This is the painful poem

Of thousands of graduates who will brush the tarmac

Paint it sole-black,

In the search for an opportunity to care for their destitute families

Disillusioned mothers and tired fathers,

Who sold land, cattle and shares

To pay for an education whose lecturers were clueless, copypasters and money hungries

Unaware of the need for quality, the need for quantity.

This is a painful poem,

Of a MP who pays the judge to implicate,

A youthman for criticizing the management of a people fund

Because doing so undermines a smelly authority embedded on,

Corruption, mediocrity, inadequacy and gross stupidity.

This poem, this painful poem,

mirrors the use of violence and inexistent laws

to annihilate fighters for justice and equity

In favor of anarchy, monarchy, allergy for justice and misogyny.

This is a painful poem,

About a country christened as a strong economic power,

Compared against dwarfs,

Used as a key PR to show the importance of extreme capitalism

Where the rich die in gold beds as the poor grapple for the paper,

and the name of God is used to describe impunity and impurity

Perverting the Qu’ran, Bible and the common law,

As a thousand ignorant tribe-mates of the king ululate

Celebrate,

and congratulate

The reverse speed to precolonialism, self-colonialism and primitivity,

Oblivious of the possibility of a Southern Sudan, a Syria or Swazi,

Where power is carried in the balls of the king,

Transmitted through ejaculation, orgasm of a mole organism.

This is a painful poem that,

Describes,

Misleadership, a third world and a no world.

This is a painful poem that cries for a Wanjiku, an Atieno,

And the Maccs who despite reading a lot of the Max and the Marx

Finds himself on his marks,

Criticizing and critiquing

But again, who cares.

Betrothing the moon

I see her, wincing. The moon winces

at the sun to make sure that

he sinks.

Then she emerges with her yellow legs,

Dusty feet and a wry smile,

Wa’sup world??

I meet her, big, round and yellow,

She is glad that she doesn’t have to look at us

Through the window, today

She is big, round and yellow.

She walks me to the verandah of the dilapidated house

The one the owner is a madam

Worked with the county council.

Madam moon tells me that she feels for her

Since she doesn’t have the money

To complete it.

She saw the day her letter of retrenchment

Was signed by a newly employed

Human resource manager,

On the ground that her typing speed was very slow.

She has no money, moon tells me,

Her savings were lost in the trips to the doctor,

The lawyer,

And that trip to India to have her breast cut,

Sleeping on the whole flight holding her rosary and

Asking her God to speak to

The Hindi God that the operation goes through successfully.

She can’t sell the plot

Because the man who sold it to her died,

Leaving behind a greedy football team fighting

To suck the coin in every asset that man had, dirge, dirge.

Changing topics, I ask the moon, what can you see?

She smiles at me, then tells me about primary school kids

Making way from school,

In wajir,

In Makueni,

In Marsabit.

Sometimes she hides her face when she sees the Shabaab men,

With blinking eyes and homemade guns

Full scrotums and khat cud in their mouths,

Then spitting the wad to scream an instruction,

Rape, rape, rape.

They rape the girls and take the boys to be child soldiers,

Screaming Al Akhbar, Al Akhbar.

I ask moon about God,

She says Allah is very good

She saw Jesus Christ when he was here,

He was a very gentle, kind man, just like Krishna

Confucius was the genius kid

And Moses was a very good man.

Moon told me that Krishna, Jesus and Mohamed,

Said hi to her on their way to work yesterday,

They were talking about the Hamas, the Isis and Ebola,

Jesus hates the death of innocent kids from Ebola,

Mohamed almost cursed,

When he saw innocent Palestine kids lying on the ground,

Krishna was sad that someone sold the lie,

Of a chosen nation.

Moon changed her serious tone,

Told me she had seen a girl and a boy in Maseno university,

Kissing outside the hostels.

Last month she saw them too, they are never sad,

Though she found the boy unbuttoning another girl’s blouse,

But boys are like that, all the same, she says.

In Kenyatta university,

She sees them outside Nyayo 1,

Many times the young lads and lassies spent more time outside the hostels,

Than they did in the library,

Then go to their cubicles to make black coffee,

And eat with stones of wheat, called gumu,

She tells me,

Love is a good thing.

She has seen men kiss, ladies kiss too,

She doesn’t like men kissing, she says

They always open their eyes, making her feel shy,

As two big black bodied glue up in a deep kiss,

Moon,

Prefers,

A boy kissing a girl,

As she measures the thoughts in the boy’s mind,

Thinking about how he will get there,

While the girl is already there.

Moon tells me too,

That the graves are good places for gay men,

Once they die, their honesty to themselves don’t allow them to lay dead,

They don’t fit in graves,

Moon says,

Anybody,

Honest to themselves don’t fit in graves.

Brown Legs

She crossed River Athi, spit at the water and cursed. She watched her thick saliva dance on the water, a dart she only saw in her basic Chemistry lessons when Mr. Thuita dropped a pinch of sodium into a glass of water.

What the fuck was all that education for? After two years in secondary school, which can be summed up to one year for the trips on and off, home, she became a woman. Her chest was inviting, the way the pastor sends invitation cards to village members lost in Nairobi city for a choir instruments harambee.

She had legs, two long and strong legs, a characteristic of beauty in both village and city terms. She had overgrown her short black skirt, but she still insisted spotting it. This made it hang on her like nuts on a madman, revealing yellowness of the legs and red underwear when seated. Last Sunday the vicar bubbled some words when their eyes met, getting lost in the middle of the sermon before his eloquence rescued him.

Mueni was sixteen, ripe sixteen. Her aunty had insisted on taking her to a place called Mlolongo where money flows like beer froth, forming a patch on the table for the barmaid to wipe. Her aunt, Wanza, once told her that she won’t have to collect coins from the ground as there are creatures down in the food chain to do that.

Armed with several English sentences and a strong accent scented Swahili, Mueni let out a loud fart, showing her back to the village, and another one, to say goodbye to the good-for-nothing fellows who had written misery on her book, since day one . The next few strides were filled with energy, power and enthusiasm, the kind of enthusiasm seen on Television screens in the evening as the British accented news anchors fill sitting rooms with body curves and smiles in between tales of killings in Mpeketoni and female genital mutilation in Wajir.

The yellow paper bag housed her fortune. She had an extra pair of pants, black. Her English teacher, Mr. Kimeu had insisted on black colour as it showed very little dust patches. The memory of how she lost her white pair of pants was still clear in her mind. Mr. Kimeu had promised to be gentle in breaking her virginity but ended up forcing himself inside as if he was screwing a whore. The pain was seething, loud, tangible and satanic. The first chance she got to sit up, she stood, ran like a dik dik, cursing the dick, that thing is fucking awful.

The following day she tried to find the bush where the play had been acted to little success.  The teacher had carried her pants away just in case she thought of revealing it to the chief. Not that the chief would take any action, but he would get a chance to extort some coins from Mr. Kimeu in blackmail. The next day in school, Mueni and Mr.Kimeu exchanged guilty glances. He even spared her when he was sending the other students for fees and gave her a five hundred shillings note, to buy something called E-pill and a new pair of panties, specifically black. Apparently, the white pair he took home had the colour of soil and a terrible smell.

Inside the yellow paper there was a pair of scissors (for shaving her pubic hair), the purple dress donation from her best friend, her faded school uniform and three photographs.

In one of the photographs she was smiling to the camera while receiving an award for been the best girl in the national exams two years ago, in Makueni County. The second one had her sick mum clutching the Rosary in her hospital bed, death bed. The doctors said the cancer had spread to her lungs and she would be lucky to survive another week.

It is the third photo which stirred mystery. She had dug it out from her mum’s closet after the burial. It was a perfect black and white shot. Her mum, in heavy heels, was holding to the bosom of a well built man, giggling (or smiling). The man had big eyes, a perfect haircut and he was clad in perfect jeans and a fitting T-shirt. Mueni felt indifferent, an indifference which swung to brief sadness then curiosity. That, perhaps, was the reason why she still treasured the photo. She thought, at least, her mum had happy moments once upon a time.

Her journey to Mlolongo was awesome. The corners at Makongo road swayed her, making her lean on the middle aged man sitting beside her, with the man taking revenge every time the bus slanted on the opposite. She wasn’t sure but she saw something like a protrusion on his trousers. She had seen a man in the circumstances before, Mr. Kimeu. “What do men take us for?”, She thought, “quarries? Holes?”.

Thank God her aunty, Wanza, was waiting for her at the stage. Everything seemed different. She saw the Royal Tavern bar and restaurant which she had heard about in many songs by Wa Maria and other wannabes.

Mueni struggled to keep up with Wanza’s speed, on their way to the house. A bigot blocked her way every twenty meters and whistles came from all corners directed to her aunt, who was clad in tight leggings which stuck on her like a bandage. Her belly was bare, revealing the immaculate hole at the centre and her buttocks danced to some music, only that Mueni could not make out which music.

The first thing Mueni noticed in the house was the giant plasma screen TV showing something she came to know as soap opera. The room was spacious and there was a separate kitchen and a bedroom. She admired the good life her auntie lived.

It was some minutes past 7 pm. A friend of Wanza, a huge lady called Scholar, passed by on her way to work. Her lips looked like they had been dipped in blood. Her shoes were high, high heels and everything around smelt her perfume, even the washroom which she visited for a short thing.

She spoke brutally, breaking into laughter in every second sentence and swearing on her third. Today she was going to meet this man, Njoroge, at the connections bar. For the last three months Njoroge has refused to leave her phone inbox. He is married with children in high school but he always complains of nags from his wife, he is 45.

Today is the mother of all days, Scholar swore. She has been hatching a plan to make Njoroge leave his wife. The previous week she was in Mwingi to buy some charm. 

“See”, She said, lifting her dress to show a bronze ornament tied around her waist, with the strings dangling such that they kissed her pussy lips. Njoroge won’t play with her clitoris without touching the string. Mueni was bewildered, not just by the string, but also by the pantie Scholar was wearing. It was a thin thread which barely covered her genitalia, before embedding itself into the flesh, between her buttocks to meet the other line of the thread at the back.

At 35, her sun was disappearing. She needed to get a man of her own since clients have been few and far apart.

“These young sluts have flooded the market”, she whined

“Yes yes”, Came in Wanza.

“Or is it because I have grown a pot of Tusker”, Scholar thought, “Perhaps, and those flabby rounds of flesh on your belly”, Wanza chimed.

They took a round of some red Asconi whisky, cheered and wished each other luck. Scholar carried her goodies so carefully, so slowly, so bewitchingly. If only Njoroge knew!

In the closet there were some clothes already bought for Mueni.

“Try this”, Wanza handed her some tights, “Nataka ukae Nairobian”

“Sawa Auntie”, She said, dashing to the bathroom which doubled as the washroom.

After Wanza examined her and thought that it fitted her perfectly, she urged her to the bathroom to take a shower, the two of them, the same time.

Wanza was doing a detailed assessment of Mueni’s body, whether she was still a virgin. She gasped when she inserted her middle finger into Mueni’s  vagina.

“What happened”, She asked,

In sobs, Mueni explained the ordeal. Wanza was so disappointed that Mueni may not fetch the price she was looking forward to. But an idea struck her, “the hole is still very small, we can easily fake virginity”, she thought to herself.

After a bathing tutorial, and a whole lot of it, they prepared supper, together. Wanza was very sorry for the passing of Mueni’s mum and she promised to take care of her.

That night Wanza turned away two men who had come to stay over. She described, to Mueni’s shock, her business strategy.

“I don’t go to the streets”, she started “Maisha ni gumu huku, lazima mtu ajipange”

The truck drivers waiting for transit are her main clients. She gives them something better than just sex. You see, they also need a good bed rest without fear of being robbed or seeing another man on the line for a go.

“Take Mokaya, for example. He stayed here for two months when he was on leave. I could cook for him and do everything a woman can do to a man. By so doing, he will never think of taking in the young school drop outs who don’t know how to bathe” She said.

That only reminded Mueni that she was a drop out and she had just been taught how to bathe.

The following weeks were filled with cooking, watching Tv and walking around Mlolongo. Wanza co-workers always flocked the house in the afternoons, giving their tales of the previous nights, men who would cum before they were in and others who would never cum at all. One day, Anne, their special strategist, confided to them a new market.

“You see these pastors, they have money”, She whispered. “You only need to make sure they notice you, in no time they will be calling you for mid week prayers”. They all agreed to try the scheme.

By the end of the first month Mueni had gained some weight, lightened in colour and polished her Swahili. She was looking the part. She had developed a very good rapport with her auntie. The same time, Scholar was happily married to Njoroge, thanks to the juju.