Jennifer-noxolo Musangi

Our Programme for the future

2012-01-18T16:38:00.000+02:00

There is a myth doing the rounds

That we no longer have a need
For a conscious revolution

There is a myth doing the rounds
That radical politics is reactionary
For a civilized population

There is a myth doing the rounds
That Black people have become racist
For a theory of evolution

There is a myth doing the rounds
That Black women are too angry
For a role of reproduction

There is a myth doing the rounds
That continental Africans are ready
For a project of neocolonization

There is a myth doing the rounds
That queers are poster children
For a large-scale demonisation

But this the programme for the future

We refuse to sing love songs
In the midst of hate crimes

And

Africa will no longer be a woman
Embodying fourth-nationalism

The programme for the future
Will entail the criteria for admission

And

By the time we are done with you
You will understand our need
For a revolution

In world beaten into submission
Warped by the vagueness of a prefix
Post-race
Post-sexism
Post-Black
Post-Patriarchy
As if the postcard in your post office box
Did not box me!

I speak with my vagina

2011-09-14T17:35:00.000+02:00

You
See
there's been a bad smell
a disturbingly sour smell
almost like rotten amasi
stirred in cow dung and milk

a smell from my vagina

my vagina has learnt to yell at my gynae
about his flawed diagnosis
that emphasizes
the propensity
of candidiasis
for this specific
body part

and i have had this conversation
with my vagina
asking her
to seek
medical attention

no
i have become
a prisoner
and when your mouth
became my guardian
i was muted
and i learnt to
close my lips
caught between
the smells of
the daily toils
of your thighs

i am the vagina
and i want to speak
just as much you do
yell about
rape
violence
pleasure
desire

and once I have learnt
to speak
of sex
your mouth
will know
delegation
specialization
division
of labour
for i do the shit

and this smell
is the smell of queer intimacy
caught between
fluids
fluids that
I wont wipe
until i can
finally air my hair

Dear Body

2011-09-11T00:54:00.002+02:00

These are the commandments in bullets
these demands you must ever obey
from now on

always love your own
and never hinder desire
please let pleasure just be
whether you
ready or not
in public or private
please dear body
learn to embrace yourself
in ways no one else can
and when you've unlearnt
the rules of conformity
wrap yourself in your hands
and let your heart embrace
that of your own

God is spelt with a Q

2011-08-30T13:41:00.000+02:00

God has a tendency of rocking up at my door

God has been stalking me in my dream
And I have learnt to sleep with my dream
Cuddling
Caressing
Moaning
Laughing
Crying
With a dream

Then she woke up and flapped her bedding
Trying to get rid of strands of blonde hair
As if she was wishing away whiteness
But her dream was up and gone
Then she rushed out
Breathing
Panting
Panicking
catching up

But when I got to the door I could move no more
caught in a yarn of orange and purple wool
I stumbled and fell on my face
The wool looked like a blind cat with green eyes
And when my heart leapt out the cat's ears
I knew it was God
Wearing baggy jeans and kinky hair
And my heart shook my hand
Breathing
Panting
Panicking
With intensity

Fuck damn dyke the cat has been saying to the green eyes
her heart had learnt to wear pink lipstick and skinny jeans
and wool had become a web of butch dreams
caught up in mascara too heavy for coloured eye shadow
Cuddling
caressing
Moaning
Laughing
Crying
With God

I know you once had a cat named pussy
But entangled in your dreams she's been blind
And your green eyes aren't exactly white
So when God called herself love
Love became a dream
Your pussy dreamt of seeing again
So God started wearing hats
God dropped the G
G in G-string
and spelt her name with a Q
She has just woken up
Her dream is love
And she just learnt
That God is Queer

STROKING MY GRANNY

2011-08-08T15:26:00.000+02:00

I used to look at my granny's labia at the onset of my puberty

I would stroke her clitoris while I bathed her in those days
I did not think that she'd be lesbian or even knew foreplay in her time
But i still looked at her two sunken lips and docile extension
I guess it was the curiosity that gave me thoughts on physical manifestations
the physical manifestations of womanhood, corporeality and embodiment
I used to wonder if this vagina popped out all her ten children
then why was granny's labia and its relatives so inactive now?
I used to think it was old age that had caught up with her or the freaking diabetes
You know the other day my doc said Diabetes does reduce sexual activity ?
But I know Diabetic women who still stand on Oxford Street as sex workers
But again is Sex Workers an appropriate term for women having 'transactional sex'
Or just a term trying to fit women's bodies into late capitalism and neo-liberalism?

My granny's labia perhaps should never be a topic for engagement
Not only because she's dead now but because it is a taboo subject
I don't think many women even talk of their own pubic hair enough
to warrant a talk of some body part that is now part of an ancestral whole
But I want to talk about what I saw in the bathroom so many times
This body that just wants me to talk because it is perhaps part of the 'memory project'
The memory project on which my thoughts have always coiled themselves
memories that often obscure my imagination and take priviledge over creativity
Of course my granny had nothing peculiar in her bodily geography
She would never have qualified for Georges Cuvier's exhibitions
Of Black women with 'pathological' steatopygia and elongated labia minoras
She would never (well, may be...) have been taken on a freakshow or museum in Europe
But her labia still took away my onset-of-puberty excitement about my own body

I know I lie a lot and by now you know I am lying about caressing my granny
I never stroke my granny's clitoris or even thought she'd be aroused while I scrubbed
But I always had many questions about my own body that I needed to ask
About what it felt to have a drunken man touch your labia everyday
Especially after your church meetings and women fellowships where women spoke like virgins
What was it like to have sex with a man half of whose brain was left in Burma in 1945?
A man whose bolts had become so loose after fighting a war he didnt understand?
I wanted to know whether it was that 'unwanted' sex that had made my granny's labia that cold
Whether it was all the hogwash of Christian teaching which conflicted her desire for sex
Teachings that made sex look too sinful for present day discussions of women's bodies
That should never be seen as evidence of sexual activity but as tunnels for posterity?
I really should have stroked my granny's labia then!

Lest we forget

2011-07-18T13:10:00.000+02:00

Black Child's Pledge

I pledge allegiance to my Black People.

I pledge to develop my mind and body to the greatest extent possible.

I will learn all that I can in order to give my best to my People in their struggle for liberation.

I will keep myself physically fit, building a strong body free from drugs and other substances which weaken me and make me less capable of protecting myself, my family and my Black brothers and sisters.

I will unselfishly share my knowledge and understanding with them in order to bring about change more quickly.

I will discipline myself to direct my energies thoughtfully and constructively rather than wasting them in idle hatred.

I will train myself never to hurt or allow others to harm my Black brothers and sisters for I recognize that we need every Black Man, Woman, and Child to be physically, mentally and psychologically strong.

These principles I pledge to practice daily and to teach them to others in order to unite my People.

The Black Panther, October 26, 1968

by Shirley Williams

The Ashtray

2011-06-27T16:57:00.000+02:00

I have not been as lucky as my other sisters
Not lucky in the sense of having an easy life
I know not a Black woman that kinda lucky
For our lives are often not smooth stretches
Something always happens along the way

A racist and lazy Ma'am at the washing machine
A rude and chauvinistic brother in the banking hall
A disillusioned and delusional teenager at the spaza
A judgemental and self-deserving madala in the taxi
And a nagging and dismissive mother-in-law at home

Now you tell me what is so smooth in our lives
When the sticker next to my taxi driver speaks to me
'I am tired of women sitting in the front' it reads
And my mind immediately registers Black women
For it is my Black sisters and I often in this same taxi

So with this sticker my day begins, off the taxi into the world
And mine is a journey perhaps not by many travelled
I'd love to think that this pain that I constantly have to endure
Had nothing to do with my Womanhood and Blackness
But no, my circumstances are slightly doctored by my biology

Some of my sisters do not have it as hard I heard
But while I fight all forces oppressing me and mine
I will lift up my head and on their behalf intercede
And at the Caucus I will let the ancestors decide
The fate of my overflowing wooden ashtray

if god asks me

2011-04-11T16:34:00.000+02:00

If She asks me why i chose to die this way

If She wants to know why i could live no more
If She asks me why i did not choose a better way
If She wants to know why i got frail and freaky
I will tell her, i will tell God why

I will tell God why I silently sat weak and shaking
I will tell God how fear became so overwhelming
I will tell God when attacks of seizure became me
I will tell God where the thought of death all began
For sure God will want to know

And as I pass past St. Peter of this popular myth
I will look him in the eye and excuse myself
For I want to only speak to God herself
And explain this feeling in uncensored words
Certainly God must give me a woman-to-woman minute
But while I impatiently await that moment
I will cross the road at the red traffic light
Hoping some drunk hates me as much as his hangover
And in a momemnt of pity looks at me without looking
and with his long and wide truck loaded with steel
Scatters my brain by the sidewalk and slowly drives off
And if God asks me why, i will tell her

Semen on Seventh

2011-04-11T16:31:00.000+02:00

While in the chill of Joburg's winter you now daily coil
cuddling in the imaginary arms of the partner only in your mind
Melville's 7 De Laan refuses to sleep with the rest of you
And in the thick of the night in the midst of half-closed eyes
Penises go on a voyage shedding off their usual ugliness
Standing erect competiting only with the straightness of the equator

And while you sit there hot water bottle on ur back
coffee mug in ur arm while the other caresses your thermo pillow
Listening to late night news which now sound the same since the last FIFA official left
While the newsreader tells us the price of crude oil like we care to think of its refined other
and monotonously emphasizes the strength of the rand against the Euro
Someone on Seventh is being deeply sexed

Well at some point sex tires of masquerading as love
Or else tell me how hungry people can make love on a pavement in winter
By now I know a homeless man's semen in the cracks by the pavement
Next time you see me just ask me how

Craig David and the time of my life

2011-03-14T14:42:00.001+02:00

"Sometimes you feel the fight is over...." Today I woke up with exactly that feeling of giving up. Devastation. I am defeated. I am awfully depressed and although I may walk through every day as a winner, i am only human. I still can't stop listening to myself repeatedly sing Craig David's Rise and Fall. It's not the kind of singing that would make one come to terms with their situation or rise out of it, but singing all the same.

Today is one of those days where death looks easier than life. I hope that todayI get hit by a truck and wake up to nothingness tomorrow. I do not want to live anymore and I am sure the universe will forgive me if I die without having accomplished my life's purpose.

In my next life, I will remember to check my "To do List" from this life.

Curses, Madness and Other obsessions

2011-01-12T16:30:00.000+02:00

Hello and Happy-No-Longer-New Year!!!

With my busy life on Facebook, I often forget to blog and just write those 420 charater-status updates on Fb as part of my random rumbling and grumpling. Today i will give this a try!

I want to do something I have not done before- at least not to strangers- like you and them. You must be wondering what's up with her now. No, don't run away with your mouth (that's the lastest phrase I have acquired from my Shona friend). This is not a resolution; I didnt make any this year- I'm still working on the ones I made in 1999 at the turn of the millenium and the year I sat for my O-levels.

So, yea, today i will talk about love. Strange ne? I know I know.

You see I find love -or is it loving- quite strange! At the end of last year my very good brother and friend, Raphael, who happens to be Italian but loves his dagga and Black Label diet, asked me to submit poems for a collection/anthology on Love and Romance. Your guess is as good as mine, I didn't and still haven't. I am not sure that I will (I promised him for the umpteenth time that I will when we met in Newtown last Saturday). Ok, where was I? Yes, writing about love is not something I do...well, I am not sure if I love either.

That not withsatnding, I have decided to write about love today. I hope that no one reads this blog post!

Anyway, so by now you all know I practically do not have a love (aka sex) life. This is due to numerous, and I mean numerous, reasons that I still havent prepared myself to disclose (should I say yet?). So last night was quite something else (direct translation, I cant remember from which of my many languages).

I left campus at around six in the evening and on the way decided to pass by my friend who has been ailing for a few days now. Between the two of us we can chat endlessly so I am sure that you don't expect me to remember what we were talking about before we found ourselves talking about my last ex-boyfriend ( I have had numerous boyfriends who luckily have all acquired a prefix: EX). Ok, now out of the many boyfriends, this is one oke I will never admit to having ever had dated. No, no, no! I have manged to convince myself that I never did and I will forever work towards convincing everyone else. Hell no!!

Anyway, after that chat we both agreed that my ex (let's call him W for the sake of characterization) is mad. To just put you in the picture, W is turning 30 this year but he has been carrying this self-importance for such a long time that you'd imagine he was in school with Kwame Nkrumah! He looks old and acts old (minus the wisdom part).

Ok, I'd rather stop giving you this profile because even the thought of him makes my stomach turn! Did I tell you he's very ugly as well- ok, my granny said pple aint ugly; some of them just have interesting features- iiiiiii mar this one? (Sorry that was a 'native' subconscious moment)! So, yea W has been completely obsessed with me for almost three years now and can't imagine me with anyone else. But yesterday, I mentioned to my friend that my once-upon-a-time-darling-ugly W told me that for as long as he lives I will never be with anyone else. He has kept his word. I have not been able to be with anyone else and even when I try things don't work out. My latest potential boyfriend just told me that he's gay! Well, not really my fault; he just happens to love other men which is completely perfect with me if only he could stop treating me like a stranger!

My friend's theory therefore is that W cursed me. W literally LOCKED me! LOL apparently there has been some serious 'African Science' going on in his life and I need to go see him for unloocking my potential (ok, this is from an advert)! So, now here I am thinking about Witchcraft, madness and love and cant tell the difference!

By the way, i just happen not to believe in witchcraft but this theory is quite fun. Will explain to you how it works once I am off FB!

Love n peace

RAILA ODINGA'S CALL FOR THE ARREST OF GAYS IS AN INSULT TO MY INTELLIGENCE :(

2010-11-29T10:22:00.000+02:00

So yea there you have it. Raila has said it. Raila has validated the homophobic prejudices amongst most Kenyans. What Raila says holds a lot of clout in Kenya. When Raila speaks some people do not even pray on that day because "thus says Raila- the Lord".

It is saddening. Not just because of the struggles of the LGBTI community in Kenya but because of the systemic oppression of a people, citizens of a country by the same 'people' who need to protect them. It is this moralism that eats up contemporary society. It is this sort of 'universal morality' to which we all should subscribe that tears my heart. It is when a duality of 'good' and 'bad' sex is created by ignorant 'leaders' who do not themselves always fall on the 'good side of sex' that sexual 'deviance' is illegitimized. This is the 'trouble with normal', Michael Warner will tell you.

I do not particularly care about Raila's homophobia as much as I feel disheartened by his utterances on the arrest of gays to a community that is already (almost inherently) homophobic. For Raila to call for the arrest of gays makes a bad situation worse. Given the number of times that violence against gay and lesbian people are arrested and harrassed by both the police and millions of 'uninformed mobs' in Kenya, finally this violence has been validated by one of Kenya's most 'powerful' politicians.

I will not waste my energy ranting about Raila's utterances. I will not waste my anger on him because he does not even deserve a minute of my otherwise busy schedule but i will point out one thing (to whoever cares to listen): Calling homosexuality 'unnatural' is so I-dont-know-what century. i believe that it is during sex, whether queer or normative, that people become 'natural'. It is during sexual activity that people become more animal than human. They get rid of their inhibitions and sexual shame and stigma. After the activity then they go back to their 'unnatural selves' of separating the private from the public and trying to be 'normal'. An attempt at fitting in within 'norms' set out by Lawd-knows-who. It is an argument that can never hold.

This 'homosexuality is unnatural' claim is ignorant and utterly annoying. It is a construct of religion, the state and heterosexual normativity. It is a way of disciplining 'deviant' sexual bodies. It is way of thinking that enforces the dominant/ normative social order and it is way of excluding a percentage of the population based on patriachal rule.

I fail to understand why most Kenyans do not get it. With the new coinage of 'mpango wa kando' or South Africa's 'makwapeni', why do we still have heterosexual people who believe that their sexual orientation is 'right' and moral?? Why don't they think cheating on their partners is equally a form of sexual deviance? If we are looking for a society that is sexually moral, why is it important to keep pointing at Raila's uncircumcised penis anytime he starts a campaign? Why is it necessary for Raila to point out that his wife Ida is not complaining about his foreskin? Because whatever goes on between the two during sex is not anyone's business, right? Ok, so whose business is it when two women buy didldo's the size of a baobab for their own sexual pleasure? Why is homosexual pleasure a shame? Why is it stigmatized? Why is it punishable by your fucking-annoying law?

I will tell you why. it is because most of us grow up in societies that are supposedly heterosexual on default. We grow up with our families expecting us to bring someone of the opposite sex home. We are taught about sexual shame as toddlers. you are taught not to touch your genitals and they are 'christened' so that they do not sound so shameful. You carry between your legs a willy-nilly or a veevee, you are told. It is time for Kenya's utterly-homophobic community to realize just how equally 'shameful' their sexual lives are. It is time we learnt to stop this moralizing discourse and advocated for basic human rights.

If you think the LGBTI community wants to be 'normal', forget it. people should be able to carry their sexualities on their sleeves if that is what they want to do. They are not going to be ashamed of themselves as you are while driving through Koinange Street for a quick pick-up before you go home to your wife or husband carrying the 'odour of illicit intimacy'.

By the way, stop invoking the stupid Adam and Steve rhetoric because we all do not believe in the same god(ddess). And calling homosexuality 'Western/UnAfrican' is an insult to the intelligence of an African thinker.See More

Hands

2010-11-26T11:44:00.001+02:00

Hands smooth and soft

Unscathed by life’s worries

Only haunted by ghostly fairies

Untouched by roughness

The roughness of the Black skin

Black skin born in the fields

Bred on bread from the worst breed of bran

Those hands I have touched

Those hands I’ve been rubbing recently

Hands that have held guns

Guns whose bullets have gone through hearts

Hearts of my little brother and drunkard uncle

...Listen to this deafening silence

And I have learnt to ignore the paleness of these hands

For I now know there is no Black and White

Only brown and pink, brown hands entangled in pink

And pink became pink when they peeled off brown

For years brown was peeled off and trashed in cans

Each can awaiting brown hands to pikitup

The soft hands whose bearer I now walk with

Hands that now hold me like a gun

Abreast, cocked up and set to shoot

Set to shoot at whoever dares the past

For the hands of our time to the raceless race belong

me speaks

2010-11-26T11:41:00.002+02:00

me

i speak

speak while picking pears for your pickle

speak of love to these walls

speak love in your wars

speak is my peak

and if you see me speak to me

carry on like you saw nothing

my madness speaks

madness understands

for we speak

speak

speak because we know love

because we see love

see love where it’s not

felt in the wave of flowing water

in the direction of the whirlwind

in the striking of lightning

in the gathering of rainclouds

speak

me speaks because i can

A Fat Black Woman's Poem

2010-04-22T12:02:00.000+02:00

I am so curvateous, voluminous and lumptous
I am the fat black woman that you loathe
The fat black woman so extravagant
Extravagant with melanin and body fat
The black woman who made fat a bad word

So I am fat and that bothers you
So you wish I wasnt as fat and dark
So you want me lean and pale but nay I refuse
For comfortable in its pitch black skin
Is this fat black body

And i shall speak until tomorrow
About my black skin and body
About your idealised feminine body
About your preference for light skin
For I neednt fit your description

While you want me slim and shady
I will watch the poor things with pity
As they diet, eat and purge
To walk down your runway
And with myself I toss to good living

This is the fat black woman
The fat black woman from the South
The fat black woman born in the North
The fat black woman you gotta live with
For she refuses to make an early exit

for the same reason

2010-03-31T10:31:00.000+02:00

think of me as less human if you want
think of me as a heartless being coz you can
think of me as an agent from hell for you are not
think, think brother think

but while you sit, whine and cry over me
cry of a sister long gone, lost and never found
cry for i shall never stop; no i can never stop
stop this talk, this talk of a black woman

a black woman whose life to you belongs
a black woman whose life you run
yes, this black woman who can never be
the black woman who can never be her

because when i get pregnant i am loose
because when i use pills you say i'm fat
because when i don't i can't abort
because the church is god on earth

and the church lives my life
and the church runs my inner me
and the church makes laws for me
these laws that bind me, caught up under my skin

i am a woman, an angry black woman
yes, yet another pitch black bitch you think
and because you refuse to see me
caught up under your laws, oppressing and suppressing my being

that is why i will go on and abort
that is why i seek not your permission
that is why i too shall not see you
for i am a woman, a woman with choices

if i must die

2010-03-29T17:23:00.002+02:00

if i must die let it be today
if i must leave make the exit now
for i tire of waiting, wailing and whining

if i must die let it be soon
if this must come make it smooth
for i hate to die like a loser, a pauper and a mourner

if i must die let this be it
if it must be you then take me in
for you for sure death must be a man.

thus the can moved

2010-03-29T16:56:00.002+02:00

the breeze starts hard and violent
the can starts rolling in its direction
the wind blows again and again
harder than when it first began

the lights turn, green, amber then red
and the can stops just in time with the cars
this can with a mind of its own
keeps rolling, stopping and moving

the lights turn green again
the can joins the highway
just like the rest of the traffic
but turns right while the cars keep left

lights green on the highway
and I watch the can move on and on
totally undeterred, unstoppable and unmoved
the can pedals its accelerator

still in the opposite direction the can moves
moves then stops right on the yellow line
and with bated breath I watch the can
watching for drivers race with the can

attention shifts, cars, cars and more cars
but no one hits the can and there the can sits
lights turn amber, then red and the can parks
just right on its right and there it stops

the breeze continues; the can starts reversing
reversing into the T-junction right below my balcony
now back into its initial feeding road
my eyes follow this can, strange and alive

back and forth the can moves, up and down
faster, slowly then faster, slowly and faster
and conjures up these memories
memories of this life this life constantly in motion

memories of how often my life is this life of a can
taking risks on the fringes of the yellow line
going against the traffic; never getting hit
not getting crushed by life's oncoming traffic
this life, like the can, with a mind of its own.

faster, slowly then faster

and so I killed him

2010-03-29T16:49:00.002+02:00

a quarter a century on, on and on
i grappled with the known and unknown
the known i knew not that i knew
the known only known to a few
but all the same known and no more new.

the knowns that bother me more and more
the knowns that matter so much more
and knowns that my thoughts still shapeth
knowns whose knowing to the unknowns leadeth
the unknowns we know not yet we know we knoweth not

the unknowns that I knoweth not I faced
the unknowns that made me what i became
the unkowns that so much eagered me
to know the unknowns whose not knowing i knew
those unknowns mattered to me no more

those unknowns mattered to me no more
when i stopped trying so hard to know
when i embraced unknowing as knowing
when he no longer was an absence but a presence
yes a presence, the presence of a desire

and in my mind he existed no more
in my mind he remained an unknown that i knew
in my mind his absence mattered no more
in my mind remained the presence of a desire
and so I killed my father...in my mind, mind, in my mind

thus sleep died

2010-03-29T16:48:00.001+02:00

a bare back did I see when i turned

denunciation, rejection and refutation

of a child once dear, of a thing once clear

so i watched the bloom of gloom and doom

I watched tight-lipped while off sleep slipped

and thus they left, the slices of death we call sleep

death and its other nightmares

2010-03-23T23:28:00.002+02:00

death and its other nightmares
I was not sorry when my grandmother died. When I first read Tsisti Dangarembga's opening line in Nervous Conditions I was taken aback by such indifference towards death. "I was not sorry when my brother died", Tambudzai says of her brother Nhamo's death. Like Tambu, I was happy that my grandmother died. For different reasons though. Not because I didnt love her. Not because she never mattered to me. Not. Not at all.

So yes, there you have it. I was born when my mother was only 15 years, or was it 16? Whatever. Now you can imagine what my Gran meant to me. She was my mother. My mentor. My, my, my my everything. The greatest love I ever had. I miss her now that I am talking to strangers about her. She breast fed me even though my mum was her lastborn child and I am telling you those sagging-sacks-once-known-as-boobs had milk enough for me and whoever else would have wanted. So yes, my granny died last month and I am still stuck with this and I am still not sorry. I am sad. No, not so sad but kinda happy.

So mum tells me that Granny was in pain before she died and I have a feeling that she is tryna make me feel better about it but yes, she was in pain, I believe her. Well, wouldnt it be better if she remained in pain and I could still see her? No, that's selfish, isnt it? Ok, so now I am happy that she died and wasn't in pain anymore. This makes me sad.

I spoke at my Gran's funeral and perhaps what I should have said is that I am just a drunkard, a smoker, an ass that my Granny never wanted me to ever be. Perhaps what I should have told all those people is that my Granny always made me cry when I thought of how much she had sacrificed for me. For us. Her grandchildren. I never told them about people she had said should not even bother coming to her funeral. I refused to tell them because my uncles and aunties would have kicked me out of home. Especially now that the only one person who cared for me soooo genuinely was no more. Now that she was gone, I would have been sent to my father. A father I never had. My Granny was my father. She understood my tears. She read the subtext in my smile. Yes, she lives on in my life.

And with this t-shirt hanging on my wall. The t-shirt I wore at her funeral. With her picture and her favourite Bible verse. I see her everyday. I hear her telling me to take care of her family. I hear her so clearly. I look at her and feel the pain but though I cry, I shall not feel sorry.My Granny covered up death's ugly face. I never knew anyone in my family could die. Not her. No. Anyone but her. She was so immortal to me. When she hit 70 and prepared us all for her death, I ignored. I knew she wouldnt die. She didnt. Years, many years after she often went into a coma but I still knew she would live. This immortal woman still lives. To me she is not dead because I refuse to humour death.

But when my Granny died I went to see her at the morgue just before the funeral. And oh what beauty! I want to have a good looking corpse when I die. All the pain was gone. Absolute beauty. Granny made death look like a cool thing. She really did. Her death was exactly as she wanted it. Her funeral just as she told us. Church dress, white shoes, next to grandfather, Bible verses, hymns etc. My Granny buried herself. My Granny organised her funeral when she was alive. And that there is pure genius.

Caster Semenya: Rethinking Gender in Kenya

2009-08-26T16:03:00.000+02:00

Facebook, my friends tell me, is my stage. I have been on this stage for a few years only and through Facebook's 'interractive theatre', I have had to, as Sylvia Tamale would have it, learn,unlearn and relearn what exactly it means to be a woman, and perhaps more specifically, to be a black woman strongly committed to the feminist agenda.

The events of the past few weeks in South Africa and the world have sent me thinking more about the question of being a woman. I constantly have had to revisit the place of women in a patriarchal world and mostly when this patriarchy is engineered by patriarchal females. Caster Semenya has been my name in some circles. Mrs Semenya has been my latest asset after my numerous other assets of identity. I have my personal feelings about 'Mrs' as a title but that aside, I am deeply disturbed by my being a Mrs Semenya a name which could possibly refer to Caster Mokgadi Semenya's mother in Limpopo. What does 'Mrs. Semenya' say about gender stereotypes? How does my being Mrs Semenya buy into the same debate about Caster's being male or female? What are we actually saying when Caster becomes my boyfriend? What does this 'labelling' say about the people using it? What is invoked by such ridicule of a woman who has been at the centre of IAAF's gender testing (whatever that could be)? How about when this label is given to me by women? What can I make of this when the women are Kenyan (the country of my origin)? How does such ridicule of Semenya reflect the place of gender in the Kenyan society?

I am deeply disturbed, to say the least.

Perhaps it is easier to laugh and make fun of a black woman that has been labelled 'male' or 'not quite female' by white males. It is, indeed, of no consequence to you when that woman is not your sister, your country mate, your mother or even you. It is of course more fun when that woman is a Caster Semenya with a deep voice, facial hair and masculine physique. It is a lot more comic when IAAF claims to have found much more testerone in Caster's genetic make-up than is 'normal' for a woman.

Of course, you are not Caster Semenya. Neither am I.

I agree she is not Kenyan and may be it get's easier for you to laugh at her because she won a gold medal against your own Janet and many others. But wait a minute, where does this leave you in issues of gender and inevitably, the question of race?

I am a worried Kenyan woman.

Am I perhaps too emotional about an issue that doesnt concern me? Am I just carrying burdens of the world? No, of course not. This deeply concerns me and burdens of the world are my burdens. I cannot fathom what exactly is going on with Kenyan women and others elsewhere. I feel that it is time women took issues of women representation very seriously and personal. An insult to Sarah Bartmann remains an insult to me as a black woman. I take it personal when Caster Semenya is considered to be too good for a woman. I feel deeply insulted as a black woman when black female bodies are paraded for the male gaze in hip-hop, rhumba, advertising, in the fashion industry etc. It is an issue of grave concern to me when young men and women form groups on Facebook for women to post their pictures so that they can show how HOT they are. I have no issue with 'brief dressing' (I am so guilty here) neither do I find make-up problematic but my concern is when such 'skin exposure' becomes an exhibition of black female bodies soliciting affirmation (usually from males).

I refuse to buy into stereotypes about how a woman should look like. I am not going to be part of what appears to me to be an emerging, material, flashy 'women oppressing women thought'. Count me out when a disturbingly high percentage of Kenyan women decide to be patriarchal females in a society in which the same women are emotionally, physically and otherwise abused, children are raped over and over etc.

Come to think of it, how loosely can we still take these matters?

I am off to facebook.

the trouble with freedom

2009-08-14T22:23:00.004+02:00

And so there I sat, spat and stared

Sat right under the shadow, the shadow of an image I forfeited

Spat outta my mouth bitter litres; the bitterness of shame

Stared at the dream ; yes, the dream I gave up

But I just sat; sat, spat and stared.

But I just sat; sat, spat and stared

For I knew not why you were there

There where I once was; a place I once ruled

A place in which they mint; mint such greatness

And I stared at how ugly I looked; ugly outside the centre

I stared at how ugly I now looked

But unto me you stared back and spat

Spat not bitterness but scorn; the scorn of failure

The failure of a heroine; a heroine famous for failing

And thus I swore; to cry freedom I swore

To cry freedom I swore; to be that which I always was

And freedom you granted but I still sat, spat and stared

Sat on my big bum that only knew swinging and farting

Spat out the aftertaste of gossiping and backbiting

Stared at you as you said, "Buddy, that's the trouble with freedom;

you knoweth nay what to do with it"

if only you wore mascara

2009-08-14T22:20:00.000+02:00

on me did it dawn with a frown
the ache, pain and sting in town
yes, the hurt i had to put down
put down the twinge and rage on a page

and so i sat and pewed
thus firm with my bum
and into my mind they came
two bold lines of blackness

the lines of your tears
the tears of your pang
the pang in your tongue
unto men to say, 'if only you wore mascara'

do call me reactionary

2009-08-14T22:17:00.001+02:00

Forget not to call me reactionary
When I look you in the eye
And shout with all my might to fight all night

Call me reactionary and I'll be glad
When I call you a racist
And clearly state for respect of animals can't call you a dog

Please do call me reactionary
When I cry and try
To say gays are human, man or woman

Call me reactionary I say
When I call you all names
A bigot, polygamist, a misogynist worth no feast

But as you call me reactionary
I can only click my heels and swing my hips
My reaction to the ignorance of your arrogance

if only i was a grown-up

2009-03-25T10:20:00.002+02:00

when i grow up, i aint sure i will
perhaps if i grow up, just if i will
i will be all i ever wanted
for all i ever wanted was to grow up

not quite to grow up, perhaps
but just to be a grown-up
or do all that grown-ups do
well, just to be a grown-up

if only i was a grown-up
a grown up even for a day
i would do that thing
that thing that all grown-ups do

if only i could be a grown-up
perhaps i would be a better woman
if only i were a grown-up
even without growing up, i would

i would be a grown-up
a grown grown up in a grown-up life
but a dream mine may be
or a nightmare of ever being

Of Menses, Pain and Dirt

2009-03-12T17:09:00.001+02:00

I call it womanhood
My sort of femininity
This thing called being
The being of a woman

I no longer call it dirt
When I sit and mess
(are menses a mess?)
Not the mess that I get
From that male gaze
Staring at the mess
The mess of my menses

I love it; just being me
A woman in pain
Yes me in pain and dirt
Because these menses
My productive reproduction
Makes me me
The woman of my being.

Of hacked emails and the 'powerlessness' of denied access

2009-03-04T09:50:00.001+02:00

Perhaps this is the last time that I am posting anything on this blog. Someone might just ban me from it by changing my password, changing my secret answer, changing my country of residence or whatever else it is that I may need to reset the password.

I have been proudly telling my friends (and now enemies)about how cautious I always am about spam and scam. The brilliant side of my brain advised me to have as many email accounts as I could possibly have and of course with different names. So, me thought that I would have an account with yahoo (in fact I have two yahoo emails), hotmail, gmail, and as fate would have it two institutional email accounts.What my brilliant side of my brain forgot to tell me (and which the daft side of the same brain worked on) was that I should never have anything linking any of the emails to each other.

In total, me has five email addresses ...oh that was before they got hacked. I now have two addresses (both institutional)...no, I have five email addresses but with access only to two. I do not have access to the other three because my password is wrong!! That is funny, right?

I am devastated to say the least. One of the yahoo emails is my primary email and I use it for very important contacts and information. Somehow, however, I miss my hotmail account access the most! I use it for FACEBOOK men! For the last one week, I cannnot access my Facebook page (could someone please tell me what is going on there?). The facebook addict in me is having a nervous breakdown (or is a nervous condition?)

I feel violated, annoyed, disrespected and utterly irritated.

How do I begin to think of signing up for FB afresh? Where do I even begin? It is the most incapacitating thing that anyone has ever done to the person of my being.

I have lost almost all my contacts. I feel like I am closeted away from the world happening around me. I feel like I am being stalked. I feel like a helpless African slave in a caravan to Europe. I feel like a passenger in a hijacked car. I feel like a homosexual forced to act hetero. I feel angered.

Perhaps I am so angered because I never thought of myself as a target for scam and spam. Perhaps I feel so violated because I thought this always happens to my less computer-wise relatives and friends. Perhaps I feel so incapacitated because I no longer have control of whatever is sent out to my contacts in my name.

It is one (and all) of these things that worries me. "Your email was selected randomly and you are the winner of...Please send your details to this account", "My name is ... I am stuck in (somewhere in Europe, Gaza, Darfur etc) and i decided to send this email to all my friends so that you could debit my bank account number...for my rescue", or even having yahoo/ hotmail notifying their clients of me as a scammer! OMG these things freak me out. Just imagine googling me and the first result that comes up is my expertise in scamming!

Perhaps I shold not be so angered. But hey, I would be less irritated if it was only one email...

If you do not see any more posts here, I have lost access to my blog.

Taking Lessons from Maya Angelou

2009-02-26T17:39:00.000+02:00

Still I Rise
by Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

I LOVE THE FACT THAT OBAMA IS NOTHING MORE THAN A WANDERING KENYAN SPERM

2009-01-20T16:36:00.001+02:00

Stop throwing tantrums about the whole principle of reduction that my title uses and listen to me. Don't you like it when you say to a dog, "sit" and it does? Now you are sitting!

Today is Barack Obama's inauguration as the 44th president of the USA (before this, I did not even know that G.W Bush was the 43rd)...Now I know. If anything has propelled one country in Eastern Africa called Kenya to fame, besides, wildlife, tribalism and a WWF champion one Lucy Kibaki aka madam first lady, that thing is Obama. Never in recent times has anyone's private life been so public like that of Barack Obama. Never has the whole world looked at one person and dissected his life like surgeons would do to a body in a theatre. Now we all know Obama's kenyan granny is called Sarah, we even know the date that his Hawaiian granny died, we know he quit smoking recently...we know just too much about Barack Obama.

Most Kenyans now know more about Obama than they know about one Mwai Kibaki besides his golf expertise. I hear Kibaki still says that when he grows up he wants to be Tiger Woods. Kenyans all over the world are just overwhelmed by Obama's accending to the US presidency. When the little boy (the son of our soil...dont you wish Wahome Mutahi, alias Whispers, was still alive to write about this?)became Illinois senator, Kenya Breweries Limited (now EABL) brought us a cheap beer brand called Senator and we all drank to Barack Obama.

Definitely, EABL is not going to give us a beer called President because the title conjurs up in the Kenyan mind an image of a person worlds apart from Obama. In fact this man is so different and ugly that he decided not to have his face put on the Kenyan legal tender (notes and coins). Hey, that is besides my point...Lucy and Mary know better, it is the beauty and beholder thing.

Today, thousands of Kenyans are in Washington D.C (I still dont understand why there is Washington D.C and Washington the state) for Obama's inauguration. Breasts and bums brushing and shakes and hugs passing all in jubilation for Obama. Introductions have been extended from "My name is Kimani wa Mugo" to " I am Kimani wa Mugo from Kenya". Suddenly, it is a prestigious thing to be Kenyan. But hey, I can't believe that in the midst of all this, I am glad that Barack Obama snr left his family in the USA at such a tender age.

I am sure you are now thinking of me as that same sadist blogger with no new year resolutions.

Whether we admit it or not, to me, Obama is a wandering Kenyan sperm that happened to be caught up in a favourable 'uteral' space. Hey, no need reminding Kenyans that Obama is actually American because they know this it's only that Kenyans love their parties from funerals to child naming ceremonies.

Well, thank God Obama Snr never brought little Obama to Kenya as a young Kenyan. Thank goodness Obama is not a Kenyan citizen but an American. If Barack Obama was truly Kenyan:

1. He would be dead by now because Kenya is allergic to good politicians (but I aint sure he would be as good).
2. He would be guilty of tax evading because he would definitely be the member of parliament for Kogelo, that is if he survives political assassination also called disappearance.
3. He would be caught up in the Luo/kikuyu thing. Of course he would be just another Luo looking for fame.
4. He would be shutting down motions on legalizing prostitution and ending up at Koinange Street at night.
5. He would have to put up with all the crap America says and does to the rest of the world.
6. He would be in millions of pictures on their way to the West asking for Aid for starving Kenyan children and never getting a thing.
7. He would be one of the thousands of former Nyayo House detainees and possibly wouldn't get the two beautiful daughters.
8. Kenyans would have had less public holidays last year
9. That journalist would not have thrown a shoe at Bush because he would not have anyone to compare Bush with.
10. I would not be writing this blog.

I am going to write a letter to Barack Obama Snr, to thank him for the favour he did the world by not bringing up Obama jnr as a Kenyan. As you drink and party to Obama's inauguration, please remember this great sperm donor, one Barack Obama snr and pour libation!!

Lol, some things just cant be captured in a poem...well, the more reason I aint a poet.

I Died Last Night

2009-01-07T10:39:00.000+02:00

sometimes when i close my eyes
i see better than when I open them
sometimes I want to keep my eyes closed
to see all i cannot see with them open

many times when i close my eyes
i see just circles, big layered circles
other times once my eyes close
i see drops and dots and doodles

Several times once i close my eyes
i want to keep them closed
to make sense of all i see
to read those circles and dots

last night i did not want them closed
i wanted to stay awake if only to have them open
not to see the bigger dots called circles
to avoid those smaller circles, those dots

those dots and circles i know
are a variation of the same thing
different sizes of my life challenges
and did not wish to see them last night

thank heavens i died the whole night
thank god i closed my eyes not
pretty cool i opened them neither
because i died, died an awesome death

i died for hours last night
before I realized my might
to just win the fierce fight
and not prove enemies right.

i have died many times before
but last night I died a death
a death never before died
a larger slice of death it was

An Attempt to Love

2008-12-09T11:07:00.000+02:00

No matter how many times we fought
No matter how many quarrels we had
No matter how much we harboured hate
No matter how much we disagreed
We had a wonderful time together

Now that you are going away my love
Now that you won't be here my dear
Now that you leave me behind dear heart
Now that at night we shall no longer hold
In my heart you shall be missed but tightly held

Memories your homecoming shall bring
Memories of a father no longer there
Memories of a son turned dear hubby
Memories of a brother now darling daddy
But memories filled with gratitude

To the father above I pray dear Sweetheart
To the father above I commit you my Love
To the father above I look upon
To the father above this is what I say
"Lord give to them the strength to soldier on"

Until that time my darling
Until that day that I knoweth not
Until that moment we shall hold
Until that minute comes my Sweery
Patiently shall I wait, for those slices of sweetness.

my name is...

2008-11-21T22:05:00.000+02:00

desperate for in-laws
we left armenia
only to trample on laws
in our new homw

god-sent saviours we were
and to your land we came
lending money to them
them who sold us out

like televivon series we were
gave the soaps a break
took up the centre stage
all entertained for no pay

you all did brand me
and my brother too
you believed me not
so pure lies i told

i told you my name
but what did you say?
i used that for fame
that name was russian

at the coast i hear
i am mariakani
and my brother they tell me
you call sarakasi

still want our names
well...my name is...
ask the commission of inquiry
yes...that commisison of inquiry

mrs. malaprop

2008-11-20T11:59:00.002+02:00

today i met her
our lady of 'isms'
noticed her by far
before she to me spoke

from confession she said she came
but sweets and cakes she had
it was the confectionery she meant
oh! lady malaprop.

seats she saw by the roadside
beautiful sofas they make
of velvex she told me
oops! of velvet my lady.

a large crowd stood by
arguing and bargaining
looked like a religious congratulation
but a congregation it seemed.

to me mrs malaprop spoke
of politicians diverting
from parties one after another
yes, defecting she meant

thought the pick-up in her mouth
was the actual problem
did i say pick-up?
oh! our lady calls the toothpick.

i call it as they called it; malapropism
what our lady does
with words to words
our 'learned' lady, mrs malaprop.

facebook addict

2008-11-20T11:57:00.000+02:00

Thula Thula Mama Africa...Sleep Well Miriam Makeba

2008-11-10T15:23:00.003+02:00

I am sure this is a nightmare. Someone please wake me up.

Miriam Makeba. Your voice is so clear in my head right now. Last night for some reason, I couldnt resist listening to the unison of your voice with that of Harry Belafonte! What else could soothe the heart thus?

How beautifully you made those Xhosa clicks, mum. For some reason I wished i was Xhosa...even for a day.

You are dead.

How often you sang, "Thula, thula mama thula thula mama thula thula mama thula"! Oh how often I wanted to sing "Qongqothwane" but couldnt! Even if I did, it wouldnt be the same thing that you so rhythmically did, mama.

I admired you in Sarafina.The strength, the optimism, the resilience...everything that you have always been.

But that must have been a beautiful death mama. Wasn't it? On stage? Wow...many ways of dying, indeed.

A good looking corpse that must be.

Fare thee well the hero of Africa. Sleep, thula...lala salama as your voice goes on...malaika nakupenda malaika...nami nifanyaje kijana mwenzio nashindwa na mali sina weee.....

Please Claim Your Piece of Obama Before He is Finished!

2008-11-07T10:37:00.003+02:00

Obama may be an American citizen but we all seem to be making claims on a piece of him. In fact, i just realized that Obama's cousin's brother-in-law once lived in the city council house that my mother's first cousin's friend's step sister-in-law once lived. So, what on earth would stop me from being Obama's relative in addition to my added advantage of being Kenyan? By the way, I am changing the name of my blog to something closer to Obama, no matter how remote!

I found an article in the East African Standard interesting.

I am posting it here albeit with no permission but I know they can't sue me because the Obama fever is something that me and them share!

Enjoy and please claim your piece of this 'new global cake'.

Global Obama inspires the world

Updated 11 hr(s) 56 min(s) ago

By Joseph Murimi and Reuters

Brazilians of mixed descent say he looks like them and called him Mulato.

Japanese have a city called Obama and for that they rallied behind him although his win may not benefit them directly.

Americans own him because his mother, Ann Dunhum, was a white American from Kansas.
His maternal lineage has been traced to Great Britain, specifically Scotland, making Europeans also stake a claim on US President-elect Barack Obama.

A genealogist disclosed, last year, that Obama was a descendant of the monarch who ruled Scotland from 1165 to 1214.

Muslims claim he is one of them, but Obama maintains he is a Christian.

A leading television channel in the Middle East kept announcing that Obama’s grandmother and most of his family members in Kenya were Muslims.

His late maternal grandmother and half sister live in Hawaii.

Biggest claim
However, it is Kenyans who have laid the biggest and most elaborate claim to the first black US President.

His father Barack Obama Snr was born in Kogelo, Siaya District, Nyanza Province.
His late father’s community say Obama is a Luo by blood and therefore, their son.
For that they broke into wild celebrations when he was declared President-elect of the most powerful nation.

Holiday

President Kibaki declared yesterday a public holiday to allow Kenyans celebrate the historic achievements of their "son".

He addressed the nation live on national television exalting the virtues of Obama and not forgetting to say he had "Kenyan roots’’.
Early this year, Prime Minister Raila Odinga claimed Obama ‘was’ his cousin, according to Luo traditions.

From Africa, Asia, America to Europe to the Muslims and Christians, everybody claims a piece of Obama.
The US President-elect connects with the whole world and can be referred to as the global President.

Like Americans are wont to say, everybody wanted a piece of the Obama pie.

Led in polls
Every opinion poll from the leading pollsters Gallup to Cable News Network, indicated Obama was leading his Republican rival John McCain.
And when the final results began trickling in showing Obama in the lead, the world broke into celebrations.

With a global appeal, cutting across religious and racial biases, Obama was tipped for a landslide win.

Meanwhile, Japan’s opposition hopes it can emulate US President-elect Barack Obama’s victory with his promise of change.
Many Japanese voters, however, doubt their politicians have what it takes. Polls show many are weary of the conservative Liberal Democratic Party, in power for the past 53 years.

Huge task
But the opposition Democrats, who share a name with Obama’s party, face an uphill battle to prove they can do a better job.
"Japan doesn’t have young and charismatic politicians like Obama who are calling for reform," said 38-year-old Keishi Matsuoka.
Flagging support for Prime Minister Taro Aso and the LDP have not translated into a boost for the Democrats.
"If we had an election, I think most Japanese would be in a quandary," Matsuoka said.

I Tire of Crying Whenever Obama Speaks

2008-11-01T09:44:00.002+02:00

Perhaps in my later life I might consider being a professional mourner!

For some reason, I love funerals. Not death but funerals. I love the performance and the ritual that defines these ordinary yet so extra ordinary dramas. Sometime back I was in my small village somewhere in Mwingi (one of those places in Kenya where there exists only a single season throughout the year; summer or dry season if you like). I was in this village some time in the later half of the 1990s or thereabouts. My aunt had recently come from Canada and she was into this business of catching up with the hard life of Ukambaniland. For some reason I was always excited whenever I had to accompany her as we got into the deepest of the deep village zones.

Ja, I was talking about the ecstasy of attending funerals. I am being sadistic again, right? Hey, hold up...I don't rejoice in death just the burying part.

So, I attended this funeral in the village which sent my auntie and I cracking. Well, it was one of those 'celebration of life' funerals because the deceased was a rather old woman. Life is a crazy journey if you ask me. It is amazing how much the human species takes to routine."We Inyaa Nzangi ai susu nukwiie nanduia we?"...Well, those who don't come from the land of the Akambodia, a woman from the crowd got up at this old woman's funeral and said "Nzangi's mum you know granny is dead and you aint crying?". When 'Nzangi's mum' heard this she got up from the midst of the crowd and sent a defeaning scream.

This was the beginning of my admiration for professional mourners. This is what I think I should be... A professional mourner for hire especially when the 'not so good people' die and no one is willing to mourn them...good riddance after all.

I have been following the US presidential election campaigns quite closely. I have been watching in a rather biased way though. I have been watching more of Obama than McCain (I am thinking of stopping eating that McCain vegetable brand).

You see, I am not American (by now you know). In fact, I have never gone to the US. I know American states because I read novels and watch Hollywood movies. I only know the US from the weather man. What I don't understand is why this US White House has suddenly become a personal experience for me. I am so tense about the election yet I will still eat my ugali and kachumbari whether its McCain or Obama in the White House. I am getting annoyed with myself for getting emotional about this whole purely American thingy. Why do I cry when I watch Obama promise tax reduction for Americans? Obama is not worried about the fact that R 200 at Pick n Pay cant feed me for two days yet I feel like he is talking about me anytime he talks about Americans trying to make ends meet. What is so wrong with me to put my hope in Obama.

I tire of crying whenever Obama speaks.

I cried in 2003 when Kibaki became a reality to Kenya. I think I just have this habit of crying whenever joy grips my ego. I cry when I see how far my granny has gone with living her bonus years. I cry to think of how much my mum has sacrificed for my sister and I. I cry many times in a day.

Atleast these many times I cry, I understand why. I know I cried when Kibaki won the 2002 elections because I was stupid enough to imagine he would be far much better than Moi. I cry whenever I talk about my granny because she has been my mum, dad, sister and brother in my life. I cry when my mum says 'I love you' because she understands how disappointing men can be.

But why do I cry when Obama speaks?

Hold on...It's got nothing to do with my misguided 'other' who thinks Obama is Kenyan just because of his Dholuo name or because a sperm from Kogelo happened to be present in his making. No.

I tire of crying whenever Obama speaks and that's why I am considering being a professional mourner since I can cry for virtually anything. Call on me for professional services.

Still this Obama thing beats me!

Declaration

2008-10-30T10:03:00.003+02:00

Dear God,

I, the undersigned, declare today the 30th day of October, 2008 that I will no longer hold you responsible for miseries of my own making. I promise you that I will let me and I fight until they either sign an MOU to form a government of national unity or until one succumbs to be the other's alter ego.

Help me, O God.

Your faithful but disloyal subject

Giving God a piece of my mind on what I think of him

2008-10-26T10:24:00.002+02:00

For a few weeks now, I have been thinking of the whole religion bullshit. Then you know what God does in all this mayhem? He messes me up like crazy.

I have reminded God in the past that whether he thinks i am being blasphemous or not; he owes me an apology for pains I have gone through in the past.

This time he blew me up.

You know sometimes I want to be a good christian and say although Christianity was not really anything divine, the colonial missionaries got away with disrupting the African subconscious and reversing our cosmology. why the hell couldnt the motherfuckers leave us alone and do whatever it was they came to do without having to bring us a God who does not understand any African language?

I dont know what the fuck my grandmother was thinking getting all of us into this ass licking of a God who doesnt give a damn about us. Poor woman, like Okwonkwo's father, Unoka she succumbed to the pressures of pale skin. Thank God she wouldnt see this post last she dies bitter.

You know what God? You have let me down so badly; I hate thinking of it.

Perhaps if I was white I would understand when you say you will never abandon us. Perhaps if I understood your language I would ask you a few questions. But what reason would you have to listen to me if you have ignored me before?

Tell me dude, where are you everytime I get hurt?

Please dont tell me you are with me because I know you are not.

God, I think sometimes you are so selfish. You keep telling me how much you love me but dont you say that to everyone else? Perhaps you are busy with other people and you have put me on hold and forgotten. If you are so powerful God, why dont you make me my own smallanyana God to attend to me. Make him black if you want because may be a black God would understand when I get hurt in my language. May be a black God wouldnt mind showing his face to me because we are family!

In the meantine, it will take forever for you to change my mind on what I think about you. Anyway, I know you wouldnt even know my thoughts because you dont give a damn about me.

amos kwito

2008-10-23T13:12:00.002+02:00

you sing
beautiful songs of course
but timing
wrong timing amos

beautiful songs
to the ear of course
but amos
must it be so close to my ears?

i like that noise you make
it is so musical; so rhythmic
but amos
not when i need my sleep

i love you amos
your music too love i
but i hate it amos
your irritating sting

this guy called amos
this son of kwito
could be better
without the sting
oh! his music at the right time too
amos kwito

eyescream

2008-10-10T14:31:00.000+02:00

I saw this i scream tub
and you know what eye do when eye do
eye did what eye do
you no icecream and say
"icecream four my love of eye scream"

Desmond Tutu Vows not to Vote:Reflections on Kenya

2008-10-08T11:34:00.001+02:00

this is highly personal...I am one of those many people that only think (and actually believe) that news can only be bad news. We have a reason to watch news when mbeki gets recalled from the presidency, when Zuma is set to appear at the Pietermaritzburg (the spelling here always gives me trouble) court or even when we have to watch one of those natural calamities so fond of China and India. Lately, i have not been reading/watching Kenyan news because apparently there is no news. There are no more news about women and children getting burnt in a church, graphic videos of landslides in Meru, Lucy Kibaki slapping Cliffords and so on. Today, I saw Kibaki on SABC international and as usual he stammered through a speech that I could not follow on electricity so I had a reason to check the Kenyan papers just to know what it was about. Well, I checked the papers but never read the story...It was boring...I love real news...Call me a sadist if you will. I have lately opted for the OdD nEwS part of the Standard News as a result because of its black humour.

Well, there are disturbing pieces of information that I find scattered in the papers about currently sitting MPs preparing for 2012 general elections. I just cant believe it! There is nothing wrong with campaigning but really after the 2007 drama, it's still too early to start pulling our pub(l)ic hair. Hearing the Nobel laurate (another one of those problematic words) winner Emeritus Tutu publicly declare that he is not going to vote in SA's 2009 elections scares me. Tutu has seen nothing yet in South Africa...just a little acrobatics in the ANC, which Gwede Montashe tells us, will soon end (By the way, dont you find these chaps daring to want to ask Mbeki to campaign for the ANC?). Well, my problem is suppose Kenyans said, like Tutu, that they will not vote in 2012? At least South African votes are still powerful but kenya...Lol!!! We are all carrying spoiled votes!

I will continue with this later because...

the girl i met

2008-10-08T10:23:00.000+02:00

yesterday i met a girl
a slender gentle girl
who looked happy; not very happy
no she looked sad; not quite sad
i met a girl yesterday
that i do not want to meet today

yesterday i met this girl
this girl with a tale to tell
but kept it hard at heart
stared at me like i knew it
but had pretended i did not
i do not want to meet this girl today

this girl that i met
had a complaining face
blamed me for her fate
but was too late
for me to understand that
for the girl i met will never meet

yesterday i met a girl
that i hear is no more
that i now want to meet
to help her stand on her feet
to be blamed no more
for the girl i met hunger has taken

this girl that i met
i will never forget
how sad she looked
how much she suffered
how appreciated my help would have been
the help i never gave
to this girl that i met yesterday

yesterday i met a girl
who is now gone
who i didnt want to meet today
but many more i met today
and sure tomorrow will
meet girls, girls with the same look

you too met this girl
who blankly stared at you
but you never looked back
just walked, walked away
will you still walk away today?

DON'T

Please walk away not
for that girl, that gentle slender girl
needs you just to live a little longer

she hates the man she loves

2008-09-25T10:37:00.000+02:00

all night i sat and watched
as she stared, spat and sneered
squeezing her increasingly swelling belly
wishing he was there
not wishing that he did a thing
just being there; but he wasn't

she crawled, wailed and wallowed in pain
and all i did was sit and watch
wishing i could press her sore tummy
but i could not; i just couldn't
for she said he should

he is the man that she loves
the father of the child
the child swelling in her belly
the child whose father she loves
but really feels she hates
yes, my other me is in love
in love witha man she hates

South Africa After Thabo Mbeki: A Lesson for Africa

2008-09-22T11:42:00.001+02:00

I was reading an essay question set for third year students in the Discipline of International Relations a few days ago and I was amazed at how much I couldn't fit in the question in "U.S Foreign Policy" for which it was meant (by one Larry Benjamin) without thinking of Africa.I am certain that in a series of events in global politics, Barrack Obama, Joe Biden, the Clintons, John McCain, Sarah Palin and whoever else has been in the platform of U.S politics have taken the interest of the world (represented by the (melo)drama of the media). In several months, today the world gives US politic(ian)s a break and we can now all turn our eyes towards the South of Africa. This is South Africa; a country in which the discourses of politics have been changing drastically (and scaringly so) since Polokwane. I lost it I guess; you see that is why I prefer writing poetry and chopped prose because I have a fragmented mind. Ooops ! This post was not about me but do you really think anyone would employ me as a journalist if this is how I wrote? By the way, IF( I aint sure I will ever do at the rate at which idiocy is catching up with me)I grow up I still insist I wanna be a journalist.

Sorry, I am sure I lost you but please dont stop reading because i just remembered what the US Foreign Policy question I wanted to talk about was (that was long before I became self-indulgent-though I am sure you are not surprised): "Do great leaders cause great crises or do great crises call for great leaders?". I know, like me, you are possibly thinking of your own president (and the lucky(?) ones like Swazis and our bothers and sisters from Lesotho your kings)instead of thinking of US presidents like William 'Bill' Clinton, Reagan, the two BUSHES and others. It is understandable...This is Africa. It is amazing how introspective we become in the wake of unusual events in the world of politics.

Last night, the President (is it still correct to use the title?) of Africa's America; the Republic of South Africa made a public announcement on the State owned media corporation, SABC on his resignation. You know, I am not a sweetheart of Mbeki (that doesnt make me his critic, or does it?) but I cried. I can see you asking What I have to lose anyway whether South Africa is ruled by the ANC hawks or doves (did u watch Vuyo and Gwede on SABC2 Morning Live today?). Look here, I aint sure you wanna know what was going on in my mind as I watched Mbeki tell the world (and I quote):

"I have been a loyal member of the African National Congress for 52 years. I remain a member of the ANC and therefore respect its decisions. It is for this reason that I've taken the decision to resign as president of the republic,".

Where else in Africa has this ever happened? Where else in Africa is the president answerable to anyone? You see, no matter what Mbeki has done to South Africa, JZ, ANC and whoever else, the statememnt above, redeemed him. What a dignified man!! Speaking of how introspective we become in times like these, I couldnt help thinking of African political giants forcing themselves down people's throats! Mwai Kibaki, Uncle Bob Mugabe (by the way I admire his wits and black humour), Girma Woldegiorgis and others yet they are not fireable despite the fact that they have not achieved a quarter of what Comrade Mbeki has in 9 years!!

Personally I do not know how to react to Mbeki's exit. All I have are questions about the state of democracy in this Southern African country and the whole of Africa by extension. Could it be 'true' (matters of truth are so scary sometimes)that perhaps the ANC's NEC's firing of Mbeki was not done with the interest of South Africans at heart but the settling of internal party wraggles...At least this is what the president of Independent Democrats one Patricia de Lille thinks. Is it that Mbeki was a great leader who was only unfortunate to rule in a time of great crises or did he cause the great crises? So, without Mbeki who will be blamed on the fact that my water taps were dry this morning? Could it be that South Africa expected too much from Mbeki? Perhaps, the ANC is just going through mid-life crisis and it is high time it stopped being a movement and became a political party! Who will be blamed on ESCOM, AIDS, poverty, Crime and all the challenges that South Africans have always blamed on Mbeki? Where else shall we vent our angst, anger and frustration once Mbeki is gone? What else will eTv's Justice Malala analyse?

Fare thee well, ntate Mbeki but one thing that bothers me right now is how much the political party structures in the rest of Africa would save the continent if they were strong and had as much power as the ANC! Nkosi sikelel'iAfrica

By the way, this was meant to be a poem!! Lol!!!

the guilt of innocence

2008-09-18T13:48:00.000+02:00

once upon a time
a father was just that
a brother was a brother
an uncle; an idol
yes, a shamba boy; a playmate
but now? monsters; ogres

those eyes
those little blank eyes
that only knew care
that only knew trust
that only knew love
all these' no longer know

those eyes
those little blank eyes
now know fear
now know mistrust
only know hate
yes, the new ways of the world

those eyes
those lttle blank eyes
those eyes of innocence
those eyes that knew guilt
robbed of their innocence
robbed of their blankness

those eyes
eyes once blank
eyes once innocent now see everything
now know guilt
those little blank eyes

i am tired
yes, very tired
tired of singing
tired of crying
tired of speaking
of those little blank eyes

i am tired
yes, very tired
but just can't cease
i can't just stop
singing, crying and speaking
of those little blank eyes

let us return
let us return to the olden days
yes, once upon a time

then shall we rejoice
then shall we sing
of joy, peace and innocence
of those eyes
those little blank eyes
that once knew nothing

i am a part-time white

2008-09-10T12:05:00.000+02:00

suppose you were treated as kindly?
suppose you never felt out of place?
tell me how you would feel

tell me how you would feel
if people greeted you with a smile
how would you feel deep within you
if children wanted to touch you
how would you feel tell me
if anytime you talked someone mimicked your accent
how would you feel i wanna know
if robbers and muggers gave you special-client-treatment

tell me you wouldn't feel white
and there goes a liar
sometimes i just feel the way you do
this white woman trapped in a black body
it is the pain that i feel that scares me
for you so hate me for being black
it is the fear of pain that i fear
and a part time white i have become
though my skin betrays my insides

neighbourliness

2008-09-05T15:33:00.000+02:00

the best of my mother's teachings
is all about good neighbourliness
she taught me how to be a good neighbour
if my neighbour does not have salt
and i have some my mother said i should give it to him
if my neighbour does not have money
and i have some i should lend it to him
if my neighbour borrows my car
and i am not using it i should give it to him
if my neighbour goes for a long journey
and leaves behind his family i should take care of them
my mother taught me to love my neighbour
to love him
to love his wife
to love his children
and to love his animals

so if my neighbour is out of town
and his wife is in need of something
something she surely has not
and that i readiy have
i should give it to her
because i love my neighbour's wife
because that is good neighbourliness
this one time she comes
in need, real need of help
she asks me for a night
should i refuse?
but i am a good neighbour
i give her a good night
because
that is good neighbourliness
and i promised to be a good neighbour

good neighbourliness has no bounds
unless my mother forgot that bit
i love jesus
for my mother loves him and i love my mother
i must be a good neighbour
i should love my neighbour
i did my share
of being a good neighbour
i helped his wife
because i love her
so, if his daughters come to me
i shall help them too
because i love them
and if his househelp comes to me
i shall help her too
because i love her
i love my neighbour
i love his wife
i love his maid
for that is good neighbourliness

should i write a poem?

2008-09-04T16:27:00.000+02:00

should i write you a poem?
no no i wont write any poem
for i know not one
or even what it should be
for only poets write poems
and i aint a poet.

Rita Rudner

2008-08-26T17:14:00.000+02:00

Men don't feel the urge to get married as quickly as women do because their clothes all button and zip in the front. Women's dresses usually button and zip in the back. We need men emotionally and sexually, but we also need men to help us get dressed.

2008-08-22T16:39:00.000+02:00

Poetic Muses
Powered By Ringsurf

strange stranger

2008-08-22T10:23:00.000+02:00

i am very strange
or so they think
for i never ask
though i know not
and i am never sad
even when they are bad
yes, i never cry
but always try
to be that which i am
a strange stranger

finally...levi mwanawasa

2008-08-19T16:19:00.005+02:00

they told us you were dead months ago
mbeki observed a moment of silence in your honour levi
then they told us that that defined media lies
we had started mourning you properly, i swear we had
but they were not telling us the truth
those of us who loved you so much
those of us for whom you spoke
today they came out clean
told us that you were gone
told us that they have a successor
but how do we mourn you levi
when the media broke the news again?
we want to mourn you honourably levi but we are scared
fare thee well baba...

the other woman

2008-08-19T14:46:00.000+02:00

you hate me for my coloured teeth
coloured by calcium in the water i drink
you hate me for my dark skin
darkened by the hot sun in the fields
you hate me for my rough palms
roughened by the work of my hands

you do not like my skin colour
the colour of death at funerals
the colour of drug addicts in hollywood films
the colour of satan in pictures
the colour of africa in literature
the colour of inferiority in europe

you say i am not beautiful
because i have a funny fat flat nose
and a pair of full stuffed lips
and a highway sized gap between my teeth
and baobab legs with anthills on the calves
and a big fluid bottom that looks unattached

you think i am barbaric
because i cannot wear those clothes
clothes that i say are for men
clothes that show my big tummy
clothes that look like an artist's painting on my body
clothes that i must use soap to put on

you think i have no manners
because i eat ugali in the morning
because i do not throw away left overs
because i sing as i work while you sleep
because i cannot sleep with my father-in-law
because i refused to face the knife

you prefer her to me so you say
to drink her saliva as you kiss
to see her face that looks like an art gallery
to touch her bleached pink pale skin
to hear her bones creak in friction
to admire her dressed in a dress the size of your handkerchief

go and tell her to go away
i want her out of my way
tell her to pack and may be pray
before the break of the day
because of her i have fallen prey
to your comparisons everyday
but wait a while I have something to tell you
go and tell her to go away

coffin voices

2008-08-15T18:25:00.002+02:00

listen to this...immortal man
can you see me?
why am i so pale?
am i not stiff?
what happened to me?
i cannot hear my voice

why am i here?
how did i get here?
you say i am dead?
but why?
tell me how
you immortal man

did he run over me?
was it murder?
oh...the suicide mission
did you say i was sick?
o...the fire at night
but you say no

listen to me immortal man
speak to this multitude
but tell them no lie
on my life or death
am i dead?
why am i hearing you?

cry not for me you liars
for sooner or later
i shall send you a letter
if i find the place better
but no...stop a moment
where am i going to?

where thou art?

2008-08-14T10:28:00.004+02:00

when theses are dedicated

it is more to the mothers than the fathers

when lives are celebrated

it is more of the mothers than the fathers

when special mentions are made

it is more of the mothers than the fathers

i aint complaining about it

i aint questioning your conscience

i aint interrogating the 'order of things'

[and i know Foucault would applause]

i aint sympathising with anyone

i aint attacking anyone

but...

where art thou fathers?

2008-08-12T19:24:00.002+02:00

http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0

imagining

2008-08-11T20:10:00.004+02:00

i am looking at this dot

this dot that looks so small

this dot that means so much

this dot that carries so much sense

what is it about this dot

this dot called a fullstop

this dot called a decimal point

this dot called ...ooops!

yes, you are a man and so what?

2008-08-08T18:39:00.003+02:00

because you are a man
some fluid substance in your head tells you that you are better
because you are a man
an echo rings in your ears that you should and are privileged
because you a man
something in you keeps on saying that you deserve the best
because you are a man
you convince yourself that any woman will sit and suffocate under your buttocks
because you are a man
that is why i am talking to you about your manliness or manhood
because you are a man
i want you to know that a man is only a dick
because you are a man
i want to be very clear that your manliness is only defined by a sticky thing called a penis

lest you forget
that stick does not make you a better person
lest you forget
that stick does not improve the fool that you are
lest you forget
having a hole called a vagina does not make me your subject
lest you forget
allowing you to put your penis into my vagina is not a favour that i dont deserve
lest you forget
i am writing this poem because you seem to have forgotten yourself
boy, the whole of you is just a drop of semen from an older penis

whispers

2008-08-01T18:59:00.000+02:00

shhh
you hear them whisper
in their razzle dazzle
in hustle and bustle
will never settle
even after a battle
know very little
or even nothing
but are the painters
to paint your image

with their brushes
will paint your image
to turnish and furnish names

are the gurus
know the rules
on streets they pose
to get the daily dose

for no penny for pay
let them paint
and tint
and pile files of lies

forgotten clay

2008-07-28T11:29:00.001+02:00

is it that you do not care
or just that you cannot dare
to meet your child
to give love however mild?

is it that you did not sire
or just that you are a liar
to be that silent
to have love that latent?

is it that you do not feel
or just that you have no deal
to be responsible
to do the impossible?

is it that it was not planned
or just that it happened
to doom your life
to put you off?

is it that she is too secretive
or just that it will be abortive
to tell me the truth
to clear this myth?

is it that you changed your attitude
or just that you see no magnitude
of having some passion
of respecting this creation?

i hear you are my father
but left me desperate
my mother’s husband you are
but her daughter’s father not

like god’s forgotten clay
you fetched me from the river
but left me unmolded
MOULD ME, MR. POTTER

whatever happened to them days?

2008-07-25T11:22:00.002+02:00

gone are the days or so you say
when children belonged to society
when all men did was love their wives
when women could only be wives
and we all thought the world loved good

gone are the days or so you say
days of borrowing salt next door
days of crossing paths with borrowed hot charcoal
days of hosting nagging in-laws for months
and getting scorn and scoff in return

gone are the days or so you say
and i am glad that they are gone
and from me it's good riddance
and i admit i miss them not
for surely we now know better

LOUD...RASTRESS!!

2008-07-24T10:58:00.004+02:00

she never ceases to inspire me
this young woman harbouring big ideas
her intelligence, her guts and wits
that speak of a 'female' spirit

you can never be more wrong than think
its because of her tinted long locks
or her black framed glasses
both of which i have that i like her

i do not see myself in her
i do not see you in her
but it is the her in her that i see
the definition of real brains

i do not wish i were you sweetheart
a prof, a poet, a storyteller, an achiever
and all you are but i wanna be me feeling like you do
pumla gqola...oh the loudrastress... you rock girlfriend

xeno what?

2008-07-16T14:24:00.002+02:00

right now i am going through what i think most of you would erroneously call xenophobia. i refuse to call it "fear of the alien" for i know it's not fear but hate. it is the feeling of rejection that most of us go through for just not being home (whatever home means). my friend tells me that home is a place where you jump into bed with all the dust on your feet. yea, this rejection that i feel reminds me of what has commonly been referred to as may 11th in south africa; this hate, this repel of the 'outsider'.

today i feel the need to repost this article on what many made you believe was xenophobia...

THE SKIN-SAVING WORD THAT VERY FEW KNEW

One Mr. K told me that there are certain sounds that most of us in Sub Saharan Africa cannot pronounce because they are inexistent in our languages. I could not really make out why a sober university lecturer could say that to students of one-hell-of-a-course called Phonetics and Phonology. For those of us who have never seen the inside of a linguistics class, Phonetics and Phonology is a course that requires that every student opens his or her mouth at least twenty times (depending on the length of the paper) in the exam room. All the exam questions have to be read aloud for the student to get the answers right. Yes, I was talking about those inexistent sounds that Mr. K taught us about. He said they were called clicks. There were other words that Mr. K used (velar plosives, pharyngeal fricatives, and so on depending on the place and manner of articulation) but I did not bother to understand because after all I could not use such sounds. These clicks, Mr. K told us, were represented by the phonemes; /c/, /x/ and /q/ and other consonant clusters which still look awkward (is this an offensive word?) to me. If you have watched the film, The God’s must be Crazy, then you know what I am talking about. How many East and West Africans could pronounce N!xau? Yes, those are some of the sounds that Mr. K said, as an East African, I needn’t trouble my tongue with because that small piece of flesh called the tongue could bitterly revolt in protest.

Wondering where this phonetics lecture is leading to? Give me a minute…One thing that Mr. K did not tell me is that if I was planning to come down South, I should have been more attentive in those lectures than the rest of my course mates. Mr. K did not tell me that I would desperately (I am deliberately using the term) need the clicks and consonant clusters. Now I know. But when did I know that I so badly needed to practise these sounds in the discomfort of my bed? This one word, XENOPHOBIA and by the way, my dear student, the /x/ here is not a click. Over the past 11 days South Africa has been in the news for not only the wrong reasons, but for a rare reason. It is amazing how people sometimes manifest their self-hatred by hating that which tends to look like them. For several Europeans whose first encounter with Africa was through Jamie Uys’ portrayal of an African through N!xau, all Africans ought to be a homogenous species of bush men with a small loin cloth (that barely covers the essentials), running aimlessly and wearing a sheepish smile. Without delving too much into the racist discourses around such a misrepresentation of the African peoples, I want to keep it simple. Allow me to presuppose that holding all other factors constant, ceteris paribus, Africans are a group of people with more similarities than they have differences. But then, when do we start to hate each other because we are unhappy about our likeness? That is a discussion for another day.

A few South Africans have taken it upon themselves to pledge their loyalty to their dear country by ridding it of ‘unwanted parasites’. The whole idea is not funny regardless of how patriotic (do we still have patriotic citizens?) these people feel; what is funny is the strategy. I am talking of language as a strategy for elimination. This takes us back to Mr. K’s Phonetics and Phonology class. I am sure by now those of you who could not pronounce N!xau, can now pronounce gqugquza, uqoqo, ngcuka among others…Well done. But perhaps there is a word that, if you were at one Johannesburg Taxi rank over the weekend, would have put you in trouble. As a way of separating ‘them’ from ‘us’, people were ordered to queue for taxis [matatus] but could only get into any taxi on one seemingly simple condition: a one-word answer to the question, “What do you call the elbow in Zulu?” Perhaps I am simplifying the matter too much. The question was asked in a way that I can only afford to laugh at now. The ‘patriotic citizen’ would raise his elbow and showing it to you ask, in Zulu, “What is this?” Regardless of how many click sounds one knew, here was a single word, with no click, that could save a life but which many did not know. You must be thinking of what it is in your language…I do not know either but certainly the present times have forced me to research on the isiZulu equivalent of an elbow. By the way next time someone greets me in isiZulu, I might as well say, indololwanwe because my mind is set on the seemingly ‘right word’ to say as a foreigner in South Africa today. Indololwanwe is what they call the elbow in this ‘land of milk and honey’; the land of the Zulu; the Republic of South Africa.

Moral of the story?

Learn all the body parts in the eleven official languages of South Africa if you want to save your skin…you may not know what other body part they may ask you to name and in what language. Remember we sometimes laugh when it hurts so much for us to cry. Stay safe my fellow Kwerekweres and to my dear South African sisters and brothers here is some food for thought; “YOU are because WE are” (Desmond Tutu). Peace.

welcome Amos

2008-07-10T09:51:00.003+02:00

the real world this is
where real Kenyans live
the public sphere we call it
outside gava offices Amos

here we get no deals
with either the budget
or libyan tycoons
for we aint in office Amos

here no MP heckles us
over taxing his allowances
or rising food prices
for we read no budget Amos

here things are tough
but we like it here
for we sit and watch
people like you Mr. Amos

but Mr. Kimunya, Sir
we know you aint one of us
at least not yet
for Emilio knows your name Amos

a little advice for you though
for you are the latest newcomer
into the public sphere
here we 'behave' Amos

posthumously

2008-07-03T14:03:00.000+02:00

how popular my works now are!

it is celebration time
but hey, what is it that you celebrate?
on a friday afternoon
in the plenary hall k.i.c.c
you sit; old and young
celebrating 'our fallen poet'

from the streets of lagos
the yoruba and the igbo come
quoting me even in greetings
carrying works of a great poet
a great poet only in death
great sales for the publishers

i lived among you once
shoulders and breasts brushing
[may be you couldn't feel me!]
i cried of my agony
but what did the labyrinther say?
"woman, care not for applause"

yes, i cared not then
and i care not now
leave my spirit in peace
to alone cross styx
and my works behind me
the manuscripts unpublished

death of a poet

2008-07-03T00:52:00.000+02:00

too soon i thought
today death came to me
by the bedside she stood
stared, stealthily, slowly crept in
and touched my breast

i opened my mouth
i could not speak
i stretched my arm just to stop her
to let me finish this one poem

oh! sir Destiny!

so gentle she was to me
softly, smoothly touched my eyes
slowly closed my lids
darkness covered me

i am gone
my poem unfinished
carried no phone
son, have my poem finished

he owes me an apology

2008-07-01T15:17:00.000+02:00

blasphemy or no blasphemy
god owes me an apology
if he punishes not
these devils who push, push and push
others into susceptibility, gullibility and inaudibility

a country called zimbabwe

2008-06-23T15:42:00.000+02:00

Today, I deviate from my usual style of raving and ranting to literally cry. In the same spirit, I deliberately break my own rule on the use of capital letters as I mourn for a country once called Zimbabwe! Yesterday, the leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) one Morgan Tsvangirai withdrew from the June 27 th'08 election run-off. Although this was long overdue, Tsvangirai did the right thing. Perhaps, I am writing like every other voyeur in the West or elsewhere in the world...Perhaps I do not know the inside story of Zimbabwe but trust me I can feel it so close to my heart, soul and mind; it tears my heart, it breaks my soul and saturates my mind. I really didnt know that a politician could touch my otherwise 'political-sediment-proof' heart until I listened to Tendai Biti, the MDC Secretary General on the 22nd of May, 2008. By the way, speaking of Biti, he is facing treason charges upon which if charged, he faces the death sentence!! Comrade Biti was arrested the following day after his public lecture to which I happened to be a part of the audience. Yes, I was speaking of his address at a South African university on the 22nd. After the usual greetings what Biti said, immediately after, still rings in my mind. I did not write it somewhere, no. It forced itself into my heart and it is permanently recorded there. I will retrieve it today just to see whether I will be relieved:

"Yesterday, the body of Tonderai Ndira was found with his tongue cut, his skull smashed..."

I do not know who Tonderai Ndira was besides what Biti had to say of him and what my Zimbabwean friends have told me about him. Yes, he was a man of integrity, a political activist and was known as 'Zimbabwe's Steve Biko' after the legendary South African black consciousness liberation icon. Like most other 'men of integrity' the world (including me) can only know and praise him posthumously. That is how this life is and that is one of the advantages with which death comes; showers of praise on how great thou art once you can no longer hear us. What perhaps I did not know on the 22nd was that many more of such introductions and scenarios would follow in the weeks after. May be to most people Biti's introduction would have qualified for a stage direction in some high school drama but nay.

To MDC critics and some political analysts, perhaps Biti used such a scenario to gain the sympathy of the listener but hey look here, these things are happening. If Biti's intention was actually to interpellate the reader, then I plead guilty and I owe no one an apology (as usual I am still very anapolojetik) for that. Why am I telling you all this while you may even have been there? If you were there, the better for me, what have we done since we heard of the killings in Zimbabwe? What can we possibly do? What are the Zimbabweans themselves doing? What would they want me, you, you and you to do? I am so confused right now!! My heart is sore with grief and pain for this Souther African country which has been held at ransom by an 84-year old militia leader and his shopaholic masquerading as a wife.

untitled

2008-06-20T18:40:00.000+02:00

last night
i spent a sleepless night
my tiny room dimly lit
my bedding soaked wet
my mind all alert
he could not help

last night
i patted his shoulders
i thought he’d do wonders
i, like a baby had shudders
he was fast asleep
he could not help

last night
he drank himself silly
he took the thing fully
he couldn’t come back wholly
he could not help

last night
the warm bed was wet
the good wife was awful
the worst night I had
he could not help

this thing between my ears

2008-06-19T19:13:00.000+02:00

this thing between my ears
my teacher said was called a brain
a mixture of mucus and water
just keeps going on
just going on, on and on
about this damn poetry
shut up mr.brain
for i tire of saying it
i-aint-no-fucking-poet

Me

2008-06-19T19:02:00.000+02:00

that's me

2008-06-19T18:33:00.000+02:00

yes, that's me
i am what I am
that which goes tee-tee-tee
a harlot, a tart and a slut
and i owe you no apology.