Puffed paths pass through a rich man’s gut.
Starved stars strut in poetic poverty and sass.
Ni ngori kwa head man anayefanya kazi kupata head rest.
But the chief point remains the existence of a cozy nest.
May we borrow in unity but pay individual taxes.
Piecing together redials of liberty from missed texts.
Figurative language becoming reality to fit in boxes.
Ticks for the win as they suck through our losses.
Perfect pal pats the back that soon receives the kicks.
As past proverbs find the man at the mic through teary sums.
Bas bas bas… mwanaume tulia hakuna haja ya kutense.
Rebuilt bridges burn taking down those on the fence.
Liars are firm as they fill tills for they believe the words they say.
The victims perpetually disillusioned when they finally have their day.
A bite of the national dessert where everyone wants to pick a bone.
Few want to work for the home yet everyone wants the throne.
Puff puff pass the responsibility requires a dose of bluntness.
That’s why we intercede but never have the time to confess.
Wasi wasi ukipata utaambiwa uinue macho kwa clouds.
Building speed tracks in the air in search of a higher ground.
The snaking smoke gifts vivid dreams from night terrors.
Cursing the waking hours with the weight of a turn of errors
Entangled in a web of our choices that sometimes makes us sensitive.
Memory evaporating when reminded our voices are truly representative.
In the end we smash the mirror to avoid our reflections; forgetting we are all sinners under the tree of our selections.
Category: Kenya
THE ANTHEM, AND THEM.
Oh God of all creation, poor or rich, from the wet sands of the Coast to the dry sands of the North.
Bless this our land and nation with rains for our fruits and sun for our growth.
Justice be our shield and defender, even when judges won’t defend us.
May we dwell in unity of all tribes as one, recognizing the origin of the fuss.
Peace and liberty be truly felt than just words on paper.
Plenty be found within our borders, more than enough meat, for our newspaper.
Let one and all arise awakening the mind from its colonial slumber.
With hearts both strong and true finally punch our number.
Service be our earnest endeavour to our neighbours and strangers.
And our homeland of Kenya be protected from all dangers.
Heritage of splendour from our farms to our seas.
Firm may we stand to defend from the mountains, never again on our knees.
Let all with one accord to leave our country better than we find it.
In common bond united from the chosen to the misfit.
Build this our nation together without qualms or complaints.
And the glory of Kenya fly free of any restraints.
The fruit of our labour improve our standard of living.
And if we ever forget, fill every heart with thanksgiving.
Original parts of the Kenya National Anthem included written by: Graham Hyslop, G. W. Senoga-Zake, Thomas Kalume, Peter Kibukosya, Washington Omondi, 1963
MY GENGE NOTES
Nilianza kuandika nikiwa form 2.
Enzi za ESir but nikakosa visa ya kustudy past the studio hii story ni true.
Nikarusha dice, nikaangukia ofisi kama kamari.
Lakini usanii hatutawahi sare.
Nitacontinue kushoot shots kama Alehandro lakini nitabakia mkarimu kama Benzema.
Nilitunga mistari kabla nipate ID lakini jina nikajipa sikuwa nameless.
Live up to the banditry najipox kila time ndio niwapee presha.
Shash ikareplace gomba kwa lyrics, maneno yanapaa juu sio moshi wicked.
Nimeflex kwa jua kali najenga future, it’s not all for the ladies.
Narusha macho kwa manzi wa Nairobi nasema rest in peace Lady S.
Pilipili hainiwashi bali yanipa morale ya kuknow nini ndio next step.
Tones ziko na genge mpya limemuok sio warazi tu wanarep.
Msanii ni kioo cha jamii, sauti ya umati lakini fikra za wengi.
Ndio maana artistes hukaa manarcissist juu lazima waiinsist.
Kubadili perception inayoharibu reception na kutoana rangi.
Ningekua reckless na message ya wakiritho lakini wako ritho.
Wanaeza ita SWAT na sio time yangu ya kulambana na the law.
So nitazidi kusema mi ni divine, “I’m a miracle, baby.”
Nimechungulia family nikaona hatutabaki kukohoa kwa Corolla.
Kama Femi tutawezana na wale wana vitambi Major?
Nani atatoa gang kwa boondocks and sail us kwa hao iko in a better state?
Juu maKartelo wamekuwa millionaire na pandemik, sealing our fate.
Nimenyongwa na ethics ndio nasimama kuchachisha.
Nitainama tena, haja ya haya maneno thao ikiisha.
#KenyanMusic #Genge #Gengetone #GengeNotes
Love in the time of Corona
Have you ever visited the Nairobi National Park, Amani?
On an open top van surrounded by nature and its eyes, with no civilization in sight, as you push away daydreams of the man-eaters of Tsavo?
To stand where your forefathers stood as they prayed for your destiny?
I want that one more time.
I want to be lost on a street in Delhi, to feel the energy before the lights turn green and a hundred tuk tuks breeze by.
I want another meal in Douala, to get my muscles infused with plantains washed down with a soda that is too large.
I want another roadtrip and then another.
I want the warmth of a wooden fire in Meru, cooled by the breeze coming from the river.
One more night of spoken word at stages past and future.
I want to stand on balconies and share ideas with strangers who become friends when the sun is up.
Walk on the Eletric avenue again.
Climb the Longonot.
Ride the Sagana river.
Dance like the age of the discos.
I want to go out and make as many new experiences as I can.
But most of all I want to survive. I want to live my dreams, see what becomes of the man.
Give me that chance. One more time.
That’s why I won’t allow that virus out there to get my mind from me, let alone the last of me.
John Paul’s Satire
Be still, my sorrow.
Stay asleep, my soul.
Flatter these sheep, show their dry coats.
Flutter lids in my sleep, dreams of dry jokes.
Endless jars of my transformation oil.
Door ajar and whispers of this son of the soil.
I lost my right to be wrong.
But still got this long con in my sights.
Red eyes are better than red thoughts.
I’m making a killing casting your lots.
I slit my throat to spite my tongue.
But all you see is the price of air exiting my lungs.
I set my foundation using your alms.
The ceiling of my impunity will be laid down by your arms.
I care, I promise you I care.
I care less of your pain and struggle.
As long as you caress my stains and sweep up my rubble.
I’m Marx and you just failed my class.
I lie in your confused conflict as you run out of gas.
I slay you at the same altar you worshiped your queen.
For you chose to care more about Keke than your teens.
By the rivers of this new Babylon is where I shall bury your capital.
Instantly highlighting these failures deemed societal.
Communal consumerism makes up the new deadly sins.
A gambler’s addiction yet only the house wins.
I wash the blood off my hands from this planned accident.
My promises like Pontiacs pirated off the silver coast.
At your crossroads with the train bearing down on you sets the precedent.
That your existence was only narrated by my ghost.
I wish I cared, really cared, because I don’t.
John is a legend – A Kenyan Pledge
IF YOU HEAR THIS MESSAGE
I will not start this with an introduction about how long I have been away. I will not even refer to the fact that my poems seems to fall on really shallow eardrums. I will not even admit how much of my fault that is. I am normally thinking of a movie I watched when I was 7, referencing an event that happened in 1992 whilst using words of songs produced in 2015. I am the anti type of Ken Saro Wiwa. Asking questions about the government while fearing for the lives of those I care about. Cowering behind rhymes and ambivalent statements. Hoping that some people will get it. A perfect example is this one. Wenyenchi’s theory
Today, that is not the case. I will be honest, I might be brutal, I might even shed some tears on this canvas. But believe you me, today, you will not leave this page trying to figure out what I was on about.
WHEREVER YOU STAND
This message is not being directed to a certain clique of people. I am not speaking to the Kikuyus, the Luos, the government, the voters, the apathetic or the believers.I am speaking to humans. I am asking you to pay heed. To grow, from whence you are. Be a better you. Stop looking at others. The vibes you project onto others reverberate across boundaries, religions and generations. If there is a problem around you. You are either the problem or you are fixing it.
I’M CALLING EVERY WOMAN, CALLING EVERY MAN
We have been part of years of women coming into literacy and power. Still miles away from the dream but women have been shaping and changing the world long before they could vote. Long before women were allowed to get an education. Long before they were allowed to lead. For isn’t every man who has led before, the son of a woman? Did not the same woman not teach him how to wipe his nose and tie his shoe laces? Does he not look up to her more than he can admit? Isn’t a man who believes in “genuine” feminism the proponent of the change the world needs? Isn’t he the guide other growing boys will need as a mentor?
WE’RE THE GENERATION
I have probably heard these 2 statements more than I would care to count.
“This next generation of teenagers will be the worst adults ever.”
“Our generation was messed up by our parents.”
These statements come from the same group of double tapping, G.O.T loving, keyboard smacking 25 to 35 year old millennials.
They have relinquished their responsibilities in actually making sure they change themselves or mentor the younger generation not to follow into their what they call misplaced and misguided footsteps. The politician who is 30 has no difference from the one who is 60. Most of them are after power, money and fame. The pursuit of who will make the best sponsor.
WHO CAN’T AFFORD TO WAIT
“I will one day open a children’s home. I will one day give like 10% of my money to the poor”. I hear this every month from friends and colleagues. Meanwhile a girl who is 23 has been saving her pocket money by walking part of her distance to college. Keeping fit while at the same time giving others a chance at a well fed life if not a good life. I am in no way chastising you. You mostly choose how you live your life. You should not feel bad about what luck and hard work has borne you. But a bottle of Tusker and a fancy phone cover could buy 20 homeless kids lunch for the day. I am not suggesting that I am any better. I am just giving you an idea. A better way to see the world, a better way to see yourself.
“If you have done well in whatever business you are in, it is your duty to send the elevator back down” –Kevin Spacey
THE FUTURE STARTED YESTERDAY
I was watching the comedy Blackish. In Season 2, Episode title “Hope”, Anthony Anderson goes into a monologue that opens and rips your heart apart. It smashes your skull in as your mind blows all over your already stained carpet. And you go like: “You talking to me? You talking to me?”
“Oh, so you wanna talk about hope, ‘Bow? Obama ran on hope. Remember when he got elected? And we felt like maybe, just maybe, we got out of that bad place and made it to a good place. That the whole country was really ready to turn the corner. You remember that amazing feeling we had during the inauguration? I was sitting right next to you. We were so proud. And we saw him, get out of that limo, and walk alongside of it, and wave to that crowd. Tell me you weren’t terrified when you saw that. Tell me you weren’t worried that someone was gonna snatch that hope away from us like they always do. That is the real world, ‘Bow. And our children need to know that that’s the world they live in.”
In 1992/1993, I cannot be sure as I was very young. While my sister had taken me to Hospital in Limuru at a place we called “Kwa B/Fateri” (I would find out it was Patel years later). Clashes erupted between cops and people who were having a multi-party “Kamukunji”. My sister and I ran and had to plead with a shopkeeper to let us in. And then stay locked in that shop for the next 2 hours before the coast was clear. It has now been 23 years since then. We have enjoyed freedom of speech to a certain extent, we have enjoyed good leadership, again to a certain extent. But in the same years we have seen what complacency can yield. We are comfortable with watching other people’s fathers and sons protest injustice for our sake from the comfort of our homes. We have decided to use the word “reality” vs “idealism” as the reason for our inaction. Can you imagine how many people once thought slavery was a reality? How many people believed colonialism was a reality? Why do you choose to believe that impunity, corruption and injustice is?
AND WE’RE ALREADY LATE
We have seen that the quiet overlooking of laws and the constitution comes for your enemies, your opponents and then for you. We support laws only when they work for us. When the cops inhumanely beat up protesters, hawkers and looters. We nod and agree. Sometimes we even smile and make memes and then laugh some more. When the cops under the same training and disillusioned justice come for one of your own. You are up in arms. You will make noise and tell your friends about how you did not get a government tender because they needed a bribe. The truth is that is not the problem. You could not afford the size of the bribe. Otherwise you would be in jail every week for over-speeding and running red lights. How soon do you decide to change? How soon do you decide not to give up?
You have to let the fear go. We all die in the end. Death comes for us and we can only choose how to face it when it comes.
I don’t want this to be a write up that ignites a spark in one man that he uses to light up the world and burn all our hypocritical iniquities. I want this message to ignite just a big enough flame in every human. I don’t want this to be shared just so we can discuss how many likes it got and whether my blog stats are on the up. Thereafter the message will be lost and the point will one day be found in some deep rusty annals of the wreckage that would have become Kenya.
I am looking for that person who will read this and internalize it. Use it to change a friend or two, a generation or a family. Make sure that even if we don’t get to benefit from the fruits of our actions, our children or their children do; for we do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors but borrow it from our children.
There is nothing as strong as an idea. It gives more will for action than the reality can. The reality is scary but an idea, a probable future is full of hope. I am looking for the person who shall keep this idea burning. If you’re out there….
Wenyenchi’s theory
I don’t believe that by this time I need an intro.
I am the voice of the people. The dead, the broken, the ones who have left us.
You may try your best to get rid of me but I shall live on.
Will what I tell you be disseminated for free?
Or will you bottle it and try to sell it to the next investor who is willing to pay a kickback?
May 16th; is this the day you would like etched in our annals as the day winter fell?
Changed our love, our hospitality to some cold-hearted, demonic hatred?
Just because I weep in my sleep does not qualify as a wet dream.
Oh my King can’t I just have your ear for these few minutes?
Maybe I can help change the mindset of our institutionalized people.
Maybe we could finally grow past the emotional whims of our ’08 adolescence?
I have been to Nyayo house, and if these walls could talk they would spew out quite the horror stories.
A tale of two citizens with the power to make the best of my beloved country.
Are you really listening?
Because whether God got us but you cost us are we really gonna be alright?
We have changed slavery and colonialism, packed it in more palatable chains.
The Fire squad carries batons and they aim way before we are even ready to run.
Just like our votes, has our peace and freedom really become for sale?
Has it really been that long since I checked in as righteous as a saint in Tropez?
Before my momma knew that I would ever find myself in the middle of this blood politics?
How much does a life cost? I dare ask you.
If you start by explaining which tribe or which faction the soul is from, I strongly urge you to:
Get off my…..
Definition, because you are no role model and have no right to advise me on matters humanity, complexion, religion and culture.
Hello.
Are you still on the line?
Have you decided to make the blacker the berry, the bitter the truths I tell you?
You ain’t gotta lie, I have heard that apparently it is inherently in you to only love yours.
In this regard as I hear you drop the call. I seek to remind you.
You are a mortal man. So are we all.
Mortal men.
They are not the “HOPELESS OF NAIROBI”
I know I have been off this site way too long. As I get closer to 30, time seems so scarce. Taken over by work, moments of football punditry etc. But let me be honest and say, a certain 6 month project at work that ends next week has had my hands quite full. Clearly also getting new titles comes with it’s “workaholism”. You are now looking at the new……enough about yourself Ed!! This I feel is the first real post of 2015 as it is prose. Poetry as I have said before comes quite easily to me. This post is not meant to be heart rending. It is not meant to make you feel sorry. It is not meant to make you feel bad about your elevated echelon. It is just meant to get your attention, to have you realise what happens where your eyes don’t look..or avoid to look. To give you a fresh perspective. Something you don’t necessarily have to live with but know for just that single moment that others live with. Something that can change the way you think or have you want to make a change. I had been part of this endeavour before. On a previous month when I was assisting Kibali in his month’s pledge. Then, I was just letting my heart lead me. There was no logical questions about it. I had some extra money and was willing to help. However on this particular day in May. Something else led me there. During the day, due to the aforementioned work commitment I had failed to have something to eat for breakfast and lunch. By the time I left the office with rain clouds looming; the storm I was paying attention to most was in my tummy. I have acidity issues and that evening found me almost keeling over as the acid burnt through the lining I would assume is not as thick as it used to be B.C (before cocktails). I struggled to make the walk from Riverside to Westlands, I found my mind lost in another thought process. This is not quite an unusual thing. I’ve almost walked past the bus stop more than once, lost in thought. I was imagining how weak I must be to be in this much pain because I had not eaten in less than 24 hours. I was wondering about the person who has not had a meal for a week. If that was me, would I indulge in cheap drugs to get rid of the pain or to forget what kind of hell I was in? Did this seem familiar to the “one for the road” of the rest of the white collar society? If that was me, would I snatch a phone to sell it for a measly 500 to be assured of a meal for the next 2 weeks? Would they judge me then? Would I judge myself? Would I really view my life as that black and white? Would I so easily understand the law when I barely knew how to read? The above is not a justification of all the crime, violence and wrongdoers out there. It was something that got me back looking at my life. I am not ashamed about it. I work hard and have studied hard to be where I am. But what makes the difference is that I had the chance to. I get lost in thoughts of whether I would have survived past the age of 10 having been sick most of young life. Again, same tummy issues. What would my body have done to fend off illnesses when I could not afford antibiotics worth 100 shillings? What did you do to deserve the life you live? The family you have? Chance? Fate? You were good in your past life? This reminds of a case where I dropped a dollar in New Delhi as I fumbled with my wallet and walked away without noticing. Seconds later, a filthy street child would tap my arm and I almost leaped away from him (Nairobbery instinct) and was about to tell him I had nothing to give him when he handed me a dollar and walked away. I barely managed to speak to him before he disappeared into the crowds. Not waiting for a reward. Ok, this does make me want to weep. 😥 What I want to say is that I made it to that feeding program in Westlands with quite a change in attitude. I was not giving because I could, I was giving because I could manage to stay without. I could manage to live in a comfortable cheaper house if hard times hit. I could manage to live without eating beef. I could manage to not have milk. I could manage to live without a cocktail here and there. I could manage to walk part of the way to work and save 60 shillings per day, 2400 per month. Because you know what?It takes 2500 shillings to feed 65 to 70 street families/people at Clifford’s feeding program in collaboration with the Homeless of Nairobi. That made me vow to feed some 70 people a month for as long as I live and more as my life, effort and returns rise. As an African, we are very insistent on teaching how to fish and that is also what Clifford’s program is about. From finding shelter for these people, schools, rehabilitation and work. It does not stop at food. I had a talk with one young man who helps Mwalimu Cliff out in serving food every weekday night at 7.30 behind KFC Westlands and in front of Uchumi opp. The Mall. He came to Nairobi to find work. He previously had work installing air conditioners in Rwanda but that did not pan out. He would like to act in plays, he’s a comedian. What this people need is a chance.Remember the chance you got when you were born to able parents? Use that chance to make sure another kid does not have to be born on the streets. This story seems all gloomy right? No. I was welcomed with genuine smiles. More genuine smiles than I see in my side of society. Happiness from money is overrated. Really. These people are homeless, some jobless, others parent-less but most are not HOPELESS. You can read more about this program here: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-31359061 You can find Cliff here: https://www.facebook.com/clifford.c.oluoch?fref=ts and @OluochCliff Homeless of Nairobi: https://www.facebook.com/homelessofnairobi?fref=ts and @melessOfNai
147 REASONS TO LOVE
Rest in Peace The Divine Bandit
In her past they sang a song of victory.
They won the war.
In my past they sang my dirge.
Yet I won the war too.
But my victory was short-lived.
For a bullet fired in victory found its target on my knee.
And as I fell down to the ground.
My bayonet had gone through my throat and then tongue.
To say I was dumbfounded is understating it.
But their victory songs did not stop but the dirges did.
Because I did not die. I crawled to safety.
Away from their trampling celebratory feet.
I crawled to her.
She had seen me while atop her kraal.
She spread her “shuka” on the ground for me.
We fell in love in silence.
Then we became blood lovers.
As her fingers got covered in mine. Hers became cold.
Under the golden African sun.
Her wails were a harmony to the rapping of the “victors”.
In her sobs I found my inspiration.
Covered in her tears, I accepted my expiration.
To be continued when I rise again…
The Divine Bandit™ 