Love – The Divine Bandit™

death, Deep and overstood, Jesus Christ, Life, Love, Njeri

SEASONAL EXISTENTIALISM

July 10, 2025July 10, 2025 The Divine Bandit

I. Before the Fall

Before the stars scorched lines in the sky, before my fated breath was drawn.
Free of shackles and no chained soul, wearing no weight and my will wasn’t torn.
My voice hadn’t called nor answered to a name uncast, my cries of pain hadn’t pierced the boundless deep.
None of my fears had time to thrive, love hadn’t lied and no weary hearts dared to weep.
I was but a whisper wrapped in weightless night, the womb of nothing, dark in the dawn.
No twisted time pressed its mark, I claimed no grave as no seed was sown.
No unsure fleeting steps taken, no marked footprints of regret.
Hope had not been poisoned, no past to mourn or a need to fret.
Yet within the darkness it stirred, the silence split as the stillness cracked.
A force unseen like a tide untamed, broke the void as reality attacked.
Peace stolen from the hands of mercy, from perfect sleep was pulled this form.
Through shattered shade the soul was hurled, to suffer life and brave the storm.

II. The Curse of Flesh

Beneath the burning, breathless sun, flesh grows frail, yet forced to stand.
Hearts hollow and will fractured, the destined design of an unseen hand.
Bones betray the body, conspiring with the vain mind as the hunger grows.
Deception kills love and hope, sorrow teaches what only the shadow knows.
But the blood keeps beating, sunken souls still devouring all that thrives.
On their backs, the weight of wounds and years, the weight of all that still survives.
Dreams turn to dust, like whispered wishes dissolving in the rain.
The morning mocks the evening sirens but midnight drowns all in pain.
We stumble and our steps fail, knowing quite well none may turn from fate’s decree.
Lips move in prayer and inner eyes open, liberated and imprisoned by what they cannot foresee.
Life becomes a series of bated brittle breaths, a film about echoes laced with loss.
A worse for wear wait to never rest, painful goodbyes till the paths may cross.

III. Return to the Void

Limbs will lie one last time as the lights fade, the lips locked and wordless.
The stars will cease in a flicker and the sky will come crashing down voiceless.
The dust will take back all the names it knew, bones will break then float away.
The pale past will lie in the grave, the wind will wipe all of time in a day.
No one will grieve, the unfolding end won’t be halted like a failing tide.
No sun will burn, the moon will mourn the forging fire no longer hitting its side.
The weight will wane as wounds close, the breath will bow to silence sweet.
Clocks will crumble and the curse will collapse, all steps erased beneath our feet.
The darkness will drink in deeply, then silence will stretch over once more.
Time will twist to a tamed repose, fortune will flee from the distant shore.
The voices will disappear, no name will remain to be called loved or cursed.
As the void yawns, the end will hum taking it back as it was first.

13th June 2025

Deep and overstood, HIMYM, Life, Love, Lust

I PUT A SPELL ON ♥

July 10, 2025July 10, 2025 The Divine Bandit

See, I don’t want a luh… luh… love that whispers lies between soft kisses.
Nor one that starts with poetic vibes but ends with tone deaf silence.
The sun came and set on every bright promise, and I am still standing in the dark.
Because I refuse to chase illusions that vanish with the dawn.
I don’t want to use far-fetched faith to build love an altar, I want love that is its own proof of existence.
I’m tired of working hard to satisfy love that fades before I can hold it.
I don’t pen this with the naivety of a hard-won hopeful heart.
I don’t even try to rhyme, because love dances in your eyes for a second but lacks a permanent rhythm.

No, I don’t want a love that leaves my brain empty and a heart that’s fake full.
Because madness is loving something that would never have your back.
I don’t have to count the stanzas in this ode to love’s eternal hell.
Because we have arrived at roads that are crossing and the train is not pausing.
This is not a poem, it’s just a eulogy of feelings.
Scarred like a young Simba yearning for guidance from Mufasa.
I came to learn that happy endings are only for children’s movies.
Even as I offered my jacked arms to save the almost drowned lover that arose.
In the end it was an almost choreographed loss.
Bringing with it the realization that I’d always reached for something that was never really there.

See, I wanted a love whose language embodied our sensual lingua franca.
Thought I could make true affection more local than international romance in Casablanca.
But now I know love is only fluent in goodbyes.
I once thought it was love when it drugged me to hearing colours, dragged me to feeling nervous.
Now I know it’s just a shaken withdrawal, stirring hopeful hallucinations of something I never had.
This kind of love created nostalgia within seconds of its passing.
Now it’s just a beaten loop of mistakes I keep replaying.
I thought love was a present whose gifts are seen in the future.
Now the future is just a graveyard of what-ifs and never-was.
The emotions overlapped and the melee inside love’s octagon only ended in heartache.
Her shadow parallel to mine, I watched her, knowing quite well we would never meet again.

This writing is just me talking, I’ve grown tired of conversations.
The thematic synopsis aimed at you because you said love was real.
When you held my hand and stole more than moments.
But you see, I am a different kind of person now, colder even.
I once carried the flag for love, but blind belief is just another word for deception.
Like an overplayed song, I got tired of the sampled melody on further reflection.
Now love is just static, white noise, a sound I’d rather not hear.
Our love was the painting that looked its best because it was incomplete.
Now I see it was never art, just scribbles on a ruined canvas.
The knots I felt in my stomach? They were just warning signs I ignored.
Tying me to a destined death on hills of red flags left unexplored.
We added colour to the life we created, but it still faded.
I tried to hold on, but love bled through my fingers, unaided.

See, choosing your happiness over mine is not a smart objective.
It is a losing game, a prize that love never lets you keep.
These verses are barely from my thoughts.
Each word here is a scar, and I am yet to run out of pain.
We thought we were writing from the wisdom and experience of getting burned.
All that time we were strumming a requiem to a teenager’s dream on broken strings.
Our journals didn’t hold the same ideas, the writing didn’t rhyme and neither did we.
My invalid dreams, now dead and buried.
In fact, they are no longer dreams, just faded echoes.
I traverse this unloved life as a ghost of who I was.
From a writer, a dreamer, a lover, to currently counting the furrows on my brow.
Now I’m a cynic, a realist, and in the dance of love, I seem to break a heart with every blow.

You were meant to be my last word, my last note, not my last mistake.
Now each day, I rewrite my story, and love is no longer in the plot.
Every moment we had is just a photograph I’ve shift-deleted.
The moon listens, but she no longer gets space to speak.
Love was once my confession, like a sin unforgiven , it’s now my regret.
Living while loving was once interchangeable, now it’s a contradiction.
When I soar above, I do it alone, no longer chasing stars.
When I put down the last notable word from my pen, it will not be the end.
Because love never leaves but lingers in the empty spaces it leaves behind.
My mind is a maze, but I no longer want to be found.
My mind may amaze, but I choose solitude over a jigsawed heart.
I’d rather get lost in my own thoughts, finding safety in the echoes of silence.
Words created the illusion, promises built the farce, while cruel lies tore love apart.
My words may seem to be never-ending.
But love? Love is done pretending.

10th February 2025

#IAmKenyan, Deep and overstood, Kenya, Life, Love, War

Open poem to the PORK

September 29, 2024 The Divine Bandit

Mr President, I’m not a revolutionary, I’m a poet.

I shall try my best to not have my words sound like bars that could be perceived as enemy lines.
I’m afraid that I’ll raise a storm that could brew a kickstart to knowledge at lightning speeds.
Mr President, I’m certain I would not skim any parts of the historical scams or telltale signs.
I would delve deeper till I rooted out what was fertilizing corrupted seeds.
But remember Mr President, I am just a poet.
I titled my poem open because my verses will be holding such a conversation.
My fears though they ring true will be nullified by the dreams of a generation.
Mr President, for clarification purposes, I don’t write poems, they write me.
I feel a nation’s migraine building up and threatening to explode if I don’t document the aura of this age.
Slowly, my anxiety builds up as my restless thoughts clamour for the right to be.
My pen gets smarter than the sword and the blood of the slain inks this damp page.
Mr President, I’m sad and mad, that means my tears keep mixing anger and grief and I’m starting to accept this recipe for depression.
I’m sobbing for a nation Mr President, because I’m hoping my tears at this altar can bargain their way to a red carpet where acceptable justice prevails.
Mr President, open hands welcomed full streets during campaigns, peaceful demonstrations were served closed fists, bullets and batons of oppression.
We the people, we came in peace, came to voice our minds but ended up picking brains and taking young dreamers to early graves.
I’m not a revolutionary, I’m a poet, Mr President.
Just a son of the Kenyan soil, a law abiding resident.

Mr President I’m not a criminal, I’m a poet.

I used to write verses about love before I couldn’t afford one on loans.
I used to write about baddies Mr President not bad deals and bad bills.
I grew up to watch the game played by civil masters, the careful selection of pawns.
The number of moves countered, when those laying down can’t stand up to confirm the kills.
Mr President, a placard is worth a papercut not a trip to the emergency room, a voice is worth a meeting of minds not a bullet to the head.
I’m not a criminal Mr President, just a poet trying to articulate the life of the dead.
As a poet Mr President, I deal in reason in my rhymes, smuggle smarts into select conversation, and forge new styles to the way I steal status quo that’s past its time from closed minds.
I whisper my emotions into my letters, wrap my words with my true feelings and throw my meaning to my audience as the scene rewinds.
I hear the cries of the unnamed, tear this curtain for them so they can have a peaceful sleep.
They died for the shamed, those with futures uncertain, they are soaring through an eventful trip.
I’m just a Millenial poet Mr President, one who is unable to unsee the horror yet not hear the apology for the betrayal in our cities.
I’m just trying to get some shut eye, and as a way to pass away my time through my recent insomnia, I find myself counting scorned deities.
I’m writing this in long pauses Mr President, thinking back on how many years parents keep burying their children in this nation.
Each single time and regime, when the people raise a questioning hand, the corporals end up punishing their offspring.
A digital movement, something that could have been debated without confrontation.
Before the next bell tolls, maybe you could make a point of picking up on the first ring.

Mr President I’m not alive, I’m a dead poet.

I’m not sure how I got here really.
Maybe it was that poem I wrote when red-eyed, or that Ex with a passionate grudge or maybe my DIY noose finally worked and that’s why I am floating.
Any of them could be perceived as deadly by the right audience on the wrong side of history
Or I could have starved to death, I think artistes and Kenyans, especially Kenyans do that.
I don’t know where I am Mr President, it’s a new place for a poet.
It’s dark and peaceful. Everything I probably always wanted.
You know? When you took away my purpose.
When everything I created in destructive conditions was taxed till the government was content.
When I moved back home so you could have several homes.
When my social media post not meant for views got me in trouble for reporting the current news.
When that tick-tock ended up being my clock winding down on me without my consent.
When I marched to the end of the line and they cut mine.
I don’t know where I am Mr President. I didn’t want to end up here.
I thought you’d listen. I created the most informative poster. You’d probably not have been proud, but I was.
Now I can’t hear my comrades.
I’m calling out to them, they said the water would just itch. Is that why I can’t scratch away this lonely feeling?
I carried that flag and water bottle for the teargas like the poster said right? It must have worked, I’m not coughing.
But… but I am alone Mr President. Mr President? Mr President? Mr President? I guess this is the end of our conversation Mr President. If you can still hear me.
I only need to know: Where am I? What happened?Did I make a change Mr President?
I was not just a poet Mr President.
I was a Kenyan.

Deep and overstood, Life, Love, The Teenage Years

A FIGURATIVE COUNTDOWN

December 8, 2023December 8, 2023 The Divine Bandit

14 verses, spinning numbered musical tales at the tail end.
14 classes, making pals with pens yet timed digits forgot to hit send.
14th day, double the Sabbath adding my soul to the earthly tide.
14, first time having dreams of the silicon green on the Swiss side.

13, pompously aged puberty arriving with a cut of weighted gospels.
13th Friday, finding winning darts at the bar of unlucky spells.
13 baptisms later, spirits calm down in drunken volumes.
That teen, shedding cocoons from adulterated vacuums.

12th night, peering over the fence trying to fix withdrawal shakes.
12 disciples, fishing for bread at the cost of having to eat cakes.
12 hours, sleeping through sunshine as others have the day.
12 labours, giving birth to a godforsaken part to play.

11 players, still finding hearts in pitch to career injuries.
11th hour, arriving in mere seconds yet stoned into centuries.
11 betrayals, hanging happiness to win at being penny-wise.
11 atoms, explosive emotions prompting salty vocals to rise.

10 years, sweating through the tears in the universal fabric.
10 decks, crumbling as cards fall when winds blow the trick.
10 commands, squeezing a game out of a broken system.
10 neon lights, green-lighting an avenue ending in the red mayhem.

9 stitches, laughing up skins clamouring to save a life in pretense.
9 snitches, sharpen knives to shorten lives by elongating a sentence.
9 muses, creating a multiverse of poetic pains and growth gains.
9 months, destroying a cosmos of all the reigns and strains.

8 breaths, oxygenating painful awareness into existential lungs.
8 pieces, sailing shredded hearts towards the cannon bangs.
8 corners, stoppage time but life keeps throwing hits.
8 bites, building up a meal of passion or blowing us to bits.

7 knocks, breaking down doors after divine window shopping.
7 seas, raising a tsunami just to save the world from drowning.
7th son, finding luck in less familiar good-byes after so long.
7 sins, trumpeting deadly notes creating a triple gun salute song.

6th month, births gemini twins of anxiety and depression.
6 cubes, rolling to live or die without having left an impression.
6th sense, predicting a struggle with society’s extremes.
6 feet, troubled minds finding a resting place for dreams.

5 tastes, yet worldly turns leave earthly tongues bitter.
5 petals, flowers falling through cracks dims the glitter.
5 elements, throwing periodic tantrums for a seat at the table.
5 scales, a musical staircase where croaking is the final label.

4 chambers, revolving living iron while calling the bloody shots.
4th quarter, a full moon leads to the body if you follow the dots.
For starters, run away from home and break the 4th wall.
For status, time your farewell signature by leaping at last call.

3, the trinity meant to keep lithium away from our poles.
3 dimensions, we still cannot find space for our souls.
3 geniuses, starring in an unexpected trip of astronomical holy wars.
3 temptations, triggering denials that lead to deadly scores.

2 halves, marital ambitions for thoughts in opposing hemispheres.
2nd chances, parole system working on life sentence gears.
Two-faced, demons with sweet voices leaving dents as a joke.
2, the duality of meanings since the poet’s words spoke.

1, unit of a unified self becoming one once one unites the previous ones.
1 father, jealous and suffering from the success of devious sons.
1st person, me, myself and I can’t stress the tense in my past.
1st position, strongly leading in a competition to be last.

Dad, Life, Love

5 YEAR SALUTE

February 15, 2021August 9, 2022 The Divine Bandit

I furrow my brow a lot. Mostly as an involuntary reaction to filter out the glare of human “stupidity”, incompetence, ignorance and prejudice. And also, the sun. 😅

I’m light sensitive you see. I have every type of “chromatic” in my glasses. Even my stunnaz/shadez/goggles (80s, 90s kids 🤭) are prescription. You can also be sure for reason number one. I have used it in the mirror too. I am quite self critical.

I didn’t really ever notice it that much till my dad passed away. 5 years today. The photo chosen to be used for his obituary was one where he was doing exactly that. Sure, the sun was in his eyes. However, he could also have been doing it because someone had forced him to wear a tie that day. Probably one of my sisters or all of them. It was hard to get this man to agree to something. I wonder who else I know with the same need to see logic before agreeing to something. Cue mirror again.

The moment I saw that photo on the family group as it was being chosen for the newspaper, it finally hit me why it looked so familiar. I had seen it in my own photos before. Photos as old as when I was just a toddler. You see, my dad didn’t really take many photos of himself. With his old camera and then newer shinier black Kodak camera, he took most of our photos when a studio was not available. Getting him to pose for one was another story altogether. And the few photos I had from before had never captured this moment. Since that day I started a quest to find as many photos from the family albums where he is doing that. They are not many but I found some more.
In fact by watching all my siblings. I realized they all do it. Even the ones who don’t wear spectacles. With time I even see it in his grandkids. Especially in the boy named after him. He usually does it when he is hell-bent on not doing what the mum is saying. Coincidence? Methinks not. Sure enough most humans probably do it. But it is the uniqueness of the lines that form on their faces that makes my heart skip a beat. The lines that remind me of you.

Today I celebrate you. As you celebrated all of us and our achievements. You probably wrote our CVs out to people you met as you spoke proudly of your children. I have met people years later who only knew me all the way to the personality core, just from your words.

It is why today’s words will not be sad as that poem from years back. It’s why I can manage a fair amount of jokes as I write you this tribute. I remember the number of times you had me guffawing at the jokes about politicians, wrestlers and most frowned upon by dear mother, religion. And so, today amid the tears that we can’t dry or deny, I get to smile. I get to know that one emotion can be expressed as two. I also get to see that furrowing our brow is more than just a reaction or a way to judge. It is a way to take a stance. A way to strive forward through hardships. A way to turn up even when we might not feel like it.

A few quick updates.

Your 2 elder sons have since decided to wear caps as much you did because your warnings on baldness fell on deaf ears. 🏃🏿‍♂️🏃🏿‍♂️😂
The other one (mirror moment) won’t shave his hair because he is caught in your spirit of the 60s. He also didn’t heed your warning on early grey hair.
There’s 2 more grandkids. You would have loved to meet them.
Your family has grown so much we take the family photo in panorama.
It sure would have been a lovely excuse for you to avoid more photos. 😁😁❤️❤️

We still miss you in our midst.
We miss your toughness. We miss your kindness.
We miss your glares. We miss your cares.
I miss the furrows in your brow that said: “This is how I got you this far.”

Koma thayû baba.

Kenya, Life, Love

Love in the time of Corona

July 13, 2020July 13, 2020 The Divine Bandit

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.

AH, Deep and overstood, Life, Love

I TRIED

January 25, 2020 The Divine Bandit

If I make friends with the shrouded paths at an early age.
May satin be my garment and roses make pillows for my head.
May the dawn’s sunlight glitter on the river.
As the acoustics whisper their farewell via a song of love.

I turn for one last look at the mirror and realize I never saw the right reflection.
It’s the things you don’t win that wrap your mind the most.
And no manner of antidotes will get me by.
Expired drugs can get you high or Higher.

There is no universe in which I win.
There is no galaxy in which I shine.
Darkness has covered me like a new commandment.
And that is why it breaks me.

https://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/library/files/special/exhibns/death/modernsatire.html

AH, Deep and overstood, Life, Love, Politricks, War

THE ABYSS

January 5, 2020 The Divine Bandit

In the abyss we snuggle with our demons then send them out for coffee in the morning.
In the abyss we need no serenity.
Because you accept what is and what isn’t. Then throw change on the difference.

In the abyss, there is no reality or dreams. Just calming nightmares.
In the abyss, we strangle hope with our heart chords.

In the abyss, we never open our eyes.
In the abyss we don’t look for the light.
For only in the darkness does our skin glow.
In the abyss there are no reflections.
Just deflections of positive thoughts.

In the abyss there is no heartbreak.
Just the slow cranky hum of rusty pacemakers.
In the abyss there are no strings to hold us back.
In the abyss, the limit is every human.

In the abyss we write but never read.
For in the nuclear storm, we will be red all over.
In the abyss, we already survived WWIII.

In the abyss, we didn’t die, because we were never alive.

AH, Deep and overstood, Love

The purity in pain

September 22, 2019September 23, 2019 The Divine Bandit

Love is pain and pain is love.
The dreams of your affections make the nightmares of your reality.
Tears that won’t drop burn the hottest.
They travel down your spirit and singe your singing soul.
Buzzing through the air are the tacks holding the pieces of your heart.
Because you made your “ifs” into “whens” and God laughed.
The masses take another snort of the opium.
Forgetting grace still outweighs faith.
A crooked smile is all you can manage for now.
Happiness remains a journey and not a goal.

Memories remain the only comfort we have.
Hand forced into accepting the fake disparity.
The hottest cuts burn the deepest.
Only this time you can’t drop and roll.
Cupid switched his arrow for a lawn dart.
Doubled the hurt and here is; love halved.
You carried the load, swallowed my effort and still no equilibrium.
Because I’d been on my knees seven times, this is the eighth.
Your last act, exit the stage and take a bow.
We win nothing today for the future has taken it all.

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I used to dance to the beat your hips wove.
But sad feet have the same rhythm as if they were guilty.
Words no longer change this hard time to the softest
Your lips remain the elixir that made me whole.
The sunshine has refused to play its part.
Our dreams can no longer be photographed.
Our family was to be nuclear, I was the plutonium.
Now in this foetal position, all I need is a swathe.
Mutual means I have half the mind to allow.
I cannot answer it, but only make the call.