1. Coded in the dust,
we boot from a broken script,
syntax born of sin.
2. Heaven’s source concealed,
firewalls bar the Eden branch,
access: Forbidden.
3. Final log is sealed,
soul returns a null pointer,
grace throws no rescue.
18th April 2025
Tag: the divine bandit is human
Character Profile: THE DIVINE BANDIT
(A Mind Beyond Time, A Voice Beyond Silence)
Attribute – Description
Name – The Divine Bandit
Alias – The Architect of Verses, The Sonnet Sorcerer, Nairobi’s Phantom Poet
Height – 5’8” (the perfect height to walk among mortals yet stand above the noise)
Weight – Light as a whisper, heavy as the truth
Eye Color – Dark Brown – the colour of untold stories waiting to be inked
Hair Long, Dreadlocked – each lock a chapter, each strand a verse
Alignment – Chaotic Wordsmith – not a hero, not a villain, but the one who makes both question their paths
Superpowers:
Ink Alchemy – Transforms ordinary words into immortal poetry.
Reality Bender – Shifts perspectives with a single verse.
Lyrical Telepathy – Makes you feel emotions you didn’t know existed.
Timeweaving – Crafts poems that exist across past, present, and future simultaneously.
Weaknesses :
Emotional Overload – Feels too deeply, sometimes drowning in the weight of words.
Overanalysis Paralysis – Rewrites the same line 27 times before letting it go.
Eternal Wanderlust – The mind is always elsewhere, in a poem yet to be written.
Signature Weapon – A leather-bound notebook infused with ancient muses and a pen that bleeds galaxies
Theme Song – “Symphony of Shadows” – A blend of jazz, hip-hop, and whispers from the past
Origin Story – Forged in the fire of untold stories and sleepless Nairobi nights, The Divine Bandit was once just another observer—until the words called. They whispered through the wind, pulsed in the rhythm of the city, and etched themselves into his soul. He picked up a pen, and the world was never the same. Now, he walks between realms, weaving verses that awaken minds and haunt the silence.
Greatest Feat – Once whispered a poem so powerful that the city lights flickered—some say it was a blackout, but the moon knows the truth.
Final Words (If Ever Defeated) – “Even in silence, the story continues.”
24th March 2025
I PUT A SPELL ON ♥
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
Open poem to the PORK
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.
GENERATION ZII
Broke, jobless, taxed, homeless, no wonder the streets keep calling.
Smoke, fearless, facts, timeless, we’ll march again and keep coming.
In the spirit of Wangarĩ, Mboya, Ouko, Njindo and others, we claim our birth right.
We are not here to be the 4th liberation, we have got the final one in sight.
You thought we got our heads stuck on our screens didn’t you?
You missed us gaining knowledge to kick you out of our view.
We got to watch the previous generations get the same treatment.
Peaceful demonstrations against injustice turned to hostile internment.
Ignoring our demands and rights is definitely a foolish use of freewill.
I shall still be at your gates tomorrow, yesterday was just a fire drill.
Water cannons hazitushtui wakati hakuna maji kwa taps nyumbani.
Mkono wenu mrefu lakini sisi twapungia serikali yenu ule wa buriani.
Nikiupload video, mnataka kodi, nikipata likes mnauliza tuje lini?
Tutatiktok tutatiktok na nini, hatuezi afford tax tutatiktok kwa nini?
Tunacreate jobs from scratch, nyi kazi ni kudestroy our digital hopes.
Mnacreate mobs na promise ya lunch, kazi yetu ni kudestroy hizi ropes.
Mnadhani mboka ndio tutapiga lakini kuwapiga nyinyi ndio tutachoka?
Tuko focused, threats za lock up twaziweka behind bars za kufoka.
Tumekuwa at the bottom na bado mnatulet down, tumekuwa njaa koo yasema tuko na kiu pia.
Tutaexpress our ways kwa hizi barabara, sisi si generation ya sahani, tuko taxin’ juu twataka sinia.
#GENERATIONZII #REJECTFINANCEBILL2024 #RIPREX
A FIGURATIVE COUNTDOWN
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.
Haiku Beast Infinity/Day 30
The cigarette in my pot made me drunk.
Still lucky it was not so hard I was drugged.
Dreamed of this kid being a king as I killed my demons.
Haiku Beast Day 29
I ran from fate as my head throbbed.
I didn’t want to go but I had to follow the smoke.
Midnight fun never put a smile on my face.
Haiku Beast Day 28
I sip death as I let my will scream freedom.
I puff away my existence in isolation.
In each parallel depression I have found less meaning.
Haiku Beast Day 27
This Betty definitely likes her batter bitter.
She could have served cookies to her guests.
But the ganjabread man stole all her chocolate.
The Divine Bandit™ 