An Uprising: Poetry of Protest: The Matatu Nation

An Uprising: Poetry of Protest: The Matatu Nation

The Matatu Nation

A 24 hr Discotheque
The matatu is -
Smelling old but looking new
A moving venue
The meeting of night's nudity
And the day's hasty dress-up
everyday:

A continuous blast vibrating every diaphragm
Every passenger's ear drum
Unwilling? Uninterested? Unawake? Unconscious?
Like it or not, in fact, blast you!
Video on wide plasma splaying the morning dimness
With high-hemmed skirt-dance, low-necked boob-tops
Highly offensive on scratchy CD and low dpi.
But no one speaks. No one thinks.

Twenty-four hour-old sweat
Versus four-hundred-bob-a-can cologne.
The meet-a-deadline urgency in a trouser suit
Meets with the half-sleepy half-dressed determination,
'I need an e-pill fast!'

Although Nonini is singing 'Si Lazima Tu Do'
Alcohol-found bravado's alive in the back seat
Disco-sourced romance
Climaxes in a careless kiss,
Unabated madness
Escalates into a fondling bout,
Unabashed, openly fooling about.

The stale stench of a chain-smoked night
clings onto bright coloured, velvety upholstery.
At the mercy of a broom, looking up from the floor-
Cigarette butts. A lone shoe.
Twenty bob coin. Pre-puke sputum.

Unspoken curses
Un-regretted recklessness
Private business done in public space
The merging of stench and perfume,
Riot and calm in limited room
Gold and scum- and none fighting none-
Fuse in flawless humanity,
The condition of a long road
Just the way God meant it
Perfect in stench as in hope
The matatu nation is one.

The Other Nations

Outside the matatu nation
Is a short poem.
A staggering drunk grabs for support
Misses a post to find a woman's front
Spruced for the office.

Two loud smacks-
One for fury, one for effect.
You awake suddenly!
You find the path home
Anticipating the regular mugger
He's probably caught in an early morning snooze
Or had his fill already- so you wish
And doze off as you walk off.

Two jarring blows.
One to wake you up, one to knock you out.
Outside the matatu nation
Is a bitch.

I have been Teached

though my suffering is emminent,
The tenor and tune of it is evident,
Do not choke or spill your food-
Or waste a tear, (as if you could)-
It is not by you my troubles are eased,
My tenacity's been born and raised
On the fertile garden of your indifference.
Keep your care, I've been teached,
Mark my word and keep reference.

I refuse to fit into this fixture
These terms to terminologise my plight.
Am I bound to victimhood by nature?
Must I forever be too good to fight?
Is this my brand, my fate ?
Would the world end if I bared my teeth,
Dispatched heavenwards my tormentors forthwith?
Even when I have been teached?

I shall not be victimised-
By my sword shall fall him
Whose turn it is to be victim.
I shall not be traumatised-
When I get to direct this gory drama
I will cast another for this trauma.
For I've been teached.

So, bar your doors and windows
When you turn in for who knows…?
Turn low that TV set and listen out
After your neighbour, I'll be about
This isn't blood clotted and darkened-
Isn't my arm in sling broken- and
I can stand: I am not weakened;
I have been teached

Countryman

And you are Lord who?
Sir, excuse me, sir
And you are lord who?
Where were you born
Colonially?
With pagans or the enlightened,
the primitive or the progressive?
Where lies your chattels, sir?
With the peasantry or the landed gentry?
Do you scavenge with the poor
Or dine with the who is who?
How walks thee countryman
In your own country?
with haughty aristocratic swagger,
Or a withered stooped stagger?

Me?
Well, I was born in the land Disney
Lords walk right out of history
Send their sons and say’
‘Shooting men is game, Cholmodeley.’
With a hunting rifle to cock
A native trespasser to knock
Off crown land.
These far-seas colonies.
Take care where you walk, sir!

Sir!
I am the peasantry,
I swim in poverty
in misery I bathe
I carry my poverty like a badge
Am cursed by the wrath
Of they who guaranteed my birth
Every forest Hero who
Was shot or hanged since 52
Who refused his home and wife
Or was left to rot as if
He were rat: not a man so brave
In the hills of Ngong in 75,
Or was gunned down
in a street in sixty nine
To remain the name of a main
street in a city of ghosts
and monuments of those lost
in the forgotten struggles we quote
in today’s peace that was yesterday bought.

In my country, Sir,
gazing away and far
Kimathi stands in a city street,
Where leather boots and bare feet
Tread in their unequal beat.
He gazes and loses his breath
He wonders of all the wealth
He saw in 52
He wonders how so free
We pretend to be
From the cape to Cairo, Misri

He stands on a pedestal now
but lies in grave we don’t know
He stands aloft but sits like a wreath
Dead and gone
A stone but a stone.
Seen but unknown
He stands like signpost
In our memories lost
Remembered but forgotten again

Sir, you who knows now as before
What did Kimathi die for?
To be born again in stone?
So he can die again in shame
Crack by crack
Of scandal after scandal
Scam and ensuing debacle
Why?
To gather dust and paint the past?
To render a stamp of greatness
On a city of the heartless?
To rise in stature a rock
In a land of soulless flock?

Sir, for the love of heroes
We have none,
We have killed all those
Who were young
And ambitious for us
who came and were leaders
who lead but were followers
of justice and peace
and all that was nice-
we killed.
We killed Munyankei
The daring son of Sadera
Who young and wise
spoke out when he saw vice
spoke not for praise- for us.

Sir, now that he’s dead
Shall we imprison his soul in alabaster?
Shall we hide our shame in plaster?
And pass him and not see him?
Or name him a street as a whim?
Or kill him again in forgetting his dream?
Or just...and
You are lord who?

Certainly
Yes I am sure now
Sooner than you thought;
-than I ought to
That there will be an AK
Laid where I’ll lie.
Where I will die
That way I’ll be
The man I was born‘a-be.

It is only expected
They’ll say I stole or
I killed or I... well
It doesn’t matter
I am sure.

Beyond doubt
A wicked politician
A day-light thief
Or a rapist chief
Or a child-trafficking preacher
Or a con or a robber or...
...anyways, the type you know
that come to con-cry
At funerals
would be there.

But, my dear, I am sure
They will not.
I am sure I will have sent
before me a few-
and if you see me in your dreams
dear, it is because there’s no room-
with hell of them so full
and to be sure
and I’d have to kill them again
and be ejected,
and I can’t go to heaven, yet.
I am sure.