Heaven and earth

I need to find love, to catch it and hoard,

To check-mate it like a king on a chessboard;

I need to fly blind like an arrow,

To free-fall for someone, like...oh,

Like the sun needs to rise tomorrow

 

I need to run crazy, look straight stupid.

Yet in that abandon find favour in cupid.

And I want, oh so much, to be found

Like a falling leaf needs the ground.

 

I want too to succeed, to lift my head above

Like the boldest bull in the herd;

In my time I want to have conquered

Popular opinion, fame and political love;

I crave to pause where I leave my mark

And like Ozymandias say, “Look on my work!”

 

I hope that in the cycle of time I have risen

From wherever my soul's been a denizen,

Through gleaming gold, dirty iron, forsaken earth;

That the past is punishment and this, my final birth.

I wish in time to run free- a spirit

Unbound in form and loving it,

I want to be with the best spirits I can find-

The high, the gentle, the forever kind.

 

But then stronger grows my hunger for money

I cheat and play low tricks on you daily, honey,

I kiss you with my lips and my hands pick your pocket;

I swindle and sell friendship for a one-way ticket!

 

Oh but I want it all- fame and fortune, peace and quiet,

To escape without a scrape and be the hero yet!

And like a camel's love for pasture here and heaven there

This relentless wanting wears my soul bare!

Devine company

 Devine company

Homeward I walk in the night

On a path by fire flies lit,

underbrush licks my ankles,

castor seeds feel my under-feet

Time of the Baby Oryx

 

Time of the Baby Oryx

 In a spot in the wild

Among grass and cactus.

between two rivers flowing away –

each embroiled in its own course

Nairobi is a quick lover

 First flash: a business-bright billboard smile;

A suit far too neat for the jam on Jogoo Road;

A suit too well knit, too well fitting, too good

For anyone real.

Then he moves- inside the billboard-

Two steps forward, one to the side

Hand glides out of pocket with a slide

Phone. Best leg forward. Pose.

 

(") Pause.

Nairobi stops to watch, to save to memory

This magic of a man - perfection personified.

This memory merges with others in vogue:

The hunky hero on movie magic,

A one-time White House guest turned iconic,

The muscled advert-face relic

And any other on any magazine

In Nairobi or any city else.

 

(>) Play

Feet fall close in a life so fast paced-

Nairobi eyes are bewitched with contact allergy

Like a bad case of cross-eyes.

They are busy eyes.

Shoulders meet hard and repel

Jostling for that wear; that look

Dying to catch Mr. Nairobi's eye-

Actually dying.

 

 When he breathes,

women save for steam irons

For the latest tights on watched weights.

The gyms pack full, lunch spots close shop.

When Nairobi raises his eyes

Women raise their hems.

 

 Boutique prizes up-shift.

Credit  firms reach-out to you, brother:

A thousand eyes eying a single image

With similar need, fast-bred greed-

To have a neat lawn- by a street swept daily at dawn

To park in the mezzanine- a concept car.

(Property agents drop bellies fast.)

To have the next technology now. Now!

The Messaging-optimised E-series with 4G

For sms, for facebook and for flashing with glee!

Or the 2TB HDD, 8GB RAM, 3.2 Ghz Core i7

For single finger snail-typing,

gaming and getting you the 'Lo!'

From that impossible work mate -

Never mind the fortune

Nairobi likes you looking great!

And anyways, for the neighbour's eye,

What’s too dear to buy?

Be it a tool or a ruse!

Mustn’t you pay for but hardly use

In Nairobi?

 

In the catch-my-eyes dance

Ubuntu dies and is buried at Kimathi's feet,

To keep stillborn uhuru company.

But Nairobi's a walking city,

Or a one-train-a-day affair,

Matatus shuttling at capacity,

In a jam with single-occupant cars,

 

And for a single moment, you look like him-

Or right for him.

You are ecstatic, you are Nairobi!

 Or Nairobi's newest whore

Angel-looking

High-heeled

Sleek-suited

UAE-cologned

On-demand smiling

Junk-fed

Over-worked

Overspending

Man and woman.

Nairobi will bed you quick!

Then fire you

Then sue you for bankruptcy

Then auction your concept car

Then you hit the road -

A truly fulfilled fool!

A truly fulfilled fool!

Falling for WAR

Falling for WAR

Out of darkness of night, peeps she like a star

As a diamond in the dark, dazzles she among tar
She prances forth in virgin allure
Add a whiff of queenly air to her bewitching flair!
Her every sparkle a kiss, every blink a dis!
A slave-faced master, seductive disaster!
Here she crowns a prince, there she hangs a dunce!

In the wind talks her wild perfume
With her beauty we are charmed into doom!
I've heard she's heaven; she is gold and glory-
And that fate faring any way, whether one live or die,
He dies a king or lives a memory.

And she's in town! Yes, and she is down
For me; to me by a magic-wind blown!
And I am suddenly a fretful wreck-
Will it do to just flirt and neck?
What if I forget to draw the blinds,
And the paparazzi tells all it finds?
Can I date Ms. War yet stay off blogs,
Or tabloids that feed my name to the dogs?

I hear she met Peace, his moral fabric yet without crease
But with a single vampire kiss, she turned Peace amiss!
She bewitched that American neighbour, dried him of humour;
His manner once couth, now gone with the breath of youth.
He runs around naked, in a witch-hunt for the wicked
And in their shameless act,  he perverts without tact -
With PMCs and drones, he never has to lose pawns.
Yet so is he lost, though once honoured most

Too late now I assume, she won't have a change of groom 
With negotiations complete, of options 'am all deplete!
To Kismayu we blast off soon, on a harrowing honeymoon.
So shall I have her (I wonder), in a trench or a bunker?
Or is that all old-fashioned now? I wouldn't know.

Whatever she likes, street combat or aerial strikes,
Is all like romancing a sniper; petting the grim reaper.
But so is love and death; found and lost in a single breath 
Either falls from the skies - before you've said your goodbyes
Or blows you off the ground - in many parts all hell-bound!
So, what be the point to hide - from this killer bride?

Even dirt, with a little glitter

If a rock is hard and black

If a tree is large and soft
Must it be granite at heart?
Baobab inside?
Must you scorn it from far
"Miserable Baobab, thou art ungainly fat"
And condescend upon immovable rock,
"Poor thee, I understand thy stubborn stock."

None is what it seems
Thorns sprout by tenderest apples
And are juiciest melons on desert soils
And who would have thought!
You'll find your tongue strayed
as a waif any day
To look at me and judge
Or shower me in praise,
And the leaning Tower of Pisa
Would laugh still at your skewed opinion;
And for judgment, why, you will be bankrupt!

But I wish you the sight
To see steel in a bean pole
To smell perfume in the communal urinal
For contaminated are we all
Even dirt, with
 a little glitter.
Though we jibe and fuss
How thoroughgoing we are
We are breeds crossed of something bad
And something worse.

To  insult me, then,
crack my oak bark

Stand my eucalyptus scent
The itch of poison-oak sap
And pinch of falling thorns.
Still, borrow a giraffe's neck
For my ego sits high on my uppermost twigs
And deep in my pithy stem

Tree lore: 'Why trees are ever standing'

 Hush the swish in your leaves

Tender twig, halt your play

Young trees, slow your sway

Listen to us old wood!