The lion eats the deer, the deer eats the lion

The lion eats the dear
And grows fat
The lion eats the goat
And grows strong
His roar fills the savannah
His savage claws mark his territory

The lions claw splits on a thorn
The thorn spills a little blood
The thorn makes a little wound
The lion limps along
The fly lays an egg in the wound
A small egg between the claws
Warm in the flesh now rotting bit by bit

The egg becomes a maggot
The wound rots the claw
The roar stills the night
The roar expels his pain
The lion goes to ground.
The vultures take their piece
The jackals take their piece
The hyenas take their piece
The earth takes her piece
The grass grows from the earth
The grass grows lush from the leftover blood
The grass blooms from the leftover flesh

The goat eats the grass
The deer eats the grass
The grass from the earth
The earth from the blood
The blood from the wound
The wound made by the thorn
The wound in the claw of the lion.

The lion ate the deer
The deer ate the lion.



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My robes are black

My robes are black , you see
To hide the danger of my lips, full and rouged.
You will not see my heaving bosom or lust at my full nipples.

Your gaze will stay with my eyes only.
You will not see that I smirk at the bulge below your waist.

My robes are black, you see
From head to toe and round again.
You cannot guess which side the assegai hangs.

My Victoria secrets remain secret from your searing gaze.
You don't know if there is an asp beneath my bosom.

My robe is black, you see.
I am marked and owned like the engraved iPod in my Gucci bag.
You won't know where this mark is tattooed on my hips.

Perhaps it's a bomb that rounds my butt so well.
You don't know if I will explode in blood, tears or passion.

The passion seeps through the pores like an alien virus.
You are not sure whether it will consume you.

My robes are black, you see.


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Who owns this land?

Bonds have been broken
Blood has flowed like a river
Uprooting shrubs and Iroko trees
Leveling mounds and homesteads
Bravery has been sacrificed
Broad chests left rotting in the fields
Honour has been violated
Shame stored up to poison every generation
The land has been laid waste
Exile has met the old and slavery has consumed the young
Strangers have wandered from afar
Lots have drawn new boundaries
New songs now recount heroes past
New stories explain the mounds now rebuilt
Broad chests stand out in these fields of blood
Bravery is in vogue again

The vulture welcomes another feast day
Broad chests will claim new boundaries
New battles will be fought in these fields
And blood will flow again
And new stories will tell of ancestors descending from the skies
The weapons will change
And bravery will be redesigned
The vulture will nod her understanding
The mounds will grow over the homesteads
The shrubs will become rhubarb trunks
And the air will yearn for new battles.
The survivors will tell new tales
Of ancestors coming to battle
And deities arriving on dragons spitting fire
The victors will mark new homesteads
And new calendars
And new festivals of fertility and the land goddess
But the rivers will flow again
In anger and in fury
The earth will reclaim her gifts
In quiet guile and in cataclysmic suddenness
The land owns the land
We, the survivors own our stories.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

I cannot cry

I cannot cry

Something has happened to me
I cannot cry
Locusts have come from the east
Locusts have come from the west
The day is dark with their wings
And the farm is dead

The bones of the shepherd is left on the rock
His cleft is dead with the sheep in the field
Oji-egbe who lives by the river
Is back from his wandering
He has exchanged his oars for rifles
And now marks his homestead with gunpowder
He answers our greetings with gunfire
We cannot tiptoe to the water

We shall die from the hunger
Or perish in the hail of bullets
We who only wish to greet the sun
And the neighbors bearing gifts
We shall die of hate
Or perish with fear
Fear of the gifts that now bear death
From our neighbor back from his wandering

Shall we now scratch our backs
On the rhubarb bark
Shall we hide a bomb
Gift wrapped in our bosoms
Should we bury Oji-egbe
In the evil forest?
Far from the wailing in our homestead
Far from the ancestral grove, now desolate
He is our brother, so we thought
He is our neighbor, so we thought.

Something has happened to me
I cannot cry
The village square is inlaid with thorns
I cannot dance
The song is set to gun fire
I cannot sing.


( for Kofi and all those that died in the Nairobi Westgate mall terrorist attack )



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad