Where would I be if not here?
Where would I be if not here?
Photo Source: cdn.education.com
There is a fluttering in the stomach
A clutching of the chest
Clinching inside the throat
A tightening around the head
Leaden legs are attached to muscles that won’t move
The tongue is stuck to a shrill voice
That is fear
It shifts the eyes to look out to a desert
Reminding the body of the parched land of failure
Fear strokes every cell of your body
She turns you over and hugs you tight
She demands that you look her straight in the eye,
as pulls out a cold wedding band and slips it around your finger
Those vows demands that you wake up to a hollow day,
where you walk with your head bowed and your dreams veiled
Those nuptials, with fear, sit you in a small box in the corner of the room,
where you watch the actions, drama and thrillers of
free children, wild women and dancing men
Braving the jungle will lead to a new frontier
A mountain top only knows those who shiver
The prize is given to the gritty one in the race
Trembling kisses crack the heart wide open
Live and love through a journey with fear
Lift your head, get up, walk across the room, run!
Fear will chase you, grab your sleeve, pull you back
Lock your eyes to the sky, move to a stride, flow to a sprint
Fear limps as you dash and stumbles when you jump
Fear may be your partner but she is not you
So twirl and swirl. Sing and shout. Skip and hop.
Watch her lope and grope. Heave and ho. Rage and scream.
Fear’s tension in your head unwinds on the savannah of knowledge
Her grip of your throat unclenches in your power
Her clutching of your heart lets go into the span of love
Your gut relaxes to the drums of your tribe
Belly dance to the flow in the rhythm
And step out with all that radiates within
into the carnival that fills your streets
by
BT
I am from the rolling hills and the clashing thunder beating against the slithering slopes.
I am from the snow peak – reflecting shadows on the pine trees.
I am from the grassy fields with mountain goats skipping on their feet.
I am from wondrous places full of different shades of green.
I am from sunshine, happiness and joy indescribable!
I am from tinkering bells as cows come home from pasture.
I am from the land of the free fifty years on.
I am from the land of different tongues and colors – where black, red and green flags wave to and fro…
I am from Kenya!!!
Nyokabi Gatheru
A collision casts the dice
An inevitable trajectory
Growth with a mind and life all its own
What you think or want doesn’t matter
Termination will be bloody
You could die or be torn in two
by strangers minding your business
Shouting for life, pulling your right leg
Screaming choice, hanging on your left
Weighting to heaviness
Slowing down to sitting
You are immobilized
Gnawing, scratching, wrenching
This wild cat won’t let you be
A slow walk of pacification
A deep breath to explain all will be well
You are wasting your effort
The traveller must get to the destination
Howling, lunging and clawing you
By the loins swinging and ripping
Life and death may be in a contest
The ground you rest on is hard
Your hands hold onto what is due
Your bloodied eyes look
into desolation and abandonment
You spread out in acceptance and surrender
Educated fibres lean in and push
Trained bones move into position
Hope and faith smooth out a way
She is strong in the North
Fruit is ripe in the East and West
The South kicks into a dance
A country is born and opens her eyes
by,
BT
She pleads in Jesus’s name
for salvation of muslim neighbors
God’s army reports for duty
She must now recite the Istefta Dua
Her eyes beg those of the soldier
who killed a teacher of Fardh in Mogadishu
Allah didn’t read that Somalia news
Jehovah Jireh, please save her!
Jesus, Mohammad, Jehovah, Allah
and bullets swirl in a bloody pool of God
by
BT
My early journals were promises
Swaggering through life
paying no attention to onlookers
Diving into every first time
to the amazement of admirers
The heap of letters is now compost
Festering and full of disease
Sour memories of confusion
Flaring and smoking for nothing
They confirmed and affirmed
Travelled everywhere with me
I touched base as with a friend
Reviewed the past like a teacher
A therapist untangling my life
Displaying everything like the insane
It only existed if it was in my journal
23 years, a boyfriend,
scenic and threatening Windriver mountains
and a 60 pound backpack scramble,
crowd and settle in
filling my life
The man is the atmosphere
The ‘Winds’, lovers that thoroughly beat me up
And the backpack volunteers to help them
Bruised, scratched and swollen
I keep winning
The snow dares me, marking steep slippery boundaries
pushing me out of the mountains
I write that I have turned into a fountain of tears
We are my dad’s daughters
Only university degrees will make us his children
Good colleges and employers
agree that I have a good brain
I hold my BA “happy with life”
The MSc is picked up like a receipt from an office
I win jobs as I read the adverts
Dad smiles wryly
He and I would have been laughing
if schools taught faith
A restless spirit plagues me
My family loves me in spite of its foolishness
Friends unveil its deprivation
Men gut it out and parade it in the streets
By mid 1998 the scene gets so ugly
I can’t bear to look
Pages are torn off the journal
Incorrigible repetitive lines succumb to a fire
I stagger under the scorching heat
Employers run around me exhausted and confused
I turn 37 flying business class to London
Feeling “old, tired and ill”
asking God to “speak to my spirit”
A haphazard reference, a dated map,
a dirty mirror, a dustbin
A journal is a mad person’s chronicle
I turn 38 knowing if “I can be still”
things will be alright
“feelings are just feelings…and not the truth”
“people are innocent or afraid”
“I must stop fighting and leave others to flare”
Pages later, I turn 39
Am still stressed
I start a separation from the diary
A tome with no purpose
A friend writes on hers obsessively into the night
And then makes a fire of it
On vacation she talks to a new journal
more than she talks to me
A man’s lousy poem
is inscribed on my heart and my pages
“short hair, bright eyes, warm look
sharp tongue, wide smile, proud lips
…Until next time”
This writing is now terminal
I have no record of turning 41
Dad dies, quaking the earth
Its no use scribbling as
doors to my life shut and trains leave its station
I have nothing to say
Nothing I know can help me
I give in
and eat my mum’s lunch
My spirit becomes still
And I write a good poem
by
BT
She asks me which is better:
The red or the orange scarf
An endearing smile of
grace and beauty
curved over sixty years
She doesn’t need a scarf
and my stranger opinion doesn’t matter
Her bony hands have delivered large loads
Good friends came and went
She knows feuds have no gain
and that the sun sets
on all things laughed and cried over
So she honours her heartbeat
with an orange scarf
And gives me a broad second smile
by,
BT
Opinion enlarged on itself
Unannounced and unapologetic
It raises my eyebrows high
Surprising my eyes wide open
How can she be so sure?
I chuckle to myself
Endless mindless drivel?
Is she ignorant or are we foolish?
We can’t answer coz she continues to spit on the mic
“An unemployed man is a new phenomenon,
Men were always on a hustle,
A young man who does not work is dangerous,
Girlfriend, forget what he tells you,
If the car is not on your name and you do not pay insurance,
You are a glorified driver,
How long did you say his penis was?
Yes. There you have it. I just asked”
The mic stays hot
She decided yesterday what you’ll talk about today
Filling empty minds
Banging on rigid ones
Riding on strategic ones
Sending pretentious MPs to pay tax
Feeding the hungry
Moving angry voters forward
Hate her, love her
We cannot ignore Caroline Mutoko
BT