Socialia

Some people are just sores;
so you walk around
avoiding bruises, even on days like this
when what should matter
is that the zondos--
some call them mazondo--
are cooking....

And further down the hour,
we will be gathered,again
chatting and chewing: surprising someone;
and every now and then,someone mentions
country, culture, coughing,
until we return to the sores,
by the time we've counted
eight empty Mondavis, sometimes Gallos.

Before long, it's good-bye,
especially if not much good is left
in this oppressive Sacramento heat.

The Vestiges

Something about the best there is
grabs and twists your insides
and you want to call Mai
even where no shadow exists
of what we could call devices;

First, there are those
luxiriating in the idea...
then dreams becomes nightmare,
and you wake up with a headache,
only there is that which drives
the idea of the best
which becomes a shame
when you turn and others say,
"Let's see."

Then the memory of shoots
Once in Mototi budding, but blooms delaying
until years later, carrying the weight
of the sky, we dreamt of burn-darkened
ends of what could have been blooms....

Something in talking about the best,
when even the worst would detest contests....
So you stand, sit, stand,
and the laughter you hear
is of hope turned clownish
where once we sat and told stories
we now roll, like donkeys,
in the ash insignificance....
but the whistle you hear,
those are the vestiges....

Smile & Send

If you are like me
Today you are sending,
and Mukoma, looking down
will smile--exactly something
he would have done, no questions.
I am sending....

You can't do things otherwise;
pound the asphalt of adamance
turn away not to return,
even when you see reason not to.
Remember there are smiles,

and there is sending.
Hearts' doors can't just shut
and locks click to ward off the obvious
that often hides, until you open your mouth;

Sing about this day
of dents, but remember the panel-beater
of time, chance, fate even;
so then smile and tear velcro.

There are lines sometimes
where you go to send,
and remember this time
you will hold the line
and invite angry grunts,
but only if they knew
how proud Mukoma would be
looking down from where he is
because all he would have needed
was a short notice to know
that it was time to smile
and send, to end solitude
and begin a new chapter.

WAITING

Skeletal beings

Eyes bulging out

Bony arms

And legs,

Milky white teeth

Gaze unblinking

Into the distance..

No appetite for food

For sex,

For life itself.

They are waiting to die.

Bodies disease ridden,

Bitter hearts,

Angry hearts,

Sometimes just resignation.

Where is hope?

Where is love?

They are waiting to die.

There are men,

Women, children

In varying stages of degradation.

All going one direction.

Is there hope

Beyond the grave?

Is there life on yonder?

They are waiting to die..

It is "the big one

With a small name"

The scourge of Africa.

Unbridled lusts

Incubating death

In nations loins..

They are waiting to die

Unwilling passengers

At the last bus-stop.

Ticket paid in blood,

In advance...

They will all get on the bus.

Though some will linger...

They are waiting to die

06/01/05

Hearts

North of here
is a place where
they talk about us
as if we are
not...

Then you look
around you one day
and see the sun
has forgotten to smile
and when you send
it an email

after delays
it will send
only one sentence:
"Who ever told you
that I smile?"

Intense, I say.
So let them talk now;
and, unsmiling,
we will thrash on
with our existence
while from a distance
they look and sob.

REALITY

Reality

The reality of my being today,
Sorrow, solitude circling a hapless heart.
Penniless, as broke as my spirit is
Broken outside and inside .
Reality is there is no food in my house,
No water to quench my thirst.
Nothing to quench the pain I feel deep
Within the marrow of my being.
No lighting, I cannot see.
Groping in the dark for answers so elusive.
What do I tell my children?
Orphans birthed and schooled,
In the sorry art of poverty.
Ravaged by corruption,famine and more.
Reality is I have failed my kids.
A progeny conceived in a lie called hope.
I mourn for a lost generation,
Whose destiny is ash and dust.
Born of strife and disease in this land.
Dafur? Zimbabwe? Africa,its all the same...

STRAY FLIES

Safe in blue,
even what we think
cracks the whip
of memory, in those moments
when mothers call our names,
only to be mocked
by the echoes of Chisiya.

Because a look so distant
that even Runde will question
why they have to keep looking
will be pocked by stray flies
which too do not know
what to report, where even they
can now declare starvation.

The safety is now in
the hell we have created
which sings in fear
of what we might do
had we stayed a few more months.