Pretty lady

If a thousand moons were to be plunged in blood
And all of earth's light dimmed by the chaos of war,
If there was ever a light needed to shine beauty into the blight,
Then without a doubt, I would nominate you.
Beautiful lily, perfected star

Hidden

Sharp edges, coarse ends.
Graze the skin, feel the pain.
I forgot the gloves in the expectation there won't be danger.
I fore went any protection, knowing and hoping I would be safe.

The festering pustule.
The torn skin.
Pierced souls,
Shattered glass hearts.

No need to stay calloused, I said.
No need for shield, sword and spear.
Just another sheep from the flock,
No wolves here.

No need for binds now,
Let the blood flow,
Let the me wallow in my ignominious state,
My plume once again is no more.

Music

I long not for your words,
They are a great distraction,
A desiccation of the great beauty within,
A denial of the glory resident.

Distract me not with your words,
Draw not my attention from that which matters,
Deal me the hand that wins.

[Transpose ]
Give me ecstasy,
Enisle me in love
Eternal chains,
Engrain me into all that you are.

My love

Isn't it a beautiful thing when you can listen to a voice without having to pay attention?

To be able to hear the message without ever paying attention to the words?

To be able to feel what the musician felt, to be able to laugh and cry with him?

To love deeply and to be grieved as he?

To dance without a care in the world?

To be caught up in eternal ecstasy,
And never want to leave

Is this love?
No woman no cry
Exodus
Get up, stand up.

Thank you Bob for giving the world,
What the world needed.

Reggae heartbeats,
Roots and Culture.

Let me be buried

All I ever wanted to do is dip my foot into the shallow waters,
Test its temperature and play on the banks of the river.
Keep it safe, for I knew not how long I could swim in deep waters.
Probably coz I never tried.

That was then and now I knew not whether I regretted that choice.
Now I was being driven downstream,
Currents too strong to resist,
Water too deep to walk on.

I no longer had control.
I was drowning but,
But I liked it.
I wasn't interested in help neither in surviving.
I was being choked, losing air fast.
I didn't care.

I had always wondered what being engulfed felt like,
What not worrying felt like,
Not caring,
Letting go,
Death.

And now that it is all here,
I am at peace.
Do not look for my body,
Let me be buried in the currents,
For I finally found my rest.
My grave of freedom and fearlessness!

My wife 3

It's been a week now, a very long one. I hadn't even noticed time passing. All I knew is just that there were sunrises and sunsets. I could not point to a specific time in the day when anything had happened. I don't know if I ate lunch at 9am or 4pm. I even cannot remember what my wonderful housemates had cooked for supper. I usually enjoy their food but everything this week had been tasting like rubbery slippers.

To many people, this dilemma seems more than easy to resolve: just elope with the love of your life and live happily ever after, though in uncertainty.

Accelerate the plans.
Cut off communication.
Find a perfect hideout.
Start a new life.
Stand up to your father.
Reject Wangare.
Stand up for your rights.

All plausible but unfortunately for me, far fetched realities.

The truth behind this new arrangement is that political marriages in every sense of the word still do exist. Not the Kalonzo-Raila types but the kind ensuring continuity in family relations.
The funny thing is, my dad is not even a politician. It was all my grandfather's doing.

How?

Well, let me summarise it for you. My grandfather is a politician but all his twelve children or disciples if you like, were all married. He even had twelve dogs in his compound. I don't know if it is mere coincidence but you have to suspect. Since there was this dilemma, the son of the firstborn child had to make this merger happen.

It is usually only natural for the firstborn to take the political reigns of the family but my father did not trust my elder brother. I personally love the guy but if I was the dad too, I wouldn't trust the little crook. At least not with something sensitive as a politically arranged marriage. So at this point, the question, "Why me" was becoming irrelevant as the days flew by. So much for being a goody two shoes. Now I was paying the price for my perceived loyalty.

Reputation, Love, Politics. Seems my life had now blown up into a traditional soap opera.

A Man's World

In the beginning there was man,

And ever since there has been man.

A man, defined by strength and valour,

Courage and splendour,

Magnificence and extravagance.

He conquered other beasts,

He subdued the lion in a circus

And in India he made the largest land animal his servant.

He rides on the strength of horses,

And on these fearless beasts, he conquered kingdoms.

In Eastern Africa, he kills the king of the jungle as a rite of passage,

In Asia, he charmed the most deceitful of them all, the serpent.

He beat others of is kind into submission,

And for those whose manly pride was too great, he killed them.

Authority is his sceptre, Ego his shield.

He conquered it all, He is King, He is a lord.

All except one,

One who cannot be conquered by swords

One who cannot be beaten into loving submission, 

One who cannot be tamed unless he chooses to,

One who will not pay homage unless he chooses so.

The only one to whom man willingly subdues to,

The only one who can save him,

From the wilderness of lust and power.

The greater one, The majestic one,

 

The Wo-Man

My wife part 2

Okay, maybe it's all a joke or a bad dream. Just a prank by my dad. This surely must be a big mistake. a big political mistake. I shall just close my eyes, take a deep breath and exhale and wake up from this nightmare.

Breathe in,
Breathe out.
Open my eyes!!!



Wachuka

Wachuka Wachuka Wachuka!!! If there is a name that sounded more melodic than any of John Legend's songs, it had to be this. The one lady who had turned my world upside down. She had by some black magic spell  [I am not sure but I highly suspect] turned my heart of stone into flesh. Soft and squishy too if I may add. She had succeeded where no other lady had and had brought colour into my world where no other artist could.

My love, my dear,
No day passes without me thinking of you.
Your absence is like tormenting hell-fire and your words
Your texts, your calls, a flood of relief to a burning man.
 I am eternally condemned to your love,
Chained by the hope that one day,
 I will no longer have to write
From hell.

It was six months into this new found relationship with Wachuka, I had already planned it all out. The engagement, the wedding (colour code included too), a team of seven minions running around the house for the next couple of decades and a humble home somewhere deep in the reserves, where only my art and our love could pervade our privacy. I love her, I truly do. I had no choice anyway. You are usually arbitrarily relieved of the choice of loving a person like her when she came into your life when life tasted only like plain boiled potatoes with carrots floating in that pool of supposed good stew.


That is all I could think about on the ride back to Nairobi. The greatest melody in my life was starting to sound like a broken record, a dying elephant.

I just wanted to die!!!!

My wife

"Yo guys, I  have been summoned by my father. He wants me to go to Nanyuki with him. I don't know why but it sounded like a emergency."

Summoning is an act exercised by a father when he is in the last stages of denial that his son has moved out and started his life as a bachelor. Usually the last kicks of a dying reality-rejecting horse. The guys here are my housemates who have turned my life upside down since moving out. We inform each other of summon notices just to verify in advance that we have no intentions whatsoever of being kidnapped.

So here I was on my way to Nanyuki on the morrow. My father, my brother and I. He spoke something about a deal he wanted me to be a witness to, my brother and I. He sounded suspicious.  He sometimes did pull those lines but today it just sounded off. I looked in the direction of my brother for more information but he looked as clueless as Old Lenku.

After the three hour drive, we arrived at a humble homestead somewhere on the leeward side of Mt. Kenya. The air was fresh, though chilly. The reception on the other hand, totally the opposite. Unusually warm in every sense. Lesos spread on the ground in  a red carpet fashion. Something that smelt like goat meat boiling in a sack of potatoes as the Kikuyus love it. And the rice, which at that time I suspected had been laced with tonnes of potatoes and salt.
The singing kikuyu women. Singing what sounded like wedding songs. That is the problem with being an urban kikuyu. Some words just fly by you like the annoying fly that you cannot catch in your palms.

So we sat down in those blue plastic chairs reserved for special dignitaries. Then the warm sodas that they put in room temperature water to try and deceive the rest of society that they are actually cold. Then they served the overcooked and under-salted goat meat with the rice. At least the chapatis were decently done. Then followed the speeches, or at least the opening speeches.

Leo tumejaliwa kushuhudia maajabu ya Mungu. Bibilia yasema kwamba wawili wakiletwa pamoja, hakuna anayefaa kuwatenganisha. Amina??

AMINA!!!

Leo hii, tuna furaha nyingi kama jamii ya Kamau kumpa boma ya Mwangi mtoto wetu Wangari. Wangari, ebu kuja hapa.

I stared in disbelief as a homely looking young lady stepped forth from within the house. Decent looking lady. Short hair, chocolate complexion, dark eyes and milk white teeth. Her nose was neither too big nor too small and her overall body structure was in line.
So I guessed I had come to witness my brother's ruracio. I was surprised to see that my elder brother had decided to finally get serious and settle. God knows how much he needs a woman in his life to bring things into order.

Mwanaume wa nyumba ya Mwangi anaweza simama??

I expect my brother to stand then my dad stood up and said,
"Ndiye huyu kijana wetu.  Muriithi, ebu njoo hapa."

DID HE JUST CALL ME OUT???  ME???  ME?????  WHAT????

We fix broken eggs and repair rotten tomatoes 8

Hisdan Dual Duel

In most organisations, you will probably find two kinds, no make it three:

1. The ones who think of how to make the wheels turn. Usually a small percentage.

2. The ones who turn the cogs. They are the majority.

3. The ones who announce to the world that the wheels are turning. Also a small minority and the loudest. They also do make sure that they let the whole world know that their neighbour's wheels haven't been oiled or washed.

Our chefs were also in need of these services and where there is a need, there is usually a problem solver or an opportunist who in this case was Hisdan D. Duel. A gun for hire every half a decade and this time,  Half Century happened to be the top bidders for his services. Narrowly out bidding their rivals, the tangerines if I may mention.

Usually, teachers have a problem with noise makers. However, our friend here seemed to prove that other than a hobby or disorder, noise making can also be churned out as a talent in the marketing field. Proof that not all "indiscipline" cases are hopeless cases. He was also a fighter as his last name seemed to suggest.  It may seem pretty unusual for a cook to take on such skills but if your profession constantly  habitats a person around dangerous objects such as knives and forks, some secondary skills may be honed via association.

In a vocal exchange of opinions, or just the mere dissemination of his employer's opinions, Hisdan proved to be the loudest on any occasion.  Whether it involved vocal admiration with a hint of worship of the chief chef or in trashing the spoons of his competition because they were yellow, his unparalleled gift was always on display.

The chief chef today made a brilliant meal. So brilliant you will divorce your wife so that you can eat here constantly.
The tangerines' meal was so pathetic, even on the day of judgement the devil will beg to be dissociated from them.

You need to eat our food.  It has God's stamp of approval on it.

Such a noisy marketer. And he took no prisoners. So loud, annoyingly loud that you couldn't ignore him. You had to hear or listen. Either way, your eardrums are never secure from his vocal marathon. I usually wondered if he had anything left to say to his wife after a long day at the office. His wife must either be a very patient phlegmatic or such a competitive sanguine. Either way, it helped him thrive where his culinary skills failed.

A dirge on the key of E minor

"Don't play that. Play the Major chord."

He was always there, at least on stage with me. Always correcting my mistakes and encouraging me to play through my mess.

My security, even though it lasted only half an hour every week.
My confidence, my pride.
Bliss.

Today he was not there. Don't know why nor where he was.
So I composed a dirge.
The major chord was too aggressive.
The minor just right.
Melancholic songs deserve reverence, musical reverence.

It started with the E minor,
But there was no guide from there,
Just one chord to describe death.
Just my lonely self and my lonely chord.

Guess it was perfect.
Death is self explanatory, it needs no alibi.
A dirge as we lowered the casket into the ground,
In it, lay hope, dressed in different shades of confidence.

Affection

28

Neither complete nor mature,
but more than enough to make a great smile.

Wisdom teeth.

Growing pains,
Unnecessary yet inevitable.
And so wisdom is,
Unnecessary if one is to survive,
Yet inevitable if one is to thrive.

32
Appearance is no indication of Depth,
Just ask a thirty two teeth smile and a twenty eight one,
No one can tell the numbers.

So is friendship in its fullness.
A hug, a kiss, an embrace:
A smile.

Heart, love, sacrifice:
Depth.

Seat of blood

He did it once again,
Ran off to the street of lights,
Lighting up paths laced with thorns.
Eventually he would get to the roses,
That would wilt as the blood on his soles clot.

Then follows the crippled walk back to earth,
Henry Dunant standing at the end,
With antiseptic and bandages in hand.

The mercy seat of God.