Category: Poetry , Poets and Poetry Reviews

The headless aftermath..

Gloria Mwaniga.

That golden moment,
When the magic lantern of my heart,
Illuminated my minds eye
And on you, it settled.
And my heart missed a beat.
I knew that I could take in,
anything ,
Even a broken heart,
Of a loveless future.
As long as I,
Got to spend,
A sacred hour,
Or a half
Lying in your tender arms,
My world would be,
Just perfect,
And I could face,
The headless aftermath,
With your bittersweet magical scent,
Lingering…..

Poem: When this Poet Kicks the Bucket

Written by Rayhab Gachango

http://www.potentash.com/poet-kicks-bucket/

When I finally kick the bucket,
And go to hang out with my heavenly papa,
I want to go down in blaze of glory,
And I don’t mean being cremated,
Although I would love that,
So that I can ask for my ashes to be scattered,
In all my favorite places.
I am a living seed,
I don’t want to go down with my potential,
When they write the history of poetry and writing in Kenya,
I don’t want to be a footnote,
I want to have my own page, or even a chapter,
But if we are many then a long paragraph will do.
This body shall not live forever,
But I want my work to live forever,
In the hearts and minds of those who loved me,
And those who never meet me,
But met and fell in love with my work.
When they bury me,
And the preacher says dust to dust,
I want to be buried with my books,
And I don’t mean the ones I read,
I want to have written many books,
And instead of throwing dust first,
I want my close family and friends to throw in copies of my books.
Cover me to sleep eternally,
With what I loved most my words.
I just bet that if I was a bookworm up here,
There must be bookworms down there,
And they need something to consume,
So they can eat my books,
And we can have a party underneath the ground,
A bunch of bookworms hanging out together.
It may sound ambitious,
My dreams and how I want to be buried,
But for too long I squashed what was in me,
Buried it 6 feet deep,
And I am alive.
So now that I am living and breathing,
I want to uncover my dreams,
And live them.
I don’t want to die,
With all the books and stories that are in me,
I want them in print and electronic copy.
For an eulogy,
I want them to read a piece of prose,
Of my life,
I don’t want it to be dull,
That I came, I ate, I lived, and then I died,
I want it to be filled with awe,
Showing all the literary awards that I got,
And the people I impacted.
So this is my dream,
Though it is abit selfish,
That I shall never be forgotten,
But that though I die,
I shall live through my work forever.

This will not be me!

I dont want to die with books still inside of me as dreams

Poem: Love…life…

Written by Margaret Muthee

 

Up in the fields,

Down in the valleys…

No barley…no lilies…

Roses that once led to a toast.

Causing smiles across miles…

Are there ghosts?

http://thinkpositive30.com/blog/2011/10/11/love-life/

Serenity no longer in the city…

What a pity!

Who dug the pit?

The filth is disgusting,

For a city bustling with life.

 

Will someone save us?

Stand out!

Let trees enjoy a cool breeze…

People, animals too. It’s free…

 

Unveil the true essence of life…

Care for the environment…

Then, we shall truly celebrate,

Love…life!

 

Listen to the sounds…

Birds chirping, rivers flowing…

Watch the butterflies…

Talk of true beauty!

 

Poem:What Time Does Time Heal?

Written by Victorine Ndinda

They say that Time heals

Everything…….?

Especially broken…..hearts?

But they never say the exact time

He does

And it has got me feeling that

He is African, Time

And a man too

Taking his sweet time, not in a hurry like

Source: http://euwysmom.travellerspoint.com/180/

 

And so I wait for Time,

To heal my broken heart

Am getting impatient though

But my heart insists,

That we wait

‘He has the best medicine’,

My heart says

 

And so we wait,

We shall, me and my hurting heart

For time

Poem: The Irony of Love

Poem by Victorine Ndinda

………. And this I find

To be the irony of love.

That the strongest are afraid to love

That the most loving will be hurt

That the wildest can be tamed by love

That those afraid of getting hurt

Let chances pass by, and the best lovers go-

Blocking everything. And everyone.

Never wanting anyone to get in

(Sad, that they will never know the joys

Of loving and being loved)

Source: http://poemsforkush.com/tag/love/

 

……. That those who are ready to love

Don’t easily and readily

Find that love

They so crave for

 

But I know these to be the beauty of love

The secret smiles, little kisses, loving touches, wholesome hugs,

Love notes, love poems

Morning texts, and mid night calls

The giggles and laughs

Shared with someone you love

 

Yes, you may get hurt,

But never

Never

Be afraid To love.

Because, again, the irony of love

Is this

That it is better to have loved

Than to have never loved at all

 

 

My African Wife….

By Gloria Mwaniga.

She ….

Whose eyes are bright as stars in a dark sky,

Whose eyelashes are long as a cat’s

Whose eyebrows are thick and unshaved,

She has gazed her way into my heart.

 

She whose lips are round like an egg hatched by a traditional chicken,

Whose smile is like the winding of the river Naromoru,

She, whose gap is like the path to a forest,

She has laughed her way into my heart.

 

She, whose hips are well rounded like a well molded clay pot,

She whose waist is like an ant’s,

She, whose breasts are small and firm like a young coconut,

She has got my heart beating like a drum.

 

She, whose calf is strong and tough,

She whose feet are quick to help,

She, whose heart is tender and kind,

She has woven a spider’s web in my heart.

 

She, whose skin is smooth as pounded yam,

She, whose hair is rough and rolled up,

She, whose hands are tough because of digging,

She will become my mother’s relative.

 

For I have been to the city and back,

And seen many girls both dark and light skinned,

But her beauty surpasses all of them.

Her rich laugh fills up her thick fleshy neck

Her big heart draws me to her African bosom

Poem: Again

Written by Victorine Ndinda 

I have been thinking, asking myself

If I had a chance, just one more chance

To have you back in my life, again

What would I do differently?

How differently would I love you?

Source: http://www.modernlifeblogs.com/2011/08/5-steps-how-to-learn-to-love-again/

I would wake you up every morning

With a kiss.

Make you breakfast, your favourite;

 2 slices of bread, 2 pieces of nduma,

2 sugars to go with your hot cup of white tea

I would cook you your favourite dish;

Ugali, sukuma and fish

Every evening.

I would appreciate your hard work,

Trying to make me happy,

To keep up with the Kamau’s

Our rich neighbours

See love, I never knew that the Kamau’s

Were heirs to a great family fortune

And so we could never compete with them

Every day, I see couples at our favourite spot

Downtown, at the Coffee House

Laughing, touching and sharing secret smiles

Like we used to

I don’t blame the accident, or God

We’d taken a break,

To ‘think our relationship through’

‘See if we are right for each other’

It was my suggestion of course.

13 days ago.

See love, that day you had that accident on Thika road?

On your way to meet me?

That was the day I was to tell you

That those 13 days had been unbearable

Without you.

Because for the first time,

In the two years we were together

I realised that I can’t live without you.

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Meet the Soul Poet : Eric Otieno ‘Rixpoet’

 Written by Faith Oneya

The Soul Poet Blogs at www.thedeepwords.wordpress.com. Follow him on Twitter : ‏ @EricOtienoPoet. Read on to find out more about him.

LC: Tell us about yourself

EO:   They used to call me ‘Sonic’ back in primary school because I was a fast runner. It was funny but it made me popular and I sure didn’t mind. 🙂

~ Well, I am currently a student at Daystar University taking B.A in Communication. Still in my first year due to a little challenges but holding up.

I really have a strong passion for football and Gor Mahia is my favourite football club (I don’t throw stones though). Am also an ardent Arsenal fan.

I wouldn’t survive for long in a place where there’s no music. If I don’t get it then I make my own. I’d wake up in the middle of the night to write a poem. My other hobbies are singing, rapping, watching movies, travelling, meditating, dancing in the shower, talking to myself, reading the Bible, computer games once in a while, and a whole lot of things. Stuff I do for fun. 🙂

The Soul Poet

LC: If you could have a room full of any one thing, what would it be?

EO: If I could have a room full of any one thing? That would have to be God. Enough said.

On reading and writing…

LC: What book(s) are you currently reading?

EO:  I am currently reading ‘Love: the Way to Victory‘ by one Kenneth E. Hagin. You have to look for this book, and don’t tell me to hand you over after am through with it coz it’s not any time soon.

LC: Have you ever fallen in love with a fictional character from a book? Tell us about it.

EO:  I honestly did not grow up reading books. I was not a fan at all. Perhaps it had to do with the way I was brought up and the environment I grew up in. I’ve begun appreciating books while in secondary school, and from the fictional work I have read, the Merchant of Venice‘s Bassanio (don’t know if that’s the right spelling) was a character I adored. He taught me that love means nothing if we don’t add zeal and determination to it, and in the end, he won. I still marvel at what William Shakespeare, the writer, was made of.

LC: What is one book you haven’t read but want to read before you die?

EO: Okay, I really do not have a list of good books that I’d die to read. I guess whatever I come across that can be of good help does it for me.

LC: What kind of poet are you?

EO:  I do not know if poets too have categories but maybe I’d answer that best if I described my style of writing. I call it soul poetry. Well, virtually all poems speak to the soul but I love writing about things that poke the soul with a little more depth added into it; be it in a happy, somber or a conscious way.

LC: Do you sit and think through every word of every stanza or do you just write freely and allowing the words to flow?

EO:  It depends on the piece am working on. Some pieces need me to think of every line am writing while others allow me to fly away with untamed expressions but in both cases, still end up making thoughtful sense.

LC: When did you first start writing and were there any incidents in your life that made you want to write?

EO:  My love for writing begun in class 7. Growing up in Eastlands did not do me justice in acquainting myself with good writing skills and speaking English. So when I joined Makini School in 1999, I had a hard time expressing myself fluently since my peers were children from well off families most of whom knew very little sheng’ (Swahili slang’).

I was very poor in sciences but did better in languages. Did extremely well in Swahili but lagged a bit behind in English. But it was not until 2004 when I was a Form 2, expelled from school and having a rough adolescence that I discovered my poetry. I was at home during that second term and growing up an introvert, with my parents fighting every now and then, being the first born and with no one to look up to, there was no other way I could express my feelings, both of pain, peace and jollity, other than to write them down. My first piece was titled ‘A Letter To The Grave‘, a tribute to my late sister who died as I watched, ten good years before. It was during that hard time that I wished she was alive and the memories and pain of her death resurrected inside me.

LC: Who is your favourite writer/poet and for what reason are they your favourite writer?

EO:  I don’t really have a favourite poet. As I hinted before, I didn’t grow up reading books. I had no one to mentor me through poetry and how I could better my writing. But my love for literature grew while I was in form 3 at Pumwani Secondary School and the way my teacher, Mrs.Ngumii taught it. It was then that I knew people like Okot P B’tek existed and the likes of Shakespeare. But it was not until I was doing my A-Levels in Uganda that I came across celebrated poets like P.B Shelley, Maya Angelou, Rita Dove, Imamu Amiri Baraka, and Robert Hayden among others, most of whom were African American. Reading their works shaped me a lot, and I still read old poems to date as they have a sense of originality and a captivating ambiance that always captures my heart.

LC: Do you have a fauvorite poem among those you have written? If so, which one. Please write down a few lines from it…

EO:  I have a number of my favourite poems among those I have written. I guess every poet has an attachment to each piece they do. For this case let me sample a few lines from the poem, ‘Eve’:

The tears in your eyes are hidden

They flow

Like sin forbidden

The look in your eyes says it

Pain is heathen

I’d take forever

To quench the heat end

Eve

I know my words

My words will never be enough

Enough to show

These cascades of love

That flow

Like waterfalls from heaven above

 

Eve

I know your heart will laugh

Laugh because maybe

Maybe am not good enough

For the rough turf

The sleeping mirth

That has become your heart

LC: Have you been published before? Any plans to do so?

EO:  I have not been published yet. I had plans to do that a year ago but school work got into my way. I still have not embarked on it but I would certainly love to get published. At the moment I am more into blogging. My poems can be found atwww.thedeepwords.wordpress.com. 

LC: If you could choose one of your personality traits to pass on to your children, what would it be?

EO:  Wow! I would say I would love my children to be persevering. That is a trait that life instilled in me the hard way and it’s one of the things that has helped me reach where I am today. Nothing good comes easy unless when it’s through luck and we can’t be lucky all the time. Faith matures with pain, you know, so we have to learn how to take so much discomfort and still remain as a piece.

LC: What question have you always wanted to be asked as a poet and how would you answer it?

EO:  ha-ha! How do I answer this? Okay, as a poet, I’ve always wanted to be asked how am able to be deep in my pieces (Sounds like a self interview now… :)). I would simply say every one of us has a place in their heart where deep stuff lies. If we would draw our inspiration from there, and incorporate it with our daily life experiences, we can do great things in this world and people will marvel at us. But above all, God MUST is put first.

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