We played on into the night
I wish we had played on into the night,
African cowboys with not much,
Else to do,
I wish we had challenged the fish in the sea and,
Called out to the Bison,
My father and his band,
And his
-strike while the iron is hot-
Jive,
Johnstone, his brother,
On the drums,
Kicking up a riot,
Sarah the lead,
Crooning about her rescue from a,
Very bad man,
Lydia,
Lead back-up,
Flinging in the,
'Alleluiahs', and
'Godda-let-it-be's!
Samuel,
A doctor dying of AIDS,
Breathing life into a tin-metal harmonica,
'Alleluhia,'
Rocking the old man at the end of the bar,
And the couple at the table, fighting with their lips,
I think heard it coming when he fumbled the line,
And I wish we had played on all night.
Sunday
They say that Africans,
Will have to fight for a place on the bus,
So I am pulling out all the stops.
I am burning incense and,
Turning out closets,
-exorcising demons-
I am fumigating my life,
Throwing out old clothes and,
Trying to gain favour,
-surely children were not meant for the streets,
Nor nations meant for war-
I have found sack cloth and ash and,
I intend to,
Gouge flesh with home-made irons
Flagellate until I bleed sin,
All over the carpet.
There will be gnashing of teeth,
And great wailing,
-effort must be made-
I shall identify,
Church pews with nails and,
Kneel!
But the spotlight keeps missing me,
And I manage only to elicit,
Splendid chuckles from my nephew.
Three trees
A brook runs through my Grandmas farm,
That used to carry gold.
My Grandpa
-Benjamin-
Did not yield the land,
To the British, who wanted it dammed.
In 1968, they took him in,
To have his appendix removed,
And Grandma never remarried.
My Aunt Alice,
Was a witch.
She flew in on broomsticks
We never saw,
But heard in the barn,
Where she parked.
She brought foreign sweets that didn't
Crack our lips,
And told us naughty jokes.
-Oh Pope the Bastard,
Please pass the Custard!-
We'd squeal and never tell,
And feel all grown up and,
Conspiratorial.
Grandma says she died running with
The wrong pack,
That she was knocked from the sky,
By a cross.
Later we learned,
It was a broken heart that did it,
That Grandma wouldn't accept a,
Jewish man in the house,
So she killed herself.
Mary was dead when we got here,
Her tree is the prettiest.
It's a large yellow poplar that,
Trembles in the slightest breeze,
She was a violinist,
A frail, little thing, who
Is fading away,
In family photographs.
Iridescent sparrows trill,
Beautiful harmonies,
From skinny branches,
Shielded by the most delicate,
Drooping fronds.
You see, my Grandmother has three beautiful trees,
Growing in her garden,
One for Benjamin, one for Alice, one for Mary.
My grandmother used to sit under these trees.
They're feeding off the bones she says.
We are leaving them behind
Never mind steel,
We are creating new materials,
Carbon nano-tubes, poly-ceramics,
Twirl a ball above your head, we are
Building elevators into space,
Stringing massage parlours around the earth,
We are engineering ourselves,
Computer worlds and,
Selling real estate, we
Are leaving the old people,
Behind,
Stained curtains and they are,
Walking into forests,
In Japan.
Shitsugane Olembo is a 42 year old Gay Kenyan Film Director who has been writing poetry for ten years. He is part of the New Poetry coming from the Literary Collective, Kwani (http://kwani.org) in Kenya. For Shitsugane, the personal is political, and personal stories matter.