She looks like the guinea fowl!
The smell of carbolic soap
Makes me sick,
And the smell of powder
Provokes the ghosts in my head;
It is then necessary to fetch a goat
From my mother’s brother.
The sacrifice over
The ghost-dance drum must sound
The ghost be laid
And my peace restored.
I do not like dusting myself with powder:
The thing is good on pink skin
Because it is already pale,
But when a black woman has used it
She looks as if she has dysentery;
Tina looks sickly
And she is slow moving,
She is a piteous sight.
Some medicine has eaten up Tina’s face;
The skin on her face is gone
And it is all raw and red,
The face of the beautiful one
Is tender like the skin of a newly born baby!
And she believes
That this is beautiful
Because it resembles the face of a white woman!
Her body resembles
The ugly coat of the hyena;
Her neck and arms
Have real human skins!
*
I am not unfair to my husband,
I do not complain
Because he wants another woman
Whether she is young or aged!
Who has ever prevented men
From wanting women?
Who has discovered the medicine for thirst?
The medicines for hunger
And anger and enmity
Who has discovered them?
*
When the beautiful one
With whom I share my husband
Returns from cooking her hair
She resembles
A chicken
That has fallen into a pond;
Her hair looks
Like the python’s discarded skin.
They cook their hair
With hot iron
And pull it hard
So that it may grow long.
Then they rope the hair
On wooden pens
Like a billy goat
Brought for the sacrifice
Struggling to free itself.
They fry their hair
In boiling oil
As if it were locusts,
And the hair sizzles
It cries aloud in sharp pain
As it is pulled and stretched.
And the vigorous and healthy hair
Curly, springy and thick
That glistens in the sunshine
Is left listless and dead
Like the elephant grass
Scorched brown by the fierce
February sun.
It lies lifeless
Like the sad and dying banana leaves
On a hot and windless afternoon.
*
All I ask
Is that you give me one chance,
Let me praise you
Son of the chief!
Tie ankle bells on my legs
Bring lacucuku rattles
And tie them on my legs,
Call the nanga players
And let them play
And let them sing,
Let me dance before you,
My love,
Let me show you
The wealth in your house,
Ocol my husband,
Son of the Bull,
Let no one uproot the Pumpkin.
Song of Lamino Okot p’Bitek.
Okot p’Bitek was a Ugandan, but his work was influential throughout East Africa, and from 1968 onwards until shortly before his death he was attached to the University of Nairobi. He followed Song of Lawino with Song of Ocol, in which Lawino’s husband answered back.
The coming of independence in 1963 generated a mood of hope and confidence among young African writers. When a new Jerusalem did not arise in Kenya’s brown and pleasant land, disillusionment set in. Many modern poems reflect this attitude.
THEIR CITY
Lennard Okola
City in the sun
without any warmth
except for wanaotosheka3
and the tourists escaping
from civilized boredom
Sit under the Tree
any Saturday morning
and watch the new Africans,
the anxious faces
behind the steering wheels
in hire purchase cars,
see them looking important
in a tiny corner
behind the chauffeur
We have seen them
in a nightmare,
the thickset directors
of several companies;
we have seen them
struggling under the weight
of a heavy lunch
on a Monday afternoon
cutting a tape
to open a building,
we have seen them
looking over their
gold-rimmed glasses
to read a speech
And in the small hours
between one day and the next
we have strolled through
the deserted streets
and seen strange figures
under bougainvillaea bushes
in traffic islands,
figures hardly human
snoring away into
the cold winds of the night;
desperately dying to live.
An Anthology of East African Poetry, ed. A. D. Amateshe.
I SPEAK FOR THE BUSH
Everett Standa
When my friend sees me
He swells and pants like a frog
Because I talk the wisdom of the bush!
He says we from the bush
Do not understand civilized ways
For we tell our women
To keep the hem of their dresses
Below the knee.
We from the bush, my friend insists,
Do not know how to “enjoy”:
When we come to the civilized city,
Like nuns, we stay away from nightclubs
Where women belong to no men
And men belong to no women
And these civilized people
Quarrel and fight like hungry lions!
But, my friend, why do men
With crippled legs, lifeless eyes,
Wooden legs, empty stomachs
Wander about the streets
Of this civilized world?
Teach me, my friend, the trick,
So that my eyes may not
See those whose houses have no walls
But emptiness all around;
Show me the wax you use
To seal your ears
To stop hearing the cry of the hungry;
Teach me the new wisdom
Which tells men
To talk about money and not love,
When they meet women;
Tell your God to convert
Me to the faith of the indifferent,
The faith of those
Who will never listen until
They are shaken with blows.
I speak for the bush:
You speak for the civilized –
Will you hear me?
Poems from East Africa, eds. David Cook and David Rubadiri.
A PREGNANT SCHOOL GIRL
Everett Standa
He paid for her seat in the matatu4
And walked away;
As he disappeared in the city crowd
All her dreams vanished;
One more passenger squeezed in
And lit a cigarette,
She opened the window
And spat cold saliva out,
As the cigarette smoke intensified
She wanted to vomit:
&n
bsp; She remembered the warm nights
When she was her man’s pet,
She remembered the promises
The gifts, the parties, the dances –
She remembered her classmates at school
Who envied her expensive shoes,
Lipstick, wrist-watch, handbag
Which she brought to school
After a weekend with him
The future stood against her
Dark like a night without the moon,
And silent like the end of the world;
As the matatu sped away from the city
She began to tremble with fear
Wondering what her parents would say;
With all hope gone
She felt like a corpse
going home to be buried.
An Anthology of East African Poetry, ed. A. D. Amateshe.
BETROTHED
Obyero Odhiambo
The bride, they said
had gone through school
primary secondary university upwards:
Three thousand shillings is not enough.
For having fed her
schooled her
employed her
Three thousand shillings is not enough –
For having borne her
cared her
doctored her
And “she is pure”
Three thousand shillings is not enough.
Look at her silky black hair
Darker and finer than that
Flywhisk there
Look at her forehead, a
Nice wide trace between
hairline and eyes:
“She is immensely intelligent.”
Look at her eyes. Yes, look again
Two diviners’ cowries spread out
symbolically on the divination mat
deep profound intelligent;
Look at those lips “ndugu” …
Three thousand shillings is not enough
even to shake her by the hand.
“Fathers, this is what we walked with!
Three thousand shillings
As a token of our
Love
for your daughter and you
our intended kin
It was just a token
The size of the token does not reflect
The size of the heart that bringeth it
My heart is full to the brim with
Love
for your daughter
Mine is just a token of my
Love
for her and you my intended kin.”
But, young man, you say, you love
and you possibly expect love
But, young man, don’t you
Don’t you really feel
Three thousand shillings is not enough
even to get love?
Three thousand shillings is not enough!
An Anthology of East African Poetry, ed. A. D. Amateshe.
TIME AND THOUGHT
J. Angira
Perhaps we should have stayed
Little longer at the harbour
Before risking the moat
Between happiness and despair
Perhaps we should have delayed
Little longer at the tower
To gauge the moods of the sea
Before letting go the anchor
Perhaps we should have waited
Little longer at the hangar
To watch the clouds in the sky
Before risking the flight
Perhaps we should have waited
Little longer in umbilical safety
Before venturing into this Kingdom of Dreams
Where Life and Death play military games.
Boundless Voices: Poems from Kenya, ed. Arthur Luvai.
RHYTHM OF THE PESTLE
Richard Ntiru
Listen – listen –
listen to the palpable rhythm
of the periodic pestle,
plunging in proud perfection
into the cardial cavity
of maternal mortar
like the panting heart
of the virgin bride
with the silver hymen,
or the approaching stamp
of late athleting cows
hurrying home to their bleating calves.
At each succeeding stroke
the grain darts, glad to be scattered
by the hard glint
of the pestle’s passion.
During the aerial suspension
of the pendent pestle
the twice-asked, twice-disappointed girl
thinks of the suitor that didn’t come,
of her who dragged her name through ashes
uncleansed by the goat-sacrifice,
of her bridal bed
that vanished with the ephemeral dream,
of her twin firstlings
that will never be born,
and her weltering hands
grip, grip, rivet hard
and downright down
comes the vengeance pestle.
I have seen the hearth
and the triplets,
but no trace of ash….
Now the grain jumps, reluctantly,
each time lower and lower,
smiling the half-white smile
of the teething baby,
glad to be crushed,
glad to be sublimated
to the quintessential powder
after the consummation.
In the bananas
the girls dance, singing of one
who saw her father in sleepy drunkenness
and confided in the birds of the sky.
Still the perennial pestle
pounds the tribulations of a battered soul
and the caked countenance of an orphaned age
to the intensity and fineness
of a powder.
An Anthology of East African Poetry, ed. A. D. Amateshe.
THE TROUBLED WARRIOR
Alexander Muigai
I’ll put aside my hoe:
Let them call me lazy.
I’ll lay aside my stick:
Let my cattle rove alone.
I’ll bid farewell my girl
And my laughing sister
Despite their sweet tears.
I’ll pat my younger brother.
Then I’ll go and kneel down
Before the two heaps of stones
Where my parents lie;
I’ll plead with them to call
The blessing of their gods
On me, a troubled youth,
Before I go in the pursuit.
Then I’ll gird my loin-cloth.
Sling my bow and the sword
Of my clan. Spear in hand
I’ll go to face the foe.
The dewy grass shall be
My couch; on the cold rock
My head shall rest;
The damp night air shall blanket me;
And to the wild beast
I’ll be a guest.
I’ll drink from the wandering streams;
Suck on wild fruits.
Till I have faced my foe
I’ll be ashamed to face my home.
Courage; hate and my enemy’s fate
Drive me on. Mighty he stands
But curse be on me if
I show him my naked heels:
No! Never, never!
Come death before surrender
But I’ll slay him – this I know.
Then I’ll dry my bleeding
Sword on my thirsty tongue;
And proclaim victory –
The will of my fathers.
Thus, all having been done,
And my poor heart settled,
I’ll venture to go home.
I’ll take up my hoe and dig;
I’ll pick up my stick and herd;
I’ll court my girl and wed.
Having done my duty,<
br />
I’ll sit by the fire
And grow old.
Poems from East Africa, eds. David Cook and David Rubadiri.
A LEOPARD LIVES IN A MUU TREE
Jonathan Kariara
A leopard lives in a Muu tree
Watching my home
My lambs are born speckled
My wives tie their skirts tight
And turn away –
Fearing mottled offspring.
They bathe when the moon is high
Soft and fecund
Splash cold mountain stream water on their nipples
Drop their skin skirts and call obscenities.
I’m besieged
I shall have to cut down the muu tree
I’m besieged
I walk about stiff
Stroking my loins
A leopard lives outside my homestead
Watching my women
I have called him elder, the one-from-the-same-womb
He peers at me with slit eyes
His head held high
My sword has rusted in the scabbard.
My wives purse their lips
When owls call for mating
I’m besieged
They fetch cold mountain water
They crush the sugar cane
But refuse to touch my beer horn.
My fences are broken
My medicine bags torn
The hair on my loins is singed
The upright post at the gate has fallen
My women are frisky
The leopard arches over my homestead
Eats my lambs
Resuscitating himself.
Poems from East Africa, eds. David Cook and David Rubadiri.
GRASS WILL GROW
Nine Faces Of Kenya Page 62