Welcome to the official blog of the Kenya Association of Poets.In a few weeks from today, I promise, you will find here poems submitted to the Kenya Association of Poets since circa 1980, by men, women and children from diverse religious, political or professional leanings, but all of whom take pride in the humble title of 'poet.'
Many expressionists, thinkers, students, teachers, journalists, creative writers, scholars, painters, musicians, and even noisemakers have, and continue to contribute to this ever growing colletion of poetry.
The older poems have been preserved by the secretariat for many years, in the hope of one day finding a publisher. But since publishing comes in many forms these days, the poems have been performed, recited, aired and now, finally, blogged.
But first, a brief history of the Association.I do not know if the charming lady Pam Amadi still breathes the air of this earth, but I ask her poetic spirit to respond to this blog. I think Francis Gichuru is now a senior professor of education at Kenyatta University, but his poems, short, subtle yet deep, still tickle my heart and bring back those fond memories of my poetic childhood.
I have put together some of their poems here not because they were the founders of the association (which is a historical fact, anyway) but because they wrote some fine poetry in their own right.
I am thinking of Shokat Habib, Raju Umamaheswar, Sam Mbure, Marjorie Oludhe, Stoa Pokile, and many others whose poems, though not easily available in book form many years later, kept the literary embers aglow in the Kenya Times newspaper in the 1970s and 1980s.
In this electronic age, can this blog be a reunion for us, an electronic stage, where we can make a comeback, like we did at Kenyatta University's Cinema Hall in the late 1980s and at the Goethe Institute in the early 1990s?
Posted by Kenya Association of Poets.
Friday, August 24, 2007
Friday, August 10, 2007
Adrian Onyando on Otieno Amisi’s poetry
Adrian Onyando reviews Otieno Amisi’s poetry
East African publishers and their readers have made the personal anthology something of a literary anathema.
With the few exceptions of the so-called established poets like Taban lo Liyong', Micere Githae Mugo and Jared Angira, poets generally do not enjoy seeing their works in print.
Consequently, Taban's diagnosis of literary barrenness in East Africa still holds true especially in the realm of poetry, and particularly in the sub genre of the personal anthology.
Part of this predicament is attributed to poor readership and the resultant small market for such works. The East African literary market is largely school textbook oriented, and by some kind of strange logic, editors and educationists have decided that only anthologies of mixed authorship can meet the criteria for set-books.
Apart from denying us the rewarding study of a single, imaginative development and behaviour, this practice also creates myths for its own self- justification. Foremost in this myth -making process is the assumption that only a mixed anthology is representative geographically as well as thematically. It is not always the case.
Commended himself
Otieno Amisi has commended himself to us by presenting to us the consummation of the merits and pleasures of a personal anthology. Back to the Future is hardly individualized: It is the kind of collection which proves that the personal is also societal, and that a single collection can grapple with so many issues as to be representative of the continent's poetic concerns.
The first poem in the anthology, Thirty Years of Africa opens the ground for the critical assessment of post independence Africa. Thirty years of independence are crucial for they point to the direction Africa will take in the new millennium, basing our judgment on how well we have dealt with our manifest problems, which include the after effects of colonialism and the side effects of modernity.
In Amisi' s realistic estimation, not only have thirty years of dismal performance failed to eradicate the banally publicized problems of poverty and strange diseases, but have also ushered in new sets of problems heard in the resounding of heavy boots, guns and bombs, and also seen in the plight of refugees (A Refugee Song).
For a sensitive poet like Amisi, it is appropriate to present Africa in a series of unflattering metaphors like the disorderly law making parliament, a ring of mightily fit bully boxers, a jungle, and of course that other name for disorder -the Kenyan matatu taxi.
The misrule in our leadership of course, will for long stand as a monument of shame and degradation in Africa's troubled history. Amisi does not hesitate to show the leaders in their true picture: hypocritical, arrogant and even downright silly.
If only beggars would brush their teeth juxtaposes the erratic leadership (ironically on an urgent nation -building mission) with the self-created social problems manifest in the begging "'street families" and the squalor of their condition.
The insensitivity of the government official's self assurance and the pride of his destructive activities ironically climax in his flight from the reality he has created to a posh home and a deceptive future:
My dear Musso,
Take me home
To the other city
Where I belong.
The city of the future
If lack of vision is a hallmark of African leadership, so is tyranny, which is designed to prop it up against the possible popular uprising. In Elephant Song the poet uses that jungle symbol of absolute rule -- the elephant -- to give hope to the repressed masses. One can detect Martin Luther King JR' s hopefully prophetic message in Amisi' s song:
Free at last, free at last,
We are free at last!
Streaks of Hope
It is these streaks of hope that make Amisi' s works more than just poems of protest or victim narratives. The evils and their perpetrators are seen more as belonging to an ephemeral stage in our history marked by something akin to labour pains preceding a new birth.
Thus while a poem like The Grand March ends not in the intended freedom but disillusionment borne out of compromise of principles. Elephant Song is indeed a victory song, consonant with the mood of optimism which graces even the bleakest poems.
What emerges here is clear: the poet reserves the right to prophesy doom, but is also observant enough to point out the first gleam of light in the morning of a new era. While the struggle for justice and social freedom may be long drawn out, there are other concerns, which require immediate action.
Both A Tough War and Save Lake Victoria are wake-up calls against a dreaded disease and the disruptive water hyacinth weed on Lake Victoria. The tone of urgency and rhetorical devices indicate the fight should be underway and that the poems should be transformed into work songs:
It is a tough war, a tough war
And a global thing
'tis now we can fight,
Fight right now' or never
It is informative to read the author's preface that such a poem as "Aids" was composed in a workshop situation and later presented as a choral verse in the schools music festival.
Talking of functional poetry, one would ill afford to gloss over these work(shop) songs, however few they are, for they provide the link between the poet as an initiator of and mobilizer for social action and the poet as an active participant in the events of his day.
Salient features in the history of Kenya do not escape the poet for their symbolic significance. Thus Saba Saba riots in Kenya (Saba Saba) is a local event but with universal ramifications, for it expresses the second wave of liberation struggle in Africa (which in Kenya led to the first multi-party elections).
Violence Without Robbery
The same universality claim can also be laid to Violence Without Robbery and For Robert Ouko, which talk of political murders bedeviling the modern African state, particularly Kenya. The poet probes into the riots and the murders, offering implications and publishing the authors of the hineous acts:
Now we know who killed him
Now we know who killed him... ...
To be in the know in such a context as the killing of a popular politician or clergyman (as were Dr. Robert Ouko and Bishop Alexander Kipsang Muge) is itself courageous, for the knowledge itself is an offence punishable even by death. And the victims acquire the status of a martyr on the altar of justice.
If African writers have made much of politics and society in their works, so has Amisi, but the thrust of his poetry also lies in another direction. Nature, with and without its symbolic value, provide a fertile ground for the poet's exploration of different moods.
Dispossessed, alienated and frustrated, the poet's heart finds sanctuary in nature, which is characterized, generally, as the vortex of beauty and tranquility (The Sea, Rainbow Song). invincible dignity and glory (The Rocks of Kit Mikayi) and the unfailing hospitality and protection of home (Mother Sango, and Nyandiwa).
Between being a lover of nature and being an environmental activist (as in Save Lake Victoria) is only a thin, blurred line; and the poet takes advantage of all the possibilities, emotional and thematic, offered by nature.
However, in relating nature to the society, the romantic appeal wanes and we come face to face with the slime and grime and the madness reflected in a single river (Nyandiwa). In a nutshell, the poet's love of nature, particularly in the water masses, is neatly tempered with his sensitivity to the evils in the society including environmental pollution.
Convergence
It is in poems in which the poet defines his role that we again notice a convergence of different concerns. The poet's life is a dangerous one because of his fighting nature and the unpopularity of his profession. (The Artist Lives Dangerously). He is principled, and oriented toward a just cause, but is not immune to the frailties of the talented personalities:
Let poets heap unmeant praises
On tyranny and corruption
For leaders,
being God's choicest sons
Are hard to come by
And His Excellency is only one
(…Let poets sing)
Apart from being the conscience of the present-day society, the poet is also the custodian of a glorious past. So entrenched is the poet's love for the past that one could say that the only place to find authentic values and happiness is in the traditions.
The title poem "Back to The Future" argues for a return to the past- "Give the pumpkin another chance ' for the side effects of modem civilization far outweigh its advantages.
The poem entitled" Happiness" also emphasizes on the value of traditionalism, complete with its music, symbolized in the nyatiti. One could contrast the spontaneous dance of the nyatiti to the heavy, artificial and dreary dance of 0f development in the poem "The City".
As one who has found use of the rejected cornerstone of traditionalism, the poet leads the way in homecoming, rather like Okigbo in "Heavensgate". For instance, in the poem "Mother Sango" the poet is a prodigal returned to a watery presence.
Echoes of Okigbo's Mother Idoto" are all too obvious. Amisi's indebtedness to Okigbo is expressed in the poem 'To Chris Okigbo' in which he tries to immortalize the poet by paying tribute to his literary-cultural career.
Okigbo's Grandson
As a literary grandson of Okigbo, Amisi also engages in universal themes such as love and its precariousness, the values of sexuality and the warmth of human companionship.
These poems by Amisi are about Africa in all its aspects- politics, nature, emotions, society and culture. They ring with tones rich in melody and rhythm -sound is arguably Arnisi's strongest mettle. In the simplicity of the diction and syntax lies profound meaning to be gleaned through wit and irony. The language sometimes sounds like nursery rhymes even when the themes are serious.
My learned brother, he too sings
The song of the torah
Ten are too many
Ten are too many
Some appendages must go
(I. Hear My Mother Singing.)
But it would be unfair to fail to mention that Amisi' s language is in character and its oral ring reminds us that we have come closer borne, to Africa, with its troubled politics and vibrant culture. These poems will go a long way in introducing the student of African poetry to the rich
I variety of African poetic themes and styles all through one poetic personality -Otieno Amisi.
Adrian Onyando is a lecturer in Literature at Egerton University, Kenya.
East African publishers and their readers have made the personal anthology something of a literary anathema.
With the few exceptions of the so-called established poets like Taban lo Liyong', Micere Githae Mugo and Jared Angira, poets generally do not enjoy seeing their works in print.
Consequently, Taban's diagnosis of literary barrenness in East Africa still holds true especially in the realm of poetry, and particularly in the sub genre of the personal anthology.
Part of this predicament is attributed to poor readership and the resultant small market for such works. The East African literary market is largely school textbook oriented, and by some kind of strange logic, editors and educationists have decided that only anthologies of mixed authorship can meet the criteria for set-books.
Apart from denying us the rewarding study of a single, imaginative development and behaviour, this practice also creates myths for its own self- justification. Foremost in this myth -making process is the assumption that only a mixed anthology is representative geographically as well as thematically. It is not always the case.
Commended himself
Otieno Amisi has commended himself to us by presenting to us the consummation of the merits and pleasures of a personal anthology. Back to the Future is hardly individualized: It is the kind of collection which proves that the personal is also societal, and that a single collection can grapple with so many issues as to be representative of the continent's poetic concerns.
The first poem in the anthology, Thirty Years of Africa opens the ground for the critical assessment of post independence Africa. Thirty years of independence are crucial for they point to the direction Africa will take in the new millennium, basing our judgment on how well we have dealt with our manifest problems, which include the after effects of colonialism and the side effects of modernity.
In Amisi' s realistic estimation, not only have thirty years of dismal performance failed to eradicate the banally publicized problems of poverty and strange diseases, but have also ushered in new sets of problems heard in the resounding of heavy boots, guns and bombs, and also seen in the plight of refugees (A Refugee Song).
For a sensitive poet like Amisi, it is appropriate to present Africa in a series of unflattering metaphors like the disorderly law making parliament, a ring of mightily fit bully boxers, a jungle, and of course that other name for disorder -the Kenyan matatu taxi.
The misrule in our leadership of course, will for long stand as a monument of shame and degradation in Africa's troubled history. Amisi does not hesitate to show the leaders in their true picture: hypocritical, arrogant and even downright silly.
If only beggars would brush their teeth juxtaposes the erratic leadership (ironically on an urgent nation -building mission) with the self-created social problems manifest in the begging "'street families" and the squalor of their condition.
The insensitivity of the government official's self assurance and the pride of his destructive activities ironically climax in his flight from the reality he has created to a posh home and a deceptive future:
My dear Musso,
Take me home
To the other city
Where I belong.
The city of the future
If lack of vision is a hallmark of African leadership, so is tyranny, which is designed to prop it up against the possible popular uprising. In Elephant Song the poet uses that jungle symbol of absolute rule -- the elephant -- to give hope to the repressed masses. One can detect Martin Luther King JR' s hopefully prophetic message in Amisi' s song:
Free at last, free at last,
We are free at last!
Streaks of Hope
It is these streaks of hope that make Amisi' s works more than just poems of protest or victim narratives. The evils and their perpetrators are seen more as belonging to an ephemeral stage in our history marked by something akin to labour pains preceding a new birth.
Thus while a poem like The Grand March ends not in the intended freedom but disillusionment borne out of compromise of principles. Elephant Song is indeed a victory song, consonant with the mood of optimism which graces even the bleakest poems.
What emerges here is clear: the poet reserves the right to prophesy doom, but is also observant enough to point out the first gleam of light in the morning of a new era. While the struggle for justice and social freedom may be long drawn out, there are other concerns, which require immediate action.
Both A Tough War and Save Lake Victoria are wake-up calls against a dreaded disease and the disruptive water hyacinth weed on Lake Victoria. The tone of urgency and rhetorical devices indicate the fight should be underway and that the poems should be transformed into work songs:
It is a tough war, a tough war
And a global thing
'tis now we can fight,
Fight right now' or never
It is informative to read the author's preface that such a poem as "Aids" was composed in a workshop situation and later presented as a choral verse in the schools music festival.
Talking of functional poetry, one would ill afford to gloss over these work(shop) songs, however few they are, for they provide the link between the poet as an initiator of and mobilizer for social action and the poet as an active participant in the events of his day.
Salient features in the history of Kenya do not escape the poet for their symbolic significance. Thus Saba Saba riots in Kenya (Saba Saba) is a local event but with universal ramifications, for it expresses the second wave of liberation struggle in Africa (which in Kenya led to the first multi-party elections).
Violence Without Robbery
The same universality claim can also be laid to Violence Without Robbery and For Robert Ouko, which talk of political murders bedeviling the modern African state, particularly Kenya. The poet probes into the riots and the murders, offering implications and publishing the authors of the hineous acts:
Now we know who killed him
Now we know who killed him... ...
To be in the know in such a context as the killing of a popular politician or clergyman (as were Dr. Robert Ouko and Bishop Alexander Kipsang Muge) is itself courageous, for the knowledge itself is an offence punishable even by death. And the victims acquire the status of a martyr on the altar of justice.
If African writers have made much of politics and society in their works, so has Amisi, but the thrust of his poetry also lies in another direction. Nature, with and without its symbolic value, provide a fertile ground for the poet's exploration of different moods.
Dispossessed, alienated and frustrated, the poet's heart finds sanctuary in nature, which is characterized, generally, as the vortex of beauty and tranquility (The Sea, Rainbow Song). invincible dignity and glory (The Rocks of Kit Mikayi) and the unfailing hospitality and protection of home (Mother Sango, and Nyandiwa).
Between being a lover of nature and being an environmental activist (as in Save Lake Victoria) is only a thin, blurred line; and the poet takes advantage of all the possibilities, emotional and thematic, offered by nature.
However, in relating nature to the society, the romantic appeal wanes and we come face to face with the slime and grime and the madness reflected in a single river (Nyandiwa). In a nutshell, the poet's love of nature, particularly in the water masses, is neatly tempered with his sensitivity to the evils in the society including environmental pollution.
Convergence
It is in poems in which the poet defines his role that we again notice a convergence of different concerns. The poet's life is a dangerous one because of his fighting nature and the unpopularity of his profession. (The Artist Lives Dangerously). He is principled, and oriented toward a just cause, but is not immune to the frailties of the talented personalities:
Let poets heap unmeant praises
On tyranny and corruption
For leaders,
being God's choicest sons
Are hard to come by
And His Excellency is only one
(…Let poets sing)
Apart from being the conscience of the present-day society, the poet is also the custodian of a glorious past. So entrenched is the poet's love for the past that one could say that the only place to find authentic values and happiness is in the traditions.
The title poem "Back to The Future" argues for a return to the past- "Give the pumpkin another chance ' for the side effects of modem civilization far outweigh its advantages.
The poem entitled" Happiness" also emphasizes on the value of traditionalism, complete with its music, symbolized in the nyatiti. One could contrast the spontaneous dance of the nyatiti to the heavy, artificial and dreary dance of 0f development in the poem "The City".
As one who has found use of the rejected cornerstone of traditionalism, the poet leads the way in homecoming, rather like Okigbo in "Heavensgate". For instance, in the poem "Mother Sango" the poet is a prodigal returned to a watery presence.
Echoes of Okigbo's Mother Idoto" are all too obvious. Amisi's indebtedness to Okigbo is expressed in the poem 'To Chris Okigbo' in which he tries to immortalize the poet by paying tribute to his literary-cultural career.
Okigbo's Grandson
As a literary grandson of Okigbo, Amisi also engages in universal themes such as love and its precariousness, the values of sexuality and the warmth of human companionship.
These poems by Amisi are about Africa in all its aspects- politics, nature, emotions, society and culture. They ring with tones rich in melody and rhythm -sound is arguably Arnisi's strongest mettle. In the simplicity of the diction and syntax lies profound meaning to be gleaned through wit and irony. The language sometimes sounds like nursery rhymes even when the themes are serious.
My learned brother, he too sings
The song of the torah
Ten are too many
Ten are too many
Some appendages must go
(I. Hear My Mother Singing.)
But it would be unfair to fail to mention that Amisi' s language is in character and its oral ring reminds us that we have come closer borne, to Africa, with its troubled politics and vibrant culture. These poems will go a long way in introducing the student of African poetry to the rich
I variety of African poetic themes and styles all through one poetic personality -Otieno Amisi.
Adrian Onyando is a lecturer in Literature at Egerton University, Kenya.
The artist lives dangerously
The Artist Lives Dangerously
The artist lives dangerously
Cursing, blasting, blaming, weeping
The artist lives dangerously
Hits the stone with his ass
Crosses swords with the censor
Critic and state
The artist lives dangerously
On an empty stomach
Performing to a hall equally empty
Hardly marking the hard roads lie
Long worn out by the click-clack
Of illiterate women's high heels
On the same pavement they pass
They who care naught
for a stroke of pen
Or a sweep of brush
the artist lives hungrily
In a little shed
Beside a glass shop
that sells his works
And the library
that shyly shelves his books
Across the road,
the National gallery ..
whose director gulps royalties
Like the local politician
eating bribes
to his fill..
The artist lives dangerously
The tumbling line,
the sweeping brush
Cursing,
blasting,
weeping,
bleeding
And once praising
The artist lives dangerously
An uncommon laborer
without a union leader.
otienoamisi
The artist lives dangerously
Cursing, blasting, blaming, weeping
The artist lives dangerously
Hits the stone with his ass
Crosses swords with the censor
Critic and state
The artist lives dangerously
On an empty stomach
Performing to a hall equally empty
Hardly marking the hard roads lie
Long worn out by the click-clack
Of illiterate women's high heels
On the same pavement they pass
They who care naught
for a stroke of pen
Or a sweep of brush
the artist lives hungrily
In a little shed
Beside a glass shop
that sells his works
And the library
that shyly shelves his books
Across the road,
the National gallery ..
whose director gulps royalties
Like the local politician
eating bribes
to his fill..
The artist lives dangerously
The tumbling line,
the sweeping brush
Cursing,
blasting,
weeping,
bleeding
And once praising
The artist lives dangerously
An uncommon laborer
without a union leader.
otienoamisi
Otieno Amisi
Otieno Amisi was born in Nyanza Province, Kenya and attended St.
Mary's Yala and Gendia High Schools before graduating from Kenyatta University in 1987.
He founded and edited a respectable but short-lived literary monthly, New Age.
A high school teacher and freelance writer, Amisi is currently working on a research project on the writings of David Maillu. This is his first collection of poems.
For more Amisi, see also http://www.otienoamisi.wordpress.com/ http://www.writethatstory.wordpress.com/
Mary's Yala and Gendia High Schools before graduating from Kenyatta University in 1987.
He founded and edited a respectable but short-lived literary monthly, New Age.
A high school teacher and freelance writer, Amisi is currently working on a research project on the writings of David Maillu. This is his first collection of poems.
For more Amisi, see also http://www.otienoamisi.wordpress.com/ http://www.writethatstory.wordpress.com/
Now toll the bells
Now Toll the Bells
Now toll the bells
that say we must part
one thing deep down I know
what forever becomes one
must thus forever remain.
Feelings tender and comely
Fill our hearts a brimful
and though the bells toll ceaselessly
heart beats of love drums on and on...
The weary heart of the mid-day sun
blazes fiercely on weary foreheads
travelers sigh, spitting dust
the journey is long,
but for home we long.
Mere words not carry
the moments
of hearts contented, exalted, delighted .
So to say gratitude for it all
Falls for below par
now toll the bells…
Bwaja I
Fingers of water
fingers of earth
like lover's thighs interlocked
in a ceaseless
life less
timeless
tasteless
endless
meaningless
deathless
ruthless
useless
struggle
Bwaja 2
Sitting on your haunches
a shitting child
slitting your way
your drunken reflection
in the blues of Sango
When I shudder
it's to thee I return.
otienoamisi
Now toll the bells
that say we must part
one thing deep down I know
what forever becomes one
must thus forever remain.
Feelings tender and comely
Fill our hearts a brimful
and though the bells toll ceaselessly
heart beats of love drums on and on...
The weary heart of the mid-day sun
blazes fiercely on weary foreheads
travelers sigh, spitting dust
the journey is long,
but for home we long.
Mere words not carry
the moments
of hearts contented, exalted, delighted .
So to say gratitude for it all
Falls for below par
now toll the bells…
Bwaja I
Fingers of water
fingers of earth
like lover's thighs interlocked
in a ceaseless
life less
timeless
tasteless
endless
meaningless
deathless
ruthless
useless
struggle
Bwaja 2
Sitting on your haunches
a shitting child
slitting your way
your drunken reflection
in the blues of Sango
When I shudder
it's to thee I return.
otienoamisi
Mother Sango
Mother Sango
To thee I come,
Mother Sango
Numbed
By the twang of metal
by the putrefaction
of a dying city
by the vain splash
of a receding sunset
To thee I come,
Mother Sango.
Let me drink
of your deepest springs
Oozing from the radiant moon
of early eve …
Let me bare my broken baby bones
To the morning winds cool and fresh
Let me dance with the silvery fish
in the gentle rhythm of mid day sea.
To thee I come, Mother Sango
to my people
Tall as truth
Timeless
Healthy
and hearty.
otienoamisi.
To thee I come,
Mother Sango
Numbed
By the twang of metal
by the putrefaction
of a dying city
by the vain splash
of a receding sunset
To thee I come,
Mother Sango.
Let me drink
of your deepest springs
Oozing from the radiant moon
of early eve …
Let me bare my broken baby bones
To the morning winds cool and fresh
Let me dance with the silvery fish
in the gentle rhythm of mid day sea.
To thee I come, Mother Sango
to my people
Tall as truth
Timeless
Healthy
and hearty.
otienoamisi.
The grand march
The Grand March
The peace procession proceeded
Progressing, like a snake without shoulders
With a license,
Or without a license
Where it was going,
no one knew.
They could end up
outside majestic state house
Or in the mass graveyard
Complete with bright placards
broken bones, blasted heads
Their mouth-filling slogans silenced
Their gigantic tree branches
reduced to dust
Call the police,
Call the police! someone!
No, its the world cup!
Someone must have incited
these peace loving law abiding people?
The police, when they came
A little faster than the fire brigade
Did stop them
But after that
What? where?
How could…?
We know the inciter.
'These church people,' said someone
'with their have foreign masters.
talking about a wind of change
This is a universal problem.
Look where they're going.
A huge cross leads them
glittering like a sword
Seems there is no more heaven
except the one on earth.
The lawyers, the students, too
Have joined the protesters!
Tomorrow they'll close the 'varsity
Those kids have been rather noisy lately
Shouting at the lion face to face!
Some call it the wind of change
Ha, let's see who gets blown away.
The whistle blows
The old marchers, their feet weary
Fall asleep by the wayside
Are soon replaced by more
fire-spitting red eyed rebels
But these too tire out
Gorge themselves with loot
Run out of steam and song
And crumble in a heap of deceit.
The long noisy march to nowhere
is called politics.
otienoamisi
The peace procession proceeded
Progressing, like a snake without shoulders
With a license,
Or without a license
Where it was going,
no one knew.
They could end up
outside majestic state house
Or in the mass graveyard
Complete with bright placards
broken bones, blasted heads
Their mouth-filling slogans silenced
Their gigantic tree branches
reduced to dust
Call the police,
Call the police! someone!
No, its the world cup!
Someone must have incited
these peace loving law abiding people?
The police, when they came
A little faster than the fire brigade
Did stop them
But after that
What? where?
How could…?
We know the inciter.
'These church people,' said someone
'with their have foreign masters.
talking about a wind of change
This is a universal problem.
Look where they're going.
A huge cross leads them
glittering like a sword
Seems there is no more heaven
except the one on earth.
The lawyers, the students, too
Have joined the protesters!
Tomorrow they'll close the 'varsity
Those kids have been rather noisy lately
Shouting at the lion face to face!
Some call it the wind of change
Ha, let's see who gets blown away.
The whistle blows
The old marchers, their feet weary
Fall asleep by the wayside
Are soon replaced by more
fire-spitting red eyed rebels
But these too tire out
Gorge themselves with loot
Run out of steam and song
And crumble in a heap of deceit.
The long noisy march to nowhere
is called politics.
otienoamisi
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
