The love song

By t. Michael Mboya

I grow old … I grow old …

An old man is a bowed chrysalis

Standing, he only sees

The ground around his feet

But his spirit, lately eclosed,

Criss-crosses time and space

And history, seeking the Truth

I am getting hot

The wings of my spirit are fluttering

My stiff fingers are fumbling …

I trap my truth. You. Tapo!

The Matatu Passenger

By Abraham O’Obunga

Twelve o’clock.

Into the matatu.

Beside me, a ‘plump’,

Behind,

A ‘slim’

With tobacco ridden breath.

A freight train, he is.

The ‘plump’,

Her fundamentals,

On my laps.

Gone

By Karani Kelvin.

I see you grope in the dark
Touching
Spaces that once were warm
Clutching
At my retreating shadow
You stretch to cuddle
But there’s emptiness there
No warm breath against
Your neck, no fingers dripping
Desire all over you…
You whisper my name
But even when I was there
I was already gone.

UREF[i]

By t. Michael Mboya.

I was afraid that these children would live like the birds of the air.

Bene[ii]

Prelude

January 2008[iii].

Our dreams

of making a home here

in this Eldoret Town

where we have lived

for fifteen years

are beaten

out of matatus

on the Nairobi-Nakuru highway

at Naivasha

and slaughtered.