Thursday, December 15, 2016

In this Nairobi


By T. Michael Mboya

Here comes the man
your mother in Uriya[1]
warned you against
in tale, song and proverb
that kept alive
the fire in the hearth.

Moving



By T. Michael Mboya


These go into the pickup truck first
The hard bulky stuff
the beds, the bedside tables,
the dressing tables and their stools
(detach those long mirrors
lay them on the floor
Of the boot of the car)
the mattresses
the computer desk and its chair
the reading tables and their chairs
the book shelves
the TV stand
the sofa set, the coffee table
the stools and the pouffes
the dining table and its seats
the fridge, the gas cooker
and the gas cylinder
the satellite dish can perch
on the dining table
Take these crates, too
they are books
Lean the wall hangings
against them
and besides these, supporting them
that box of shoes.

Thursday, October 20, 2016

Postcard

By t. Michael Mboya

The Wedgwood Bed and Breakfast,
Melville, Johannesburg
10.10.2016

Are my eyes opening in a dream?
Or is a dream opening my eyes?

The furniture in the room floats
In still steel-grey half-light

Monday, September 12, 2016

Dear God: Selected Poems Now Out in PDF - Get Your Copy!

By Karani Kelvin.

When I first shared the link of my ebook Dear God: Selected Poems (2016), I was humbled by the amazing response it received. But perhaps what was more humbling is this -  that a good number of you wrote personally to me, and some of you even called, to not only wish me well but to give me suggestions as to how you felt this enterprise could best be undertaken.

Saturday, June 25, 2016

This our home

By Karani Kelvin.

Let us say
Tomorrow has already come
The country we had known
is no more
Its gone with our dreams and wishes
With our get rich quick schemes
With our freedoms and rights
With our big five and silver beaches
With our senseless demos and politics
And the fruits of our labor
Are bodies lying in the open
Heads split and stomachs slit
Covered in blood soaked mud
Nothing moves, not our fiery tongues
That once cheered us into streets
Not our hungry ears and roving eyes
Even the crows and hyenas are still
Aware that this is their last meal
Ashes of what was once progress
Floats about, lazily, landing like
a child's steps on the charred earth.
What then, compatriots, was the need
for tribes, coalitions and plain greed ?
Can any of these raise the dead?

Sunday, June 19, 2016

Storm, Uref1

By t. Michael Mboya

Driven by whistling wind
The drumming of the rain
Becomes melodic
Sings the trees to frenzy
   And beckons the spirits

My chest heaves
   My spirit is stretching his wings
I rise and walk to the window
   My spirit is flapping with the trees

This trance dance
The trees shaking off frail leaves
This trance dance
My spirit shaking off frail feathers
Nyasaye Nyakalaga2!

Sunday, April 24, 2016

Somalia

By Karani Kelvin.

Forlorn
Crushed
Failed by her own body
She sits
Teary eyed
Lips dry and cracked
A river bed in drought
Her body has
Relinquished
Its power
Viciously attacked from within
It has let go
 And the cancer
             Is going for her soul!