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.

Not guilty anymore

By Karani Kelvin.

Tell Laban Erapu

If you can find him

That we are not guilty of giving anymore

Used to seeing the “heap of rags”

With their begging bowls

We have learned to see them as us

Like NGOs finding it difficult to get aid

We see beyond their made to order agony

There is hardly an innocent soul out here

They fleece us by the coin like politicians

We’ve become the reluctant donor

Desensitized to peddlers of lies

Keni’s Visit to Grandpa

By Ajah Eric

Thanks be to God! Keni sighed. Enough of lengthy lectures, assignments and tormenting exams ….

Keni’s second year at university had just come to an end. Though he was keenly aware that the educational journey was not over, he was more than relieved that he was going for the holidays. A change is as good as a rest, his primary school head teacher used to say. And this break would be for a whole four months!

Literary Criticism in a Chest Thumping Generation

By Karani Kelvin.

There is a problem.And no Binyavanga, no one has fallen asleep in the toilet. Its not the kind of thing you want to try in Mpeketoni. But let us talk about that some other time.