Alexander K Opicho
(Eldoret, Kenya; aopicho@yahoo.com)


I guess most of you will be born when
Taban Makitiyong Reneket lo Liyong is dead
When he will be already another ****** dead
Myself I am luck I have met relative of zinjathropus
I have shared a table and a roof
With Liyong the poetical witch of port Africa
Let me tell you how he is and what puzzles him;
He is black and short stumpy and weak
In his shadow of seventy years, a sagacious septuagenarian
He has **** eyes and his protruding nose is keen
On solving problems of an African girl child
He has read all the books in the world
Apart from the book of Amos in the evil Bible
He is ugly in the face and breathes cacophonously
In the left north with heavy sound
He is an aggressive eater with sharp appetites
Towards African herbs and turkana beef; goat meet
He is a sympathetic listener who gets
Inspiration by listening to the young
He loves all students with passion, but who knows
He loves poems and incantations
From the akuku culture in southern Sudan
Where he was born before becoming a temporary Ugandan
He is fond of taking knowledge upwards
The palm wine tree along the shores and coastlines
This is where he found the fellow son of zinjathropus
A palm wine Drinkard in the name of Amos Tutuola,

Taban wonders why Frantz Omar Fanon has
The un-even ribs on the sides
Taban wonders why there are no aged Chinese in the world
Why turkana women are the most beautiful in Africa
But they play like playing bush love where
But every time before you go off her top
The deadly desert scorpion bites you on the leg
Why The Babukusu of east Africa stopped their revolution
Why the books of Ali A Mazrui form a succinct tribe
Why the Masai chiefs eat as peasants beggingly look
Why there is oil in turkana area and no turkana man knows where oil is
Why Obama has not read his fixions and meditations, his youthful oeuvre
Why Wole Soyinka used to be jailed by foolish people in Nigeria
Why Achebe and Okigbo condemned Captain Elechi Amadi to detention
During the tribally secessionist Igbo war of Biafra
Why publishers in Kenya take bribes in kind
Especially whisky, pilsner, viceroy, smirnoff and freezing tusker
Why Pablo Neruda was not born in Congo
Why Jews are all over the world but none is seen
Why thirteen offenses against his enemies
Never shook the world like Das kapitel of Karl Marx
Why man cannot eat socialism but only bread and wine
Why Ramogi Acheing Oneko was not in Lodwar prison
Why Paul Ngei broke the leg of Jomo Kenyatta
When they were in detention at Lodwar
Why he missed by a whisker to betroth Grace Ogot
A Luo babie who leaves in the land without
Neither thunder nor promise of thunder
In the bossomy bossom of Bethwel Ogot
Whose foot prints on the sands of times
Hat to Sent Daniel arap Moi Home shout a lame poem;
Jogoo! Jogoo! Jogoo! Jogoo!
Why a short fat big headed man the poet in this poem
Asked him why he launched Christmas in Lodwar during December 2013
But not the intellectually logical So what and Show What
Why turkana men don’t put on *******
But still their ***** cannot make three percent in size
Of the size of the ***** of a Luhyia man Mr. Wanyama
Who hosted Taban during chrismas in Lodwar
Why his tribesmen will remove six front teeth
From his lower jawbone when he is dead.

I feel
as if I am
a broken doll
in need of

repair and parts
Waiting for someone
to wind me up

Look at the many stitches
of my body
that keeps me together

Am I not Beautiful ?

My parched lips
Acheing
Each time I try to
smile

just look at my rib cage
and boney arms

That reach for you
And my starving heart

this empty hole
in my chest
I keep covered 

That craves
freedom

Will you fix me ?
Or at least
Try To

Help me

Do I mean anything
to you ?
At all Or am I

Simply just
entertainment

That's right
now that my music
has stop playing 

you toss me
back in to the box 
Along
with the other
forgotten toys 

That have been
long gone

Where my loneliness
plagues me 

And I sit in tears
Numb

With these
shadows 
hanging over me

watching
Pointing
&
Laughing

Until you decide
to take me out
again

He sits in his car and
listens to the rain.
He should be at work but
he's on the edge again.
He misses her so much.
Every second they're apart.
Not sure how it happened
but she takes up his whole heart.
His world has been breaking
cause she feels like dying.
His chest keeps on acheing.
In the driver's seat crying
again.
It's all the time now.
And he just wishes
he could
stop the pain.

To whom Shall I complain?
About the agonies,
my entire being flooded by,
About the disappointments,
life has shocked me by,
About those I wished to stay,
But who eventually said Goodbye,
and turned out all to be only pssersby.
To whom shall I complain?
I've exposed my being to the rain
To wash away all the acheing thoughts,
which are crossing my brain,
To wash all worries in every vein.
To the moon,
To the stars,
To the sun,
I complained about all that pain.
To heavens,
To the whole universe,
I did complain
To rescue me,
To save me from the rage,
But every time,
It was in vain.
To whom shall I complain?
About the scars,
And the grazes
Of the abandonments,
About the wounds,
Scratches
Of life's mistreatments,
About all the torments.
To whom shall I complain?
About all the dreams,
which turned to be impossible,
Which turns all things to be horrible,
About all my wishes,
which became unreachable,
About all that is untameable.
To whom shall I complain?
About the loss of the smile,
which I strove to make mine,
But which left without worrying
Whether I would be fine,
Whether I'd be able to rise and shine.
To whom Shall I complain?
About the farness of luck,
About the need for all that I lack,
About the tortures that rack,
And that burden my back.
To whom Shall I complain?
About the talkativeness,
which inhabits my body,
About the exhaustiveness,  
which rules my soul,
And which drives me so insane
That I behave like a fool,
Which paralysed me,
Blocked me,
Crashed me,
Then, to the ground,
It dropped me,
like a tool,
Motionless,
Powerless,
And worst of all,
Lifeless...

Rachid Oulamine