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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.
Aidar Omar May 2022
Africa is beautiful and beautiful is usual in Africa
Continental wonderland of love this is Africa

What's in Africa? What's there to see?
I asked myself on the New Year's eve
I thought that I was good in geography
But I didn't know Lagos or Nairobi

I might be ignorant, I have to admit
About Africa I knew just a little bit
The great Sahara - sands of mystery!
The Nile river - so much history!

Africa is magical and magical is usual in Africa
Continental wonderland of joy this is Africa

Namibia, Nigeria, Niger, Angola, Algeria
Burundi, Benin and Libya, Lesotho and Liberia
Burkina-Faso, Botswana, Guinea-Bissau, Ghana
Djibouti, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Uganda, Rwanda, Gambia

I saw a film on Serengeti Park
A one of a kind, a must-see landmark
I watched a documentary on pyramids of Giza
They're much much older than Mona Lisa

I heard that oldest coffee plants
Take their roots in Ethiopia's land
And that samba, rumba, funk and jazz
Take their beats from African drums

Africa is beautiful and beautiful is usual in Africa
Continental wonderland of love this is Africa

Cameroon and Congo, Malawi, Mali, Morocco
Côte d'Ivoire and Kenya, Mauritius, Mauritania
Tunisia, Tanzania, Eswatini, Eritrea
Sudan, Senegal, Somalia, Sierra Leone, South Sudan

You can travel around cities of Africa
Like Cape Town, Cairo or Casablanca
If you're in love or plan to be
Go to Zanzibar, feel that ocean breeze!

Climb up mount Kilimanjaro
Watch the zebras cross the Masai Mara
If you're adventurous, you're a dreamer
Take a wild trip down Zambezi river

Africa is magical and magical is usual in Africa
Continental wonderland of joy this is Africa

Comoros, Chad, Cabo Verde, Democratic Republic of Congo
Ethiopia, Egypt, Guinea, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and Togo
Madagascar, Mozambique, Central African Republic
Sao Tome and Principe, South Africa and Seychelles

Africa is beautiful and beautiful is usual in Africa
Continental wonderland, I'm on my way to Africa!
i'm 9 in nairobi
playing foosball with a masai man
whose lip and earlobe
(both well-stretched)
bounce against his face,
he hangs lip over nose,
ears over ears,
we play on

funny, those kinds of scars
began with young women,
east african, who
fearing ****
and kidnap
from the north,
cut holes
in lip, in earlobe,
lifted skin of stomach
to slice smooth turtleshell shapes,
rubbed camel dung in wounds for better

scars,
which meant:
resistance, meant:
freedom, meant:
don't take me away,
don't steal my life.
funny
those scars
mean beauty now.
funny, these scars
on my wrist, funny how
much i love life now.
funny scars
Inside out May 2014
I'm mad at you because you left me,
I still had lessons to learn which you didn't teach.
You left me when my wings were barely open
Or hardened by the sun.
You left me before I realised I had questions,
About life, about men.
You left me before I knew about grief,
Yet taught me it at the same time.
I didn't know who I was,
I wasn't the girl in the photograph anymore,
wrapped in the sanctuary of family and familiarity.
Now I was a girl who men would leave or deceive,
Now I was a girl running from the wolves
Always scared inside trying to wear shoes too big
With resources too small.

I painted you a picture, it was a Masai warrior,
I wanted you to be like him, strong, undefeated.
As a child i sat on your knee whilst you taught me ******* a lion-
"Put your arm down his throat and grab his tail,
then, whip him inside out.".... I believed you!
But you couldn't **** a lion could you?
When death came for you, you held his hand.
My painting was rejected from the sterile confines
Of intensive care, along with my scared mind.
I propped it on top of a cabinet and dreamt,
Dreamt that the bat who flew in and rested upon it
Was your soul coming to tell me you were still around.
But you weren't, were you.

I saw you in my dream as you descended the subway stairs,
I couldn't catch up, you turned and waved, I never saw you again.
You trapped me in a moment in time where I would always be,
Scrabbling a wall I cannot climb when the enemy approaches,
without your protection - child to adult with your last breath.
I wasn't ready to live life with a dagger in my heart.
I'm mad at you, you left me!
Bereavement, loss, death, cheated, misery, regret, loneliness, tears, sad, death, illness, wolves, change, exit, anger, love, missing you, heartache.
Ignatius Hosiana Jul 2023
Love is a pink diamond, it's ice cold sunshine
An invaluable antiquity that can't be sold
It's the dance of the moon to the music of the stars
Love is a quiet whisper of the tides in the storm
a new shock absorber smoothing an off-road adventure
It's the joy of weaver birds praising the rising sun
the swashing sway of trees in the early morning breeze
Love is a palm by the sea, a chain of liberty, a key
an invaluable painting hung up the walls of a heart
a slow roller-coaster that lets you savor the view whilst on the ride
Love is kids playing in rain, letting nothing steal their thunder
Love is the Masai mara, a breathtaking wonder
Love is a spark that sets hearts ablaze
It's an eternal flame, in a mysterious haze.
Brandon Conway Jun 2018

1.
Magpies sang of an avian astray
Silence soared over the African horizon
Last seen heading Serengeti's way
Off your perch daughter of Poseidon

Pegasus tame ascended heavens sky
Looking for smoke risen or a glisten
Over the Serengeti and Masai
Waning nights turned to
                                        waxing fright lead to
                                                                ­              prayers of frisson


2.
Emergency at Victoria Lake
Three hundred and fifty mile detour
A miner in need, a friend forsake
Beryl, an angel with the cure

Her wings not heroic nor romantic
Just a job at an uncomfortable hour
Lacking of sleep and a dose of frantic
Set sail in the moon, Africa's flower

3.
A life saved and a tank fully nourished
Took on the life of a bird and set course
Peered out and lo and behold
A gleam
a glimmer
a glint
a glisten
a welcomed gift
a green palm among a snow so white
There she lies
Woody's delight
"All Metal"
Susan Waigwa Sep 2017
The night was quiet except the sound of the night owl
Sniffles in the main room of the manyatta
Where the chief of the masai lay
Covered in the familiar cloth clad by warriors
Of this hermite tribe

Tomorrow morning he will be laid to rest
His body covered with cuttings from trees
With a skin of a cow freshly killed
The wild animals will smell it from miles away
Soon to shred the body and gorge themselves
You see, there are no graves to bury the dead

Ah! The memories of growing up as we moved
From place to place, seeking fresh pastures for our herd
And new experiences for everyone
Babatunde Raimi Sep 2019
Looking at the river banks
You see the beauty of Nature
Void of artificials
Pearls worth more than diamond
That's how i see you my Angel

A Gold fish has no hiding place
A priceless asset worth more than rubbies
The first gift she gave me was Grilled meat
That we call "Suya" in our part of the world
Thumbs up Unique tutorials!

She has a knack for knowledge
An untiring zest to better her tomorrows
While competing with herself
Her proficiency is remarkable
Like a Lioness pursuing a prey

For her, the sky is blue
She loves her blue skinny jean
With celestial white crop tops
Revealing not too much
She looks in admiration
Journeying across the world
Just the way she loves her movies
With white rice
Laced with locally fried pepper
From a local grinding stone
Don't ask me how i knew
She is a "Person Of Interest"

For a Masai
Every Cow is precious
For a Poet; every acquaintance is priceless
Fair like the descendants of Job
Witty like Queen Esther
With a perfect figure eight
You cannot but gaze twice

Having studied Psychology
The psychology of human relations
In the University of Creavity
Faculty of Feminism
Graduating with honours
I qualify to say these lines
"Omowunmi", you are an epitome of beauty

You are an archetype worth studying
That's why my project is about you
Being a project submitted to the MBA School
Hoping this gets me closer
A little beyond the lines
That as good friends
We may paddle our canoe
To a world of limitless possibilities
Where there are no bounds

Keep those natural smiles
Don't stop being you
Striving to outstrip your yesterdays
Even if i am faraway
I will be close by
Whispering in your ears
Terrific stuffs worth hearing

— The End —