the spring mantra arrives with distinctive citified sparkles

a family of ducklings splash, mimicking young children,
shaking, spraying, squeaking, babies bath bathing,
jumping in and out of a fountain pool
of a tall-storied Manhattan apartment building,
the mother-leader attends them well for she recalls
the untimely end of the babies of last year,
lost to wanderlust on York Avenue,
cars and taxis as instruments of mass murdering,
but new spring is the season of new birth

the Cercis Siliquastrum tree trunk (!) oddly sprouts
unusual pink flowers
well before it’s branches grow up into a fully blossoming tree,
a signed spring time ritual, but since it is a/k/a, the Judas Tree,
we wonder if spring hints of Cerci Lannister’s fate betrayed,
in this, her final May dance, oh, which Judas brother/lover
will bring us a winter fin finale

the temperature control dial busted, the variability too wide,
the youngers are skipping the interregnum season,
going direct to elect shorts and T-shirt, while those who no longer bloom in the semi-warm, recall the wet chill of past evenings,
voting to dress defensively, wearing their aging skepticism
aware that all changes are exact crossing line-defined, wrapped in
medium weight coats, concealing embarrassing gloves in pocket,
decorative silk scarfs for non-decorative purposed,
all betting the under/over the spring is here all-in not yet sighted

the streets are busy, the momentary pleasantries
of warm sky and sun push the apartment dwellers out,
a magnetic force pulls us to the outside to exhale, in order to inhale,
guises manufactured excuses appear, a loaf of bread, a latte necessity,
the children desert happily their wintery confinement,
by pushing their own carriages, containing in their stead,
their lilting accented nannies, excited by their version of spring break

Me? toy shopping for this month brings rashers of birthdays,
more May galorey, singing come Dancer and Prancer, Ian and Isabel, Alex and not-a-baby anymore Wendy, and because the weather so pleasant, cautions ignored, the credit card swiped repeatedly, frequently and joyously, xmas reimagined, another May time ritual, rooted in the September month of *******, of staying warm, staving off winter *******, and winter planting for spring harvesting

children score grand-multiplicities for god made in his place
grand parental substitutes, each with two hands each equal,
so both must be filled with maypole ribbon, brightly colored
toy bags, presents wrapped in paper unicorns and all manner of
sporting *****, as we turn 2 and 6, 7 and who ate 8?

all that my eyes did see when we surfed strolled the streets,
vignettes fell like the spring rains, they, now, from daytime banished,
to after-midnight to do their breast feeding of tulips and weeds,
letting little children grow up snuggling in still over-heated rooms,
naked legs kicking off winter blankety snow remnants while dreaming of springing onwards and forward
into the party of life by inhaling nature’s

nature.

God has enabled you to live long
Up to the rare  age of ninety years
Not as a blessing to you whatsoever
But as a curse of Knowledge,
For you to realize the evils you did
During your reign of terror,
when you were Kenya's  president .

You misruled Kenya for twenty four years
Clinging to power like **** on lion *****,
You plunged the country into abyss of poverty,
You established torture chambers
And gave priority to prisons,
Special branch police and detention  camps,
You planted tribalism with passion
Favouring your Kalenjin tribes,
Inspiring them with the spirit of sadism,
That fuelled assassination and public fear,
Daniel Moi your ninety years are birthdays,
Of nothing else but tyranny and dictatorship.

You walked with government money in your bag,
You used tax payers money to cement corruption
You often behaved as a duffer, but a rigging expert,
You suffocated all government organs,
For you to remain a strong man of power
Your  horsemen were villains of villains,
To make you think that one tribe is special enough,
To enjoy political favour in their maximum stupidity,
You condemned Kenya to linger amid despair and mire
With your useless Nyayo philosophy,
That was self-suspicious and derisive to reason,
Making Universities submissive to KANU,
Your Political part that was a mere terror wing,
Chaired by Ezekiel Barangetuny the illiterate,
Who called Karl Marx as Karo Mariko,
He thought that presidential dialogue is food,
Expensive food sold by Kikuyus in Nairobi Hotel,
Your chief aim was to suffocate education,
Campaigning for villages polytechnics,
While you are  a heavyweight torturer of Dons
You; Moi , your name is a curse and public earache.

Daniel Branch of Warwick bemoans you dearly,
in his oeuvre of Hope and Despair for Kenyan people,
He often cites;You shot Robert Ouko the first Bullet,
In the head before you plugged out his eyes,
You ignored his cry for forgiveness and mercy,
Then you dumped his cadaver in the Ahero forest,
For it to be eaten by hyenas, black ants and scorpions

It is epical knowledge  among Kenyans,
But at most the people of Trans Nzoia and Bungoma
That when Masinde Muliro died in the plane
The King's Horseman was around, in the plane
Wielding ammonium gun in his pocket.

Charles Rubia and Matiba Kenneth were unlucky,
They both went mad while in the torture chamber,
Koigi wa Wamwere aged while in Kamiti  prison,
Raila Odinga lost his daer testicles while detained,
You punctured his left eye, he always mobs dears,
Every minute and second, and i am sure you Moi
You can't regret and feel for him, if he was your son?
Your horsemen thoroughly flogged Wangare Mathai
the Nobel Laureate,she won the Prize for nothing,
Other than her successful staving of  the pains
From the ferocious whips by your Kalenjin police,
You jailed and jailed people in Kamiti and Manyan
As if your were possessed by the devil of imprisoning
Or may  be you were possessed, were you ?

You fuelled the tribal clashes in Molo,
You motivated Sabaoits to **** the Bukusu,
You chased teachers of Kisii,Luhyia and Luo tribes
From your village of Baringo,where people starve
for no other reason that was genuine and patriotic
But out of your urge of ethnic sadism.

you made us to sing lame poems;
Jogoo !  Nyayo!Jogoo !  Nyayo!
Jogoo !  Nyayo!Jogoo !  Nyayo!
Jogoo !  Nyayo!Jogoo !  Nyayo!
think about , what were we saying?

You owe apology to the people of Kenya
and all others in the diaspora,
For  the stark misrule and reign of tyranny
You perpetrated on them for two decades,
Your ninety years of life are not a blessing,
But God's timing for you to contrite
To repent and repent  your heinous sins,
I personally wish you not  happy birth day
But humanity wants you  to apologize ,
To those  unhappy families and communities
That you detained and killed their kins.

Spring has come, the time of change, of rebirth,,
For flowers to bloom, and for I to grow again.
Spring has come, a chance to start, begin anew,
As the earth heals, from Winter's icy grasping hold.

Grassy tendrils, seeds that offer me hope,
Weeds as well, if I don't take the opportunity.
Both coexist, however, to an extent, in all of us,
And that is what this Spring has taught me.

This spring has shown me, that I have my weeds,
This spring has shown me that you have yours too,
But we must look beyond that, when we see one another,
We must see that the taint and purity cannot exist in isolation.

The spring is passing, as it always does, but shall come again,
And cloak the darkness that is the winter, the flower of the seasons,
Fighting the cold, staving the dark, killing the weeds, but not all,
For without the weeds, the flowers would wilt, and die, never to return.

how much time do you spend in your skin
wondering why you're alive
if you could count every day as a ring
when do you think you would die

boundless and endless seem to explain
all of the thoughts in my head
whether that's true or just staving off pain
plagues me at night in my bed

why is it there, in the darkened abyss
that I must contemplate light
moving within my own shadowy bliss
dressed in the gown of my sight

wearing this flesh has given me strength
to plant my feet on new ground
as veins decompose my body at length
I take on a nature profound

whispering breeze touching the calm
of the slumbering brine
patches of green fronds on their stems
stark against cloud white sublime

warmth from the blessed heaven above
staving off chill to the bone
stillness and peace yet undisturbed
ocean not showing a foam

island by mist gently is kissed
breaking horizon of blue
such a fine line bordering that
seen as an edge to a few

but to the eye searching and bold
adventure the call luring strong
beckoning offering that yet unknown
a wistful and sweet lilting song

sweet odor of lush green cut grass
mingling in the salt air
west of the reef gentle the tide
nurtures the sand with a care

where else a calm daily as here
far north of Queensland's east coast
between Townsville and Cairns
winter escape proving this no idle boast

A million ways to change
But I’m set in my old ways
I never learned how to navigate
Trough the maze of my mistakes

Tell me stories of past days
Of Shakespeare and his plays
Of Greek gods in mythology
Without turning the page

A million ways to change
But I’m set in my old ways
I never learned how to navigate
Trough the maze of my mistakes

Whisper it in my ear
Make the monsters disappear
Wake me if I fall asleep
Or if I faint from fear

A million ways to change
But I’m set in my old ways
I never learned how to navigate
Trough the maze of my mistakes

Staving off the demons
From the depths of the unknown
From the hell that rests below us
To the heavens I call home

With a sense of accomplishment
And the skills, I have per se
It’s a daily self reminder
That all will be ok.

.
Groping out of bed,
Keep the sun at bay,
Mirror eyes look red,
Soft in morning glaze,
Shower waters said:
Thank the sun, amaze,
Splinters in my head,
Silent verse word play,
Morning ends, I'm fed
Sweet caffeine au lait,
Later beers— instead,
Wine, my guitar flays,
Splinters in me head
And all ends up paid
As time revolves dead,
Poems making grade,
Song and music bled,
That is my bed made,
Staving off the dread.
.

Body, O  body
steady...staving off
the storm of Always,
(no tree, no forest sounded)
...a perfect calm...
when blown down.

Every night they come
slinking in with the stillness while I’m not looking
I’ve started keeping watch for them lately
but still they slip by
their teeth bared
fur standing on end
These lonely wolves prowl beneath my ribs
lurking ever nearer to my heart as the day wanes
drooling to devour the joys I’ve stowed away
I guard it as best I can
but who am I before this brood of vicious beasts
I am only one
my hands are small and they tremble so
I keep them at bay with scraps of artificial light
staving off their inevitable attack
with the uncomfortably bright glow of electronic screens
reaching at distractions
to keep my menacing mind busy.

.




I loves ya darling

Really I do

:::



In the dirt the naked staving children play

Games of make belief


••


One look at y baby and

I'm Gone !!!

( Belief me )

•


Lynched Negroes

In the shadows of true history

)(

Hey

Dat girl don't mean nothin ta me

Like you do


..

Naked staving children

In the dirt

Playing games a make belief



.