They are silent and beautiful,
gorgeous in in the white halo,
cemented in a beautiful terrazzo,
baring the names of fallen soldiers,
the European soldiers that fell in Wars;
second and first and the heinous silent wars,
i hope this  is why they have a proverb; white sepulchre,
only baring the white dead, only chiefs but no dead Indian.

Common wealth graveyards are all over in Africa,
in India , panama , Latin America and europe,
the active fronts in which the allies fought ******,
they are beautifully placed in silently posh areas,
in langata when in Nairobi, in Mbaraki when in Mombasa,
in Matisi  when in Kenya, In Namusungui when in Lodwar,
They bear horizontal silence with white names engraved
on their beautiful face shouting the glory of European empires,
which provoked the evil sense in the heart of the king's horseman
in Kenya, in the city of Nairobi, to steal the graveyard lands,
he made them his urban home with an uppish courtyard,
for him the dead white neighbours are better than in-corruption.

I walk around the commonwealth graveyards,
in the all quarters of erstwhile British empire,
looking for the names of African soldiers ,
who died in thousands fighting for the queen
the royal bloodied woman of England;Elizabeth,
Looking for the sons of Ethiopia who stood with
the second duce Benito son of Mussolini,
fighting for ******,for Shintos in the European war,
i have seen no name of any African,
I have not seen Wandabwa wa masibo,
who was conscripted into the first world war,
Along with his father Biket wa Khayongo,
Biket back after seven years in 1918,
carrying Wandabwa's Belt,
Wandabwa died in the field,
Where was he buried, he is nowhere
Not anywhere among the soldiers in cemeteries,
I have not seen Nasong'o wa Khayongo,
who was conscripted in 1940,
to fight against ******,
he was conscripted on his nuptial evening,
even before he had had the first ***,
with his new wife, he went  away crying,
he never came back, his name is  nowhere in the  graves
the commonwealth graves that bare names of the fallen,
Fallen soldiers, but they all bare white names in the black world.

you come to Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Malagasy,Egypt,
whatever the geographies of Africa, and you keep keen,
you hear someone  is called Mr. Keya, or Madam Keya,
or you come to Bungoma county of Kenya,
you meet a man  that is of the circumcision age group,
Known as Bakikwameti Keya, Bakinyikewi Musolini,
Keya is  subverted sound for Kings african rivals; KAR
the African sound for  KAR is Keya,
in reference to mass conscription of Africans
into the  KAR, to fight ******,
A child born during that time is Keya,
A man circumcised during  the time
is in the age group of Keya,
A simple lesson in regard to our people,
taken away to fight the colonial power
and left to died and rot away in the bush
with a simple courtesy for ceremonial burial,
that come along with the death of soldiers,
who passed away in the battle field.

We live gas station to gas station. Motel to motel. Roleplaying different stories.  Living out the bohemian fantasies of a teenage reverie. So when we check out the next morning all these little lives are left behind to exist in the folds where reality meets lazy Sunny D daydreams. And when we are old and grey and return one day to these places in holy reminiscence, our nerves will be pricked with a kaleidoscope of memory jolting sensations. I’ll turn to you and say, “Don’t you remember, my dear?” The honeydew perfume on my wrist as you kissed me up and down like a cartoon in the kitchen of the Sandman Motel? Or the feel of the unpolished, terrazzo floor in the Sunny Moon dining room with my right hand in yours and the other clutching a stolen bottle of my Father’s Aberlour? I’ll remember the times when I didn’t mind the 7/11 taquitos and you didn’t mind getting up early to watch the “Hot Donut’s” sign light in the the Krispy Kreme’s front window. Fresh baked pastries and gasoline and turquoise curtains from the seventies blowing in the hot summer seabreeze. Getting lost in milky sheets. We were a sitcom. We were romance. We were tragedy a la mode with guitar strings built out of rawhide and teeth made of ***** pearls tangled in conspiracy. These are the things I’ll smell, I’ll see, and I will remember when it was just you and me, pretty baby. Just you and me and the ******* Dream, traveling from sea to shining sea, living cheap and easy and utterly free.

i paint the kitchen just so i can see it again.


i wonder if the lemons on her branches still grow.
and what happened to the dust from the rooms below,
they used to be so empty.


they only held
the beds and dressers
and i can't help
but wonder if those were even real,
and what did they once hold of the
sisters and daughters,
and a son.


i know the bed frame was hollow
and you'd hide jewels in there,
of all the stories i've been told.



i know how the kitchen wore herself
how pretty she sat against the white
stuccoed wall.
how the window framed itself so that the kitchen shone,
through the branches of the lemon tree, at dusk.
black shutters, an eggshell blue enamel sink, a terrace with cast iron railings,
the terrazzo floors.



in our summers there we'd lay out a mattress and sleep outside with the mosquitos
in the mornings, we’d rise just in time to watch the sun creep over the church on the horizon.


its the saddest magic i've ever known.