We still remember

You took our ancestors captive,
Didn't even mind they left their wives,
And children.
And made them to work in foreign lands,
In the baking sun they toiled
On your cotton farmlands
You whipped them,
To you they were beasts of burden,
Lesser beings to be tolerated!
We still remember.
And this is how the story goes,
That you hoarded them into economy planes,
Took them to Burma and other far flung war zones,
Just to fight your battles.
And you made them frontline soldiers
You made them a shield for your safety
unfortunately none had bullet proof bodies,
To stand the tirade of the aggressor.
And there they were-Poor Africans!
The next day they would be buried in mass graves,
or left to rot,
Left to rot for the delight of the wild life.
We still remember how you hated our colour
Just because we were coloured.
We were not supposed to access premium healthcare,
Lest we spread the black germ.
We still remember,
How you treated us in Harlem and other lowly states
Excuse me,we didn't choose to live in Harlem!
We didnt choose to live in dingy places.
Maybe that's why you thought lowly of us.
We have not forgotten how you coined apartheid,
And we felt sick in our own land,
Making sure we did not learn your language,
Because you thought
We would take away your wealth.
You were afraid that we could do research,
and come up with solutions
to our problems.
But nay, that's what would make you lose sleep.
We still remember how you came to our land,
First as a mission for the good word,
Then as masters.
we can't forget how you barricaded whole regions.
How you put curfews.
How you limited our time for travel.
You limited our time to access our lands
Limited our times so we couldn't chat,
You knew if our time was free
Then we were free as well.
We still remember Manyani detention camp,
Yes, Mau Mau remembers.
We still remember how you exploited our weaknesses,
And our differences.
And from that you created homeguards.
We still remember how you put Mandela in prison
For 27 years!
And still he found it in himself to forgive.
We still remember these things.
We cannot just forget.
We keep history
We are now able to remember the moments as they were.
You took our bright minds captive,
And started insurgencies where there was none,
So you could come back as saviors,
And reprimand us for being 'thick in the mind'
Aren't you the one who called us 'half baked brains'?
God wasn't in a hurry,
When he created us.
Don't you think we too belong?
Don't you think we can be like you?
That we too can do what yo do,
Or even do it better.
All these things we remember.








































we

The upheaval

A soul in unrest
Go slows of functionality!
waging war on them killers
with a blood penchant
Them blood suckers
Them bugs sucking blood outta bodies
So u think this MAU MAU is no longer?
Them name called good people of Africa
Warlords for land and freedom
Movements start,
No! movements form- around a state
Like a state of oppression
Like a state of situation
Them people coalesce around an idea
Doesn't need a leader
only a rudder,
A leverage against extremism
Because we've not lost purpose yet
We know what we want
We no need teachers of the law
We need teachers of the lot
Fearful people are a disgrace
To the fountain of a movements courage
They infect them real people
with a doubt drug.
And for this time too,
far in the horizons,
Beckons of a new state linger,
Another way for the people
who're used to the same ways.
So you think Kimathi was a 'chicken'!
He fought them, even stevens
With no thing but home made gun
His foot soldiers with catapults
We need no barracks for training
Anybody can start this new state!
Our women,babes on their backs
can start this state.
The upheavel starts with a silence,
And then murmurs,
And then people can't keep their mouths shut,
Because they see these things too.

Lasting call

Some will call it the last call
And to others-the last kicks of a dying horse
yet not all will take heed of the renaissance,
That can come from a call to action
If Africa's children get exploited and looked down upon
And the oppressor in his palace sings the victory song
saying-'see they don't even know their language-
see how they take up the language of others'
And at that point he thinks high of himself,
and lowly of the ones below,
Then he himself is sick .
He suffers from a disease without a cure,
because then he doesn't know humanity is the same.
Humanity from the north and from the south,
Is same as that from the west ,and even east.
Some don't came to Africa for anything else
Except delaying the dreams of a continent
And----cementing dependence.
Who will teach our children about these things?
Achebe is no longer and Ngugi has kept quiet.
Quiet in the sense that he no longer evokes
with the same passion as in old days
This generation needs direction and identity
albeit with a touch of newness for a different time.
I don't wanna go up a mountain and make a clarion call,
About this crossroads that lead to nowhere,
This aping and copying of trends!
This export of worth and import of nothingness!
This brain drain that sharpens the oppressors axe
I don't want to wrap my frame with a sack cloth.
I would do if i knew it would play the magic wand
and change a peoples conscious.
In the meantime i make a last call,
Not last because no other option remains,
But because i know it will last.

Out of myself

Out of myself and into the world,
Beyond the dermis and the gene that defines me
Killing the self slowly- and reaching out,
So i could raise the selfless I,
From the ashes of self righteousness
to outlive myself in time
and the little good i think i have,
That too i give up,
If to remember only,
That I too live because of another,
Who lived out of himself,
For the world to heal.
And so i move out,
perchance i might affect another,
To live out of himself,
And lose the coat that so defines him.
From the space i think i own,i go out,
And into the unknown.
Don't search for me anymore,
In the enclaves of self.
Look for me out there,
Coz am no longer a slave.
I have broken the shackles i was bound with.
Am no longer in chains.
I am out and about.
I am not inside me anymore.
I don't remain in the tents of I.
I am out of myself.

I choose

I choose to stand at the edge
so i could be a lesson to heal the lesions
in time i believe t'will heal all
i choose to uplift my conscious
and tear apart this ignorance that stays close
this insecurity that tells me that vice may overcome
this that tells me that my lineage
wasn't made of famous people
i choose to be the link
between enlightement and ignorance
if by knowledge my light shines on another
and because of it he too feels the urge and the nudge
i would call it a success in an unending endevour
and so i choose to be the light that drives out darkness
not that it need be necessarily dark
for me to shine the light
who knows- darkness may overcame
and if others after me come
they might ask how comes the darkness overcame
yet men saw,and heard.
and so i choose to be a man
belonging to the human tribe
so my lens could see farther afield
so the horizons in front of me could remain clear
i choose to be the gatekeeper
at my souls front door
so i could see them all as they come
i could as well man my minds entry
so i could take in what i choose
and reject the derelict thoughts
that peer for entry
I choose!

Mans craving

To live in space,
And transcend space and time
to be everywhere all at the same time,
And fill the void of the human limit,
To bury the scroll where evils plans are scribed
To realize the real reason
for right and wrong,
To clip the pride at its bud
And in its place,
hoist the similar sinews of thought that unites us
To cry with those who cry
and laugh with those who laugh
To connect ones embers of thought
With those alike in space,
is but a mans dream in search of reality
Though the murderer becomes an outcast
and the leprosy infested suffers
and it appears like he doesn't know God
Though the rich man prides in his wealth
and forgets that it is not his but someone elses' toil
and the poor man begs for sustenance,
Both are the same
cut from the same cloth-We're all from the same cast
our going and returning all but a determinate of one,
One who has never wavered
and till we return to the ground
from whence we co meth
All is but toil and vanity
as we search for meaning
as we look for whats real
In this changing play
where we're characters till we exit.