Berbera al Somali - Poems by JKS Makokha
- By JKS Makokha
- Published December 5, 2009
- Poetry
-
Rating:
JKS Makokha
JKS Makokha is a Kenyan writer living in Berlin, Germany. He is the author of Reading M.G. Vassanji: A Contextual Approach to Asian African Fiction (2009) and co-editor of a new volume on African literary criticism, Negotiating Afropolitanism: Essays on Borders and Spaces in Contemporary African Literature and Folklore (2010) with Jennifer Wawrzinek. Makokha teaches courses in African and South Asian literatures at the Institut fur Englische Philologie at the Freie Universitat Berlin.
View all Entries by JKS Makokha
REPENTANCE
As he sat at the edge of life
counting drops of his age
falling in a splash of days
on the arid soil of his soul
he had a small voice speak:
"Repent and set them free."
As he sat at the edge of life
tracing his old thoughts like
a poetess traces new lines
on a white word document
birthing them into new life
he had a small voice speak:
"Repent and set them free."
As he sat at the edge of life
guilt racing up his systems
like an ambulance of hope
ferrying his battered heart
to a place of timely healing
he had a small voice speak:
"Repent and set them free".
As he sat at the edge of life
his head a weight in his palms
and his eyes staring inwards
into the library of conscience
up to the portrait of Mandela
he had the small voice speak:
"Repent and set them free."
CHANGES
It stares without expression
at the dwellers of our nation,
lost in its own secret thoughts
this face of the First Leader
that appears on our currency
be it the new notes or old coins.
Rumors say the ruling Leader's face
looked like the dead First Leader's
today when he put pen on paper
moved it so slowly right and left
to sign all the executive orders
ordering our leader be released
without any condition or charges.
Most citizens now wear flat faces
identical to that of the two Leaders.
As for us, we support the currency
of this new leadership structure
but search inner and outer signs
of what all these changes mean,
while we stand between the leaders.
Waiting for Mr. Ocampo
In the land called K
where everybody but
the present president
has literacy in the low art
of making all sorts of noise,
through all available orifices
on the streets and in offices,
at work, home, sacred places,
in schools, malls or cemeteries,
noise is the language of choice.
In this lively noise they all thrive
until a time when uttering a name
brings them all close to their leader
and silence becomes their common lot.
The name is: Mr. Louis Moreno- Ocampo!
Noise, the national entertainment,
ends abruptly and silence reigns
at the mention of the foreign yet
familiar sounding name of one
Hon. Mr. Louis Moreno-Ocampo
Yes. In this famous land of noise
where silence is a shunned discipline
and men, women, kids only excel
in national noise-making as their great
hobby and hallmark, all goes silent
when you say, "Shh!" (finger on lips)
"Here comes Mr. Louis Moreno-Ocampo!"
Commissions of Inquiry
(crackling sounds,
airwaves disturbance,
prime news broadcast)
"Before being chopped off clean
and then very violently stuffed
in a transparent sack made from
his very own fresh stomach flesh,
his shrinking, skinless head was
surely full of the new city fears.”
(crackle, crackle…)
“The media had cried out about
many citizens being approached
at the very crowded parking lots
of central city commuter points
by very decently dressed citizens,
only to be found savagely killed
next to their stomach sack filled
with their own head and condoms."
(crackle, crackle…crackle)
"A new commission of inquiry has..."
(crackling sounds,
airwaves disturbances,
Craaackliiiing sounds)
VISION OF SACRIFICE
The attempt to wound my eyes
with drops of ammonium acid
so that i will witness no more
the lost hope on the faces
of my generation and pals
failed yet again this week
when the huge jail gates
opened like heaven gates
and he walked out
frail but
free.
No longer wanting to remain
the unvoiced waitress at a
meal where our annual tax
makes the main course dish
our children the desert
and our future, salad
in a grand dinner
whose entry is
restricted to
bureaucrats
parliament
executive
judiciary
police
army
only....
No longer wanting to be
Citizen No. 216686xx
a silent human sheep
in a flock of Kenyans
waiting to be shipped
like slaves of yore
with number tags
to the land of
no dream
no hope
nothing
null....
No longer wanting to remain
always breathless dodging
the long paws of laws
of our predator state
with cannibal tastes
that hunts its own:
chews on them
their children
children's
children
child....
No longer wanting to be
in daily acts of resistance
met with resistance
and force met
with force
FORCE
FORCE
force
more
force
finally....
I had opted to end my sight
that I may like a hermit
live on the fringes
of unnatural
darkness
silence
filled
with
still
me....
Yet
at this moment of action
finger dipped in ammonium
and eyes raised heavenwards
fixed on the pure white peaks
of the Mountain of a silent God
breast heaving with bitter betrayal
blasphemy mixing with bitter bile within
I heard that the high priest had been set free
His voice called me back and I let my eyesight be.
As he sat at the edge of life
counting drops of his age
falling in a splash of days
on the arid soil of his soul
he had a small voice speak:
"Repent and set them free."
As he sat at the edge of life
tracing his old thoughts like
a poetess traces new lines
on a white word document
birthing them into new life
he had a small voice speak:
"Repent and set them free."
As he sat at the edge of life
guilt racing up his systems
like an ambulance of hope
ferrying his battered heart
to a place of timely healing
he had a small voice speak:
"Repent and set them free".
As he sat at the edge of life
his head a weight in his palms
and his eyes staring inwards
into the library of conscience
up to the portrait of Mandela
he had the small voice speak:
"Repent and set them free."
CHANGES
It stares without expression
at the dwellers of our nation,
lost in its own secret thoughts
this face of the First Leader
that appears on our currency
be it the new notes or old coins.
Rumors say the ruling Leader's face
looked like the dead First Leader's
today when he put pen on paper
moved it so slowly right and left
to sign all the executive orders
ordering our leader be released
without any condition or charges.
Most citizens now wear flat faces
identical to that of the two Leaders.
As for us, we support the currency
of this new leadership structure
but search inner and outer signs
of what all these changes mean,
while we stand between the leaders.
Waiting for Mr. Ocampo
In the land called K
where everybody but
the present president
has literacy in the low art
of making all sorts of noise,
through all available orifices
on the streets and in offices,
at work, home, sacred places,
in schools, malls or cemeteries,
noise is the language of choice.
In this lively noise they all thrive
until a time when uttering a name
brings them all close to their leader
and silence becomes their common lot.
The name is: Mr. Louis Moreno- Ocampo!
Noise, the national entertainment,
ends abruptly and silence reigns
at the mention of the foreign yet
familiar sounding name of one
Hon. Mr. Louis Moreno-Ocampo
Yes. In this famous land of noise
where silence is a shunned discipline
and men, women, kids only excel
in national noise-making as their great
hobby and hallmark, all goes silent
when you say, "Shh!" (finger on lips)
"Here comes Mr. Louis Moreno-Ocampo!"
Commissions of Inquiry
(crackling sounds,
airwaves disturbance,
prime news broadcast)
"Before being chopped off clean
and then very violently stuffed
in a transparent sack made from
his very own fresh stomach flesh,
his shrinking, skinless head was
surely full of the new city fears.”
(crackle, crackle…)
“The media had cried out about
many citizens being approached
at the very crowded parking lots
of central city commuter points
by very decently dressed citizens,
only to be found savagely killed
next to their stomach sack filled
with their own head and condoms."
(crackle, crackle…crackle)
"A new commission of inquiry has..."
(crackling sounds,
airwaves disturbances,
Craaackliiiing sounds)
VISION OF SACRIFICE
The attempt to wound my eyes
with drops of ammonium acid
so that i will witness no more
the lost hope on the faces
of my generation and pals
failed yet again this week
when the huge jail gates
opened like heaven gates
and he walked out
frail but
free.
No longer wanting to remain
the unvoiced waitress at a
meal where our annual tax
makes the main course dish
our children the desert
and our future, salad
in a grand dinner
whose entry is
restricted to
bureaucrats
parliament
executive
judiciary
police
army
only....
No longer wanting to be
Citizen No. 216686xx
a silent human sheep
in a flock of Kenyans
waiting to be shipped
like slaves of yore
with number tags
to the land of
no dream
no hope
nothing
null....
No longer wanting to remain
always breathless dodging
the long paws of laws
of our predator state
with cannibal tastes
that hunts its own:
chews on them
their children
children's
children
child....
No longer wanting to be
in daily acts of resistance
met with resistance
and force met
with force
FORCE
FORCE
force
more
force
finally....
I had opted to end my sight
that I may like a hermit
live on the fringes
of unnatural
darkness
silence
filled
with
still
me....
Yet
at this moment of action
finger dipped in ammonium
and eyes raised heavenwards
fixed on the pure white peaks
of the Mountain of a silent God
breast heaving with bitter betrayal
blasphemy mixing with bitter bile within
I heard that the high priest had been set free
His voice called me back and I let my eyesight be.