There
will be no tears of fish or even humans
this time when tides of street tidings reach us…

The mature maize stalk with a golden tuft full like a fine beret
took fullest responsibility for starting the mutiny of the plants…

there is no place you can stand your feet
on the loamy soil of the vast home district
without a view of the majesty of Mt. Elgon.
whether you are behind Kapsokwony kiosks
urinating pints of refuse after an illicit binge
or you are chewing sugar cane at Cheptais
you may be weeding acres of Kopsiro corn
or watering the herd on the banks of Nzoia
a child chasing birds from a sunflower farm
in Kaptama or kins of Chebyuk clans at war
all behold the Mountain and its stony tower
it is rumored that old curses lie under rocks
of the highest peak waiting for provocation.

it is on the lush slopes of this Mount of God
that new songs of affliction sear the nights.
the bull frogs of the malarial swamps croak
not to their reluctant mates but to the sky.
the swamps are now smelling of dead men
so strong is the smell that it kills sex mood
among entire clans of frogs across the land.
the bull cows low low like the herds of oxen
with no sense of mischief or even bravado
in their calls to the strangely silent heifers.
the roosters now crow only in the daylight
as songs of sedition take over village nights.

it all started with the arrival at old Kapkoto
of the state men of war and their GK guns.
the hunts for a rebel and his bloodish lords
has now sown seeds of blood across the land
and now the district sings new songs of agony
as mounds of farm grass give way to skeletons
some with smashed skulls others without theirs
and yet others with ribs missing here and there.
the wells bear an ill smell from deep rotting flesh.
wherever you lift your nostrils for air it is there:
the smell of death mixing with grass and dry soil.

the songs have no rhythm and reveal no rhymes
they rely more on mimicry in their communication.
steady staccato of AK47s chattering about death
resemble the melodies of these new village songs.
the crrrunch of bones crushing under army boots
bear an uncanny similarity to these new choruses.
this dance style too is a masterful piece of mimicry.
tens of thousands of male villagers hit dry ground
with their naked bodies and smash their genitalia
on coarse shrapnel of bullets from the operation
their tearless eyes remain riveted on Mount Elgon.
as they exclaim and scream the vernacular climax
oxygen mixed with sweat spreads across the land.

the womenfolk hide in the lantana bush nearby
not allowed in the midst of this new male dance
and attempt with ears only their love to identify.
mouths of children are stuffed with maize cobs
and their cowardly buttocks tied with sisal cords
that no noise whether oral or anal may escape
from them and give away the female hideaways.
this is the new native song and dance in fashion
given to the citizens of the afflicted Elgon lands
by sons of the soil and the fathers of the nation.
and as the poet sits now under a canopy of pain
finding the right description for this oral tradition
his eyes on distant Elgon murmur-murmuring curses of stone.

at times i stare at black pages of night's sky
at times i stare at blank screens of my mind.
i do so wish then, within my heart of hearts,
that one day i will write three new stanzas
that will paint in ink of poetry or philosophy
the paradise-like land of our national anthem:
a poem that will consult spirits of those poets
whose work wished for justice, peace, liberty
in a kenya of their times and fellow kenyans,
a poem that will let these spirits and our own
arise and defend the land against endeavours
of a few but formidable kenyans whose politics
plays chess with our future and ethnic heritage
a poem that will be a spirit itself like Harambee
binding us all as has Annan's National Accord
into one national force, which like the words
of the three stanzas of the national anthem,
gives the heart of the land a feeling of hope.

walk with me to the statue of Kimathi
be distracted not by sounds of sirens
or the hurrying hues of city humanity.
walk with me to the statue of Kimathi
then lift your eyes like begging hands
to the rifle he clenches like his destiny
then perhaps you will learn not to ask
why i ask to die with fists full of stone
after i take to the jungle of concrete
to resist those who muzzle my mouth
then you pump gas above the street
before pumping bullets into my youth.

we belong to a beat generation
not the american one between
the earthy 50s & heady 60s,
but our identity inspiration
in their own is seen,
we kenyans born
after the 60s,
after a-levels
after apollo
arty 8-4-4s,
but before
beat
it

we came of age via a rite of passage
familiar from town to town to village
when you will be caught out at night
in intoxication singing sedition
by cops of an earlier age
cops with a Kanu accent
beasting their beat
on lawless lanes
past midnight
pass without:
"minus pass?"
plus
pa!
pe!
pi!
po!
pu!

howling to the moon never helped
as one crouched in growing groups
at times naked under a starless sky
waiting for the black santa maria
to come and haul you to cells
filled with bed and jail bugs
because you were not fit
to join the parrot patrols
in their parody beats
each saturday night
across evil streets
full of an age-set
breaking the law
or remaking it
or beating it.

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