Poetry with an african rendition

poetry

9

play bo ok

By Christian Mowarin

“He saw the primary school field Annoyingly sunny and green, The cold post beside him, The stand by the latrine wall, The distant murmurs and the crowd Between chanting his own name over all.

He saw the eton side wall and bamboo roof, The long gone tables, and the red faces keen; The School master and the prefect aloof, The projected teachers crawling Leaving their bodies behind”

He watched their hands Daintily ploughing the wet mud, He felt a trembling smell Black blood as bones stirred He heard the voices talking of home, Then he saw the sign at the village post Welcoming him for his contributions to life He saw himself waving, His little sister without a face He's home. He’s alive. Is he?

Come home brother Am with you holding hands

The dark.

It’s already inside.

“The open nights are never good Even the perfumes of the day Old sacrifices by the water soaked jetty The fumes in a broken tie Lay lifeless with all the lies Come to sell their displeasure The sounds of night scavengers Hitting the crescendos all night long” Christian Mowarin

“I do not know What you are Nor what you represent But I will stay in your dreams On the apex as time walls Where all your thoughts hung And the salvation you seek So I can defend what's mine And free our people from The evil analytics that divides them I will climb the hills and the cave Our forefathers built to Umilidu So as to protect us from your Unholy point of no returns�

Christian Mowarin

an oxygen paperback July 2010

Holy land Daylight volumetrics Fill the village waterside Like a million mist particle With their feathers broken So they are trapped down The upward thrust too heavy But still streaming out for battle Singing Hale hale, hale hale Naked feet in a muster stampede For my Hitting the suffering earth So bad it shakes the soil foundation Singing the holy holy last song Hale hale ,hale hale Haleeeluyahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Drench the receding horizons As a living beacon of hope For life in a second hand chance Now the long lived elders seven In odd numbers came out Dressed vividly in smiles To speak in outward soliloquy In so biblical a lingo A language so written In false cobalt inscriptions And the gullible mists Fighting and gasping for breath As the merciless sun whips Unheavenly strokes at them Evaporating and ejaculating Singing the holy holy last song Hale hale ,hale hale Haleeeluyahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

mother, clara

the bay at takwa A place in time A time to heal A heal so still A still so steerless A land of many souls A soul of many laughters The bay echoes in its own sunshine Never seen the water so pure Never seen so many water faces All dancing to one electric trick A peace so lovingly pleasing Never seen so many magic All in one place, not anywhere The man made canoes play A beautiful rhythm for the water The waves dance again and again Trees with coconut souls Ready to take on the cold Who can take away this nature This powerful nostalgia Embalmed in so much cocoon The evening boat Is a great swell of character All race , all eyes and all moving The bay at takwa is waiting The bay says hello How are you doing Running so so around Bathed in a midday suit

The people of the sea I They come in large numbers To please the gods and the tourists Their foothprints as time patterns They come to sell their dreams In a canoe full of wares Breathing the mist all day long They come to marry the waves To hold them from anger They come to repair their hope In a cup clasped aged hand They beg to bring the harvest And the calm to stay Now they set out in the sea With masts torn and blistered By the anger of the sea god ochonma Must they be appeased all time But who dare ask but to strike Their ways of rethorics The night falls with its shade Over the length of the amber sea Time stands on as a guide The spirits envelope the trenches Where the mosquitoes play their tunes loud An epic fever to come

The people of the sea II The open nights are never good Even the smells of the day Old sacrifice by the water soaked jetty The fumes in a broken tie Lay lifeless with all the lies Come to sell their displeasure The sounds of night scavengers Hitting the crescendos all night long The rippled poetry drains the sand Time and time again Spilling its unholy philosophy Spitting rage in a tide tale Sometimes taking a tourist Amidst wails from the seaside For a vast dinner in its dark belle The calm however returns In unspoken benevolence As clean as a beach floor In a hot african afternoon The wild celebrations fill the air The tambourin and hollow drums Beats the noon far far away Now a new dream speaks In a day full of life rhythm The tourists in their bright apparel Wondering how perfect nature rules Sea anemones and weeds Take the salty sun day off The aroma drifting up to warmth Sure a beauty the sea brings

October Sky Dry and dusty The wind speaks to us It's words in dented basins In a language so uncanny The dusty ambient Sahara In so far away date palm covenant never a bossom friend Itchy and soundful as fools Tearful and creaky it comes calling Burning as burn bites Not a knock before it strikes The rain tree brothers The agbarotor forest twin Suddenly aged by days Struggle to stay not amputated Their backs torn with sworns Their sap soured with sores Driven by badluck to back Begging all day for a vein refund So the Sullen days moves on Everyday lookup at the sky For hope made in nimbus But october knows us Lived and grew with us It's skyline and horizon Gave us wisdom and conscience And the powerful freedom to fight It's night time made us corn meal A cover we can imbibe A unison in cold blood A true hero and my friend To salute, hold and to share The days mama never talked about

The moon greets us The well was dry And lives amongst the doors Far off beyond the field To seek a reflection With an excuse to go The rain fever here again With it's chilly willy wings We will meet the moon On our way to Ugbeku That of which is behind the trees The barren barks mama The sways to the east To pray for a new day With laughter in daylight Each laying on a staying hand To listen before we look In the hush before the tarantula strikes A note from a single place With drops that floats So heavenly beautiful

April noon in Bako Village He saw the April noon in his books The whistle trailing in at the window wide; He heard his father's voice from the mud hut below Calling him down to ride.

He saw the distant little church across With mounds that hide the honoured dead; His father's name roughly scripted The Hurriedly tied cross too the grass graciously dark, He saw the primary School Field Annoyingly sunny and green, The cold post beside him, the stand by the latrine wall, The distant murmurs and the crowd between His own name over all.

He saw the eton side wall and bamboo roof, The long gone tables, and the red faces keen; The School master and the prefect aloof, The projected teachers crawling Leaving their bodies behind He watched their hands daintily ploughing the wet mud, He felt a trembling smell black blood as bones stirred He heard the voices talking of home, Then he saw the sign at the village post Welcoming him for his contributions to life He saw himself waving, his little sister without a face He's home. He’s alive. Is he?

Death hands of love His love bears no strength His hands holds no veins Not a single sign of gladness In a heart full of cold love Delivered in a plate full of tropics The hands of love he holds In a basket full of native chalk In a season full of blue natives And a promise not to keep at all The coarse hands that true love built But the rain flowers are falling, In a circle full of analytical lies And mother birds are calling wailing and Crying and calling For the love that has leaked away His love knows not the morning chillness, Nor Noon flavored brilliance and wings His love lives with evening illness And a jar full of bad smoked fish The dusk continues to fall And He went the long shadowy way, Soon his cries were heard by deities they grouped and decided to help him die And calls for heart stoppers all day Wailing and Crying and calling For the hands of love that would not stay.

Waiting I drive waiting For the storm to come To wash me away Into the inclinations of the village But it didn't The place, the haze, the space It still look exactly the same I dont know what will happen next But I know one thing for sure l will always be alone I kill every time The only soul I have ever got Though I try to mend it A few times But it never works The time, the spine, the spline It wouldn't move me I know my time has come But what I do not know Is the reason for my ascent ion

It was you II It was you You who stole our hearts Rubbed our face with palm glow So we won't comprehend anymore So the mystics will stay still It was you You who stole our minds And our beautiful soul Made us suffer to die Who made us cry a river It was you who turned Us men into omen Pasted pastel on our local pasta So wont feel traces of paces You built terror as a home for us Inside of us and won't leave The cries echo goes on in nine villages With the scars to scares the birds It was you With your calculated nests and tale traps in the village With Hundreds dead from a hundred night So we will chew the cries over and over Like bad mustard in our jaws

Dancing in still Their white robes Waving in the wind Flapping like bitter heartbeats The breeze battling to keep It's camera steady In the distance The huts keep a close eye Not knowing how to behave But the rattle can't keep still The mood too ill to ignore The wild dance ushers in The seven drone sisters Their hips hopping with the hype And yet they move not An aura so perfectly played It's watched by mankind They stay still but the motion Dances all around them The seven all moving as one The spirits within and without.

The near naked frame In a framework of frantic.

The sands reverb echoing in the distance.

The waves speak in out native tongue Calling and cursing the roles Played by the doctors of doom

A land with no returns I do not know Where you seek Nor where your consonance come But I will come with you I will thread your sand path On the river brink Where the uli tree Magically heals the gazette And cements the landscape the great dibia dwells In open moonlights At times of the lazy sunlight So the spirits can transcend Adhering to grace gathers I will Let the mudskippers bite The flesh of my toes And drink of the blood I wear through my journey And my travails in your land Till you lead me nowhere Your fringed destination you Call the point of no return I do not know What you are Nor what you represent But I will stay in your dreams On the apex as time walls Where all your thoughts hung And the salvation you seek So I can defend what's mine And free our people from The evil analytics that divides them I will climb the hills and the cave Our forefathers built to Protect us from your Unholy point of no returns

The man in my vision We were born onto this land Far far back when The great wizard, my grandfather lived This great land so it seems As we grew up time came up And took away our hope Our dreams, our existence For every crumb many men But a man came to us In my vision far from the mortals we know And he fought and died for us In the great wars in ugali tribe And rode the giant aligators As a wild beast in the great battles When the war was over He helped till the land of the midlands He Gave us soil and oil, Great wealth and tobacco And open the borders of our dreams He chased the great evil away We missed him, both in heart and spirit but the oracle says one of us Must take his place, must lead Our lives our future here He truly knows Nndukani well.

I know one day I will be able to thank him And you will be able to build more dreams Because you make my Nndukani and my earth shine

New moon The near midnight story With all it's splendor and retrogresive character Pours down its native illumination Piecing through the slits In our thatch in our hatch It's brilliance like a slice Of a market square butter Bringing in a thousand Shimmers in gold dust form On reaching the ground Scatters its effervescent In a sporadic dance move Outside the drum Sounds has gone far asleep Only music from grumpy frogs As they lie motionless In the muddy kamanku slides Waiting patiently for a prey Our prayers answered In the beautiful and open minded Rendition of the of the new moon

An African story 1 see My story begins with A velvety drape of rich African idea bathed in silk And caramel lotion in black an elderly meeting creatively set Well dressed in evening coal in a mid urban civilization, somewhere stuck between A blend of grey twilight And pale and colorful belief I see several elders with Rapid loin cloth around their groins Looking at one another smiling Suddenly they morph into Elders from all part of A consonant Now dressed in flaming attires Growing gracefully in grey Whispering and agreeing Grinding tobacco with a grin The grey matters in sublime synchronicity I see a man walks in now With an enormous shadow He brings with him grace and The atmosphere that sings hope Of readiness and welcome ness.

Of a new future touched by The power of age and experience He greets us with one culture One warmth, one peace and one love Playing our dialect as a tune And demonstrates a testimony so true One village, one hope and one destiny

the author

Christian Mowarin

The rippled poetry drains the sand Time and time again Spilling its unholy philosophy Spitting rage in a tide tale Sometimes taking a tourist Amidst wails from the seaside For a vast dinner in its dark belle an oxygen paperback July 2010