All On The Road

Your eyes stared into my abyss

As if we were strangers

Sharing the same warm blood

Yet I would give half my breath

To see that smile again

A cliché to the unrefined.

My mind refuses to reach out

Up to the heavens to meet you

The maestro is nestled away in repose

From my human lungs

And the days run before my eyes

Speeding me thence, dramatising this life

I can smell the flower opening up

A wreath to soothe the demons of a corpse

The sun is a bad witness to all

And it loves to tell untruths with a smile.

Unhindered

The lion in me talks

fluent Swahili like a true aboriginal as

my ancestors twist in their graves

and the leaves of the mango tree outside 

my door shudders in amazement.

My lips move with speed

turning red as I spew the words in anger

and my shadow is deep red

my sins stain the nation as it preaches

about heaven, poor heavens, help me

with your chain-breaking strength.

The sins of my forefathers are visited upon me

oh old dusty bibles, lost in the damp chests

gospels gone astray, leading the legions to hell

and my president is a thoroughbred Christian

hissing parables on a warm Sunday morning

and we may after all, go to heaven unhindered!

Portraits Of A Cold Night

They will hold us in portraiture

For the things we hold now

We are not going home

Our hearts burn for the light

And the evening will not soften us.

The owl will sit on the tall pine

An assemblage of death and putrefaction

Our brothers dead and buried

Yet the political gods are not satisfied

They desire vast acreage of cemeteries.

The moon’s light will treat our melancholia

Whispers of warm love in a cold night

And the political class twist in their beds

Horrid nightmares filling up their bedrooms

The heavens have resisted their nefarious prayers!