THE LUNATIC AND HER BROOD
Christmas
dawn
found
the rain-sodden lunatic mounting Gikomba market’s
garbage heaps, whilst
repressing an obstinate cough! With intent of
nourishing her ravenous brood, whose sires will without end be a n o
n y m
o u s!
Christmas
noontide
the towering s ☼ n
blazes her bare back
as city centre
believers on microphones, yet again sing love, accord and charity, in celebration
of Kristu’s birth, while the famished woman parrots
mellow carols, awaiting the cheerful hands of Imanueri’s envoys to
s
t r
e t
c h out to them!
But,
ugh! They blatantly REBUKE! and haul
her O U T
of feast!
Boxing
Day dusk
finds
the weather-beaten mother and her malnourished daughter, fighting over stale Christmas
steak, next to garbage on Grogan road, until the latter gives in! Thus the
mother of children throws it to the
twins, as her daughter hurriedly scavenges a blueberry muffin
infested by myriad worms…
Then, Ma mines a sachet of
milk from the smelly decaying
stuff,
and guzzles to her fill,
this time, unmoved by the twins’ hunger pangs! She then drips what’s left on
their foreheads pronouncing, ‘My lovely puppies will take this, for milk is
gold!’
Hmm,
utterly ecstatic, they lick it as it spills down their little
noses!
New
Year’s Eve
I
spʘt the frail and forsaken one intently
s o r t i n g o u t musty chapattis
from the hill-high garbage heaps in Muthurwa, as
her often sick twin lads pitilessly consumed by malnutrition (glare at a marabou
ingesting
something filthy in its goiter-like bag, then dangles it down the throat) as
the hostile-friendly Ma rummages through bins, the frayed
brood wait on, with demanding hollow ёyёs, yearning
to
suckle the shrunken breasts, only for Ma to give them a lʘʘk that seems to say,
‘Mbaga*, whom do you think I’m fighting
for?’
New
Year’s daybreak
the
ill-fated ones get up and return to
the flooded gutters, singing merry, merry Christmas
Though
branded outcasts of social order, and the grubby seeds going through hell… they
must fight to grow and blossom into urbanites
who’re within tolerable limits!
Oh loving God of
small things, we meekly beseech you to SMASH their
horrific
bug of lack, ill-health and misery!
But
hey, come on people!
Won’t you ever
bud an iota of compassion
and fight
maltreatment from the wild world
and suffocate the ache that
the shabby
and
odorous ones SUFFER?
*A Gikuyunized word for ‘bugger’
Poet’s Bio:
Kariuki wa Nyamu is
a highly artistic Kenyan poet, radio playwright, editor and high school
teacher. He graduated from Makerere
University with honours in English,
Literature and Education. He is published widely both in print and
online, such as in A Thousand Voices Rising, Best New African Poets 2015 Anthology,
and also forthcoming in Multi-verse:
Kenyan Poetry in English Since 2003, Experimental Writing: Volume 1, Africa Vs Latin America Anthology, among others. He is currently
pursuing an MA in Literature at Kenyatta University, Kenya. He is definitely one
of the most loyal darlings of poetry in Africa.
