Letter to Nairobi

Dear Nairobi,

I  am scared, angry, bewildered and utterly shell-shocked! I can not believe that my own country med would treat their sister as they have been treated in the past couple of weeks. is this how we want to be know n to the rest of the world, I swore that I would never take an Embassava again but what does that do apart from remove food from families of those that treat my sister wrong, true; MY DRESS MY CHOICE, but what does that do for me if i have no power to take control of that that happens to me outside the world of pen and paper and words printed on shirts and ideas in my head.

Ladies, before we run to the streets to justify what we wear, we need to take a chill pill sit down and think, take back the power that has been taken for us for years since time immemorial. Power that we need to survive this war... because I can hear them... can you... the battle drums, the cries of my sisters as the fought for their rights. If we want to win, we need to reclaim that that is ours. Reclaim the power that we need to take a stand. Ladies, go to school, get your papers right, get your business right, get your affairs in order, get your man on your corner... and then when your all set, rush out and scream till your lungs give out about the right to dress as you please... tell me, do you think that our Fine First-lady could be undressed for what she wears, and in public? ... NO! And why is that?! because she has power, the kind of power that we mere kawa girls do not have, see why I say get your affairs right.... So do not be scared to go out, dress respectably and they will respect you, and when you can stand tall and not blink in a stare down with the opposite sex, you will be ready to fight this war.

Men who rip women's clothes off, this part here is for you. You who act all knowing of morals and what not... you are shallow and deprived. Your treat her like crap because you wish you had her, you wish you had her for she would never let you come an inch of her, for that is how low she thinks off you... and for this, see if the Good Lord will let you have a woman half what she is, while you and your friends count demeaning tabs, she will be counting survival tabs... and there is nothing that you can do to tear down a woman who has survived. Wait fro the woman to rise above you and see if you can sill play judge and jury. I can assure you... things are about to change in Nairobi, you WAIT AND SEE!

Forgive my bluntness but it had to be done, for I will always take my sister's side.

Nekh

[Share this please]

The Unlikely

I am a coward at best and a golden girl at worst
I resound to the thundering tattoo in pitch on my skin
the world has shaped me as so

I never go to battle, I am ethereal as can be
I never win a war, so don't call me to war
Unless you have a reason to loose

I bop my head to the rhythm of the mad
I called myself insane once
but then I realized that I was just weird

I broke it free, then ran for fear of catching it
I never held a butterfly in my hand
For I feared I may crush it

I never spoke too slow for you to understand
I never held your hand enough
You never walked my way again

I guess I get the reasons that we claimed
I 'duced' you and waved us away
We sure were odd, may never have worked

Its freedom that we claimed
I would stand with you
If you but just take me again
I will fight till broken n bored
for that I will fight an eternal war

See my courage, a fine rare jewel now
Amazing huh... sure from your point of view
See us set the pace
See us win this night

Nekh 

Being Human.

We are simple creatures.... we crave; love, visibility, respect... or hate, invisibility and being feared, to feel deep... but however much we would claim to be deep as the sea, we are shallow deprived beings. We care about things that do not really matter and those that matter we turn away from like the plague... but not to worry that is what makes us human.

Being human means feeling the sun on your skin... smiling when given a gift... loving the good life. What's the difference between a machine and you... loads! But best of all you feel. that is fact that makes you human.

Oh... the rules of decorum, are they just deprived ideologies meant to guide you... sorry control you, to manipulate your actions so as to forge a better human... one that is socially aware, and not to forget responsible... you want to leave free like a bird, no...no... no... why should you, what makes you think that you deserve to be free, what makes you think you are worthy, have you been mean to any one this week... or today? or kicked a cat just cause you could, or insulted someone or whatever... or have you judged someone this week... tell me how do you feel...

See all am trying to say is, if you are mean, do you really believe that whatever ill comes your way you do not deserve?! Life is all peachy if you want it to be, I should know... ask me. So despite our preset notions on being human we should stop rushing toward fulfillment of personal bliss and aim to be better humans, we owe the world that much... between the human race and the monkeys, lets be honest, we sure have effed up this world enough by now... I am worried of the generations to come.

Nekh.

A Little

A LITTLE

A little urbane man lived,

A little too perfect, potent,

Large rivers flowed, climate immaculate,

Gift from Mother Nature, life.

A little beauty in edge,

A little too unique for man,

Large eye stare at the man in the rover,

Gifts from Mother Nature, bounty.

A little too clean, Methane will do,

A little chopping, packing and shipping,

Large holes, howls of depreciation,

 Large barrels, dry throats, climate changing,

Curse for Mother Nature, drought.

A little rivulet, man wishes,

A little burnt out man is,

Large eyes lost in sorrow, climate changed,

Curse for Mother Nature, Hunger.

A little AID,

A little too late,

Large dead eyes rot in the Sun,

Curse for Mother Nature, DEATH.

Sandra Nekh

RAVAGED

Slithering corks,

trussed spines

and dead eyes.

so the ravishing begins.

My pain is killing me,

but by God I will exorcise this demon.

it will end, it will end

the mantra, I insist

it will end!

Why me?

the inquisition begins,

why-me!

why couldn't I just be born in a different family!

with a loving father and a caring mother,

Is there no one to protect me!

The demon is close to release,

thrusting, its cries!

I cry for my parents.

Soaked it salt, shame and pain,

I cry out - but really, no one cares,

no one will save me from this.

Tethered to the bone,

hold on, I insist, just a bit longer.

and weep, and wait, and weep, and wait,

a thundering is pounding a mean tattoo in my chest.

I give up my faith.

I pass out.

Sandra Nekh.

Guest poet Kenzia Masibo, The Birth Of A God.

My readers... I take this opportunity to show case the talent that is Kenzia Masibo, a budding Kenyan Poet. It takes a lot to stand for what you are in a world that riddles creativity in judgement and scorn.

I present The Birth Of A God, by Kenzia Masibo.

The Birth Of A God
I wake today to a letter on my bedside table,
Addressed to me by my daughter’s hand...
What a gamble, this fool!
For the soul that wrote it was not merely humble
But swung its pen in a rageful antistyle
That is sure to catch my fleeting attention.
Rubbing my morning eyes ready for the compaction
That most oftenly follows a dark midnight composition.
Ah! And it greets me with such obvious assentation…
‘To my cherished and deared father’ I chock at its hilarity
As it should have ended at this dexterous vulgarity
Aimed at shrinking my judgment with emotional mediocrity
I regret every second of its secular viviparity…!
“I know you won’t shed a tear
For the man I once treasured and revered
Has over the years crooked into a heartless brute.
But I must say what I must.
And you must hear what you must.
My doing forced by the tyrant in nothingness
Beyond the sky holding my earth up with one hand
And dishing blows with the other.
That vile creature that just for a tickle
Presses its gigantic finger onto the little insects
Walking in the world too small to accommodate
Spineless creatures carrying snow blubs…
With a swaying child seen moving through the cracked glass,
Moving to hymns of quests and suspicions
Over a realm they are given flawed metaphors of
Descriptions they don’t comprehend but accept all the same
As they are set blind folded down a rocky hill
Decorated with crawlers and slithers and walkers
Promising a poised bite.
Breathe in infected air from the vermin’s’ lungs
When it’s over you are sure to be spotted
One little mark seen only by the host of the games…
But you must not get infected.
Hymns of praises to a domain you don’t understand
Hymns of confession for sins you don’t carry.
I write to the tyrant floating in ignorance.
My breathing in my world-
Likened to inhaling in a sulphurous pit.
My conception a misdeed,
My birth termed a mishap
My existence dismaying,
My thoughts depressive,
My very being a transgression by itself!
Yet my very patronal kin flourishes in the wonders
Of a purposeful being, the glorious calling
One deserving of praise and awe…
Undertakers whose sole vocation in rid-ing this…
Everywhere and anywhere of the unrighteous deemed
Wherever and however they see right.
And the earth’s core has no rage as the magma within me.
Swift Fluid forceful flames that turns and cracks
With my every inhale and exhale
Way harder than your whip cracked on my back
As you corrected my veracious thought
For the blameless should follow and not question.
Way harder than your whip cracked on my back,
When I was bent over crying mercy
For a child’s mere curiosity of the color
Out of the existing fallacious white!
And your whip will cuff you.
Bind your hands in the memories of your righties.
Memories of putting a rope to his neck
And lighting a fire beneath his midair kicking feet.
And beside his dangling licking coal… My love
My precious, the soul of my soul, my beloved…
My lovely lady Lucky snatched from my side
Kicking and screaming, lifted by the disciples
Of him that I begged and beseeched with for her life,
Offered my breath for hers
And you offered a consideration…
No hanging for the fair one,
What a beckon on kindness you were…
And then…
She was silent,
When diesel was your fuel of choice
She was silent,
When asked to speak her last words
She was silent,
When you hauled her hair and derided
She was silent,
When our eyes locked for years and years
She trembled as I collapsed onto the desecrated earth
And she did not shed a single tear when you lit her up.
Her haunting eerie moans always in my head
Over and over and thus existence has no force
As the one she builds in me that night and every night.
As the tear of every sacrificed soul slaughtered
Every life lost by the guiltless who now stand at plinths.
Alters before them blood purified and ----------scented
Their executioners lie in glimmering oil in their mercy,
A sacrifice of the slayers to the slayed by the slayed.
And you lie on many tables.
By your reading this
You would be lying on mine too.
For they are throng in me
Through me the legion will rise
Through me they will have power
Through me they will have their revenge.
Through me we will stop your kind.
Tonight I leave my state to join mine
And we shall be a union of gods
And we shall rain terror to all your kind,
The living and the dead alike.”
What have I done?
copyright. Kenzia Masibo.

Nekh. 

‘CIGARETTE-SWEETS’

In the past couple of years I have been trying to find out exactly what kind of influence the Chinese have on our fine country Kenya. Truth be told I am no fun of the ‘Ching Chong’ invasion, I feel that we can do some of these things that they are doing for us on our own.  How many degree holders sit at home with no jobs while foreign companies take over these jobs that we so craved for when we laboured and worked ways around the system for years in colleges and campuses all over Kenya.

Well I finally have something. My friend Selly went to the shop this morning an came home with a special gift from the shop lady. Before you read on keep in mind that while our government is busy making deals to BUILD OUR COUNTY- VISION 2030, they forget that vision 2030 is not just the infrastructure… but also the little things that make us who we are. What do you see when you look at this picture.  

A cigarette… well may I shock you… sure, I will do exactly that, this is a form of candy; according to the shop keeper. I live in the suburbs of Nairobi – Kasarani, so this is not the city centre, if a shop in the middleclass suburbs can have a sweet in this form – of a cigarette being sold to kids, in primary schools and even younger! Where are we going as a nation, is it really that important to have great structures all over the country and have our children’s morality faced because no one at the seaport or the airport thought to check what exactly was being imported. I am not perfect but I think that this is negligence of the highest order. ‘This Cigarette-sweet’ is inscribed in Chinese symbols illustrated below.

Like any other sane person out there my friend and I tasted the sweets! Little white pellets inside… they tasted horrible! These may easily been the worst sweets EVER created! As part of brainstorming, to answer the questions in our minds… it hit us like a hurricane that these might actually be Nicotine Tabs…. And am thinking, why the fuck could possible Nicotine Tabs be sold as sweets in shops!

“We have failed this city!” We really have… or rather they that run this country have failed it! I need to have a serious chat with our local shop keeper. What will you do about this…?

Nekh 

Being Human

What is LOVE but Little Over Valued Events... what is HATE but Having All Traits Evaluated...

But just the same, the difference in the similarity of both words may be but a mere poetic justification, but can LOVE not mean Having All Traits Evaluated... and HATE not mean Little Over Valued Events...

To put things in perspective, we are shallow beings we humans, valuing relationships in degrees of like and dislike forgetting that we are here for a season. Just a mere season, we may choose to love, or hate and forget that at the end of it all, we may waltz off earth... or be dragged off earth at a time we may not know. Why spent hours living a lie formulated by your mind to make you feel better about yourself or... make you feel better about you hurting someone else.

We are fickle shallow beings to be honest... we crave Invisibility, Respect, Recognition, Wealth... need i say more.... We forget to give... share... help... because that that we crave is in our nature. We doubt more than we trust. Even the good Lord did doubt once.. are we any different.

Realizing where we stand as a race may be the best way to face our nature. Realize where you stand. Realize your situation in relation to your neighbour, your friend... your foe... Make A Decision. Decide Who you are, Where you are and where you would like to be, What you are and what you would like to be., Why you would maintain or change your stand, When you would change your stand and, How you would do it.

Make life simple, better yourself and see those around you change for the better.

Nekh.