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Great Poetry... Literature lessons
Rank: Elder Joined: 10/23/2009 Posts: 2,375
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Mpenzi wrote:I Speak For the Bush
by: Benedict Mueni
When my friend sees me
He swells and pants like a frog
Because I talk the wisdom of the Bush!
He says we from the Bush
Do not understand civilized ways
For we tell our women
To keep the hem of their dresses
Below the knee.
We from the Bush, my friend insists,
Do not know how to enjoy!
When we come to the civilized city
Like nuns, we stay away from nightclubs
Where women belong to no men
And men belong to no women
And these civilized people
Quarrel and fight like hungry lions!
But, my friend, why do men
with crippled legs, lifeless eyes
wooden legs, empty stomachs
Wander about the streets
of this civilized world ?
Teach me, my friend, the trick
so that my eyes may not
See those house have no walls
But emptiness all around;
Show me the way you use
To seal your ears
To stop hearing the cry of the hungry.
Teach me the new wisdom
Which tells men
To talk about money and not love,
When they meet women
Tell your God to convert
Me to the faith of the indifferent
The faith of those
Who will never listen until
They are shaken with blows.
I speak for the Bush:
You speak for the civilized-
Will you hear me? Think this poem is by Prof Everett Standa It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt...
-Mark Twain
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Rank: Elder Joined: 5/30/2009 Posts: 1,390
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This one is by a wazuan on the thread I Love Traffic Jams http://www.wazua.co.ke/f...aspx?g=posts&t=7576
wa P wrote:Lucky you all who enjoy the traffic jam..
Some of us don't, can't.
For, while you are gyrating your head to the sooth of a good number....
And thumping your foot on the pedal while the limo is in limbo...
Some of us are menacingly requesting for our margins...
From distraught, frustrated thirteensome...
Who demand that we get them there now, not later, jam or blueband...
When we succumb to their threat, afande smiles...
For he has had his bread delivered without breaking sweat.
'Sonko' calls, and says the day's target is double yesterday's...jam, afande or insolent thirteensome notwithstanding.
Just then Guka with his Peugeot, keeps it straight in lane...
Training his eye forward, as if there is a prize.
He wont understand, that we need to cut in...
And oops! his ancient side mirror is no more!
It has to be imported from the scrapheaps of Burgundy, we are told...
And you still expect us...
To enjoy traffic jam?
We cant for some of us,
are matatu drivers. What a wicked man I am!The things I want to do,I don't do.The things I don't want to do I find myself doing
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Rank: Elder Joined: 10/23/2009 Posts: 2,375
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I Met a Thief On the beach, on the Coast, Under the idle, whispering coconut towers, Before the growling, foaming waves, I met a thief, who guessed I had An innocent heart for her to steal. She took my hand and led me under The intimate cashew boughs which shaded The downy grass and peeping weeds. She jumped and plucked the nuts for me to suck; She sang and laughed and pressed close I gazed: her hair was like the wool of a mountain sheep, Her eyes, a pair of brown - black beans floating in milk. Juicy and round as plantain shoots Her legs, arms and neck, And like wine - gourds her pillowy breasts; Her throat uttered fresh banana juice Matching her face - smooth and banana ripe I touched - but long before I even tasted My heart had flowed from me into her breast; And then she went – High and South – And left my carcase roasting in the fire she’d lit Austin Bukenya. It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt...
-Mark Twain
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Rank: Elder Joined: 5/30/2009 Posts: 1,390
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Who wrote this poem? Good for anti-graft war I REFUSE TO TAKE YOUR BROTHERLY HANDYour nails are black with dirt, brother, and your palms are clammy with sweat I refuse to take the hand you extend to help I shall not join hands with you brother for unclean hands make me uneasy For filthy fingernails rob me of my pride. You argue, gesticulating with your once impeccably clean and beautiful hand that, before long, it shall not matter for "everybody" is delving and digging and all shall have hands dripping with dirt That nobody shall know what clean hand looks like and there shall be comfort in the dirty crowd and enough to eat for there are good yields when the stinking manure is well dug in with strong and bad hands in times Are you blind, brother? I asked how many have the sludge or the strong and bold hand like yours dug and delved Brother, the hands of many are too weak with hunger and for many the sludge is out of reach, and yet for others, the stink is too nauseating, but all have eyes and hunger fill them with dirt as they watch your fingernails fill with dirt. I have seen hungry, envious eyes watching silently through chain-link fence. I have seen eyes in deep sunken sockets with anger intently watching you. I have seen parched mouths water with saliva, and heard the rumbling of hollow empty stomachs as they watched you feed the dog with meat from heavy yields of the city sludge. Have you entirely forgotten, brother, the fragrance and comfort of clean hands? The confidence, the peace you have when you know you'll leave no ugly smudge on the sheet? Don't you remember the repulsion you had when you shook hands with fat, dirty men with their dirty clammy palms? Let me alone brother and from the top of the cliff, don't offer me your dirty hand in help. Let me trudge the long way up for the shortcuts are solid and slippery, your palms are clammy with the sweat of fear and your fingernails are dogged with dirt What a wicked man I am!The things I want to do,I don't do.The things I don't want to do I find myself doing
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Rank: Veteran Joined: 7/3/2007 Posts: 1,635
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BTW Austin Bukenya was my lit teacher, but do I say? Here is another gem from the Ugandan great, Richard Ntiru:
FIRST RAINS Richard Ntiru From bewildered heights, heaven gazed on earth: She was brown and wizened with care. Sallow vegetation lingered motionless in emptiness, Cocking her crisp leaves, devoid of harmony. And the famished animals limply trudged, And slowly stopped with lifeless uncertainty, Calmly resigned to their cruel fate. A moment – and the eye fed on a rarity: As if the spectacle had stung suspended heaven, Sun’s patriarchal face was hidden in shame; Brown and defiled sky furrowed her brow; Baked earth dissolved into dusty clouds; And heaven – the more to look more doleful – At the hilltops passionately embraced the earth Bursting into numerous rolling drums. Powerful gusts propelled the dusty whirlwind , And scarlet shafts deftly dived through the sky. Leaves, like harnessed meteors, danced about While moribund life, galvanized, rushed indoors To impart word the Messiah was coming. Then gushed the volley of drops of sorrow: Heaven wept at poor earth’s wretchedness. Where dust was odious, now mud was cherished: Earth gulped her fill down her cracked throats, Brown grasses sipped with virtuous gluttony, Dipping their sore lips into the sweet mud. Child, bird, animal, alike wallowed in the mud. Sun again smiled at he purged earth, While heaven and earth disengaged their arms To stop their passionate mutual embrace. The scene was set: Paradise recreated: First rains had come to salvage the earth. "The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth." (Niels Bohr)
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Rank: Veteran Joined: 12/23/2010 Posts: 1,229
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- Mary Elizabeth Frye –
Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sun on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight.
I am the soft starlight at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there; I did not die.
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Rank: Elder Joined: 9/15/2006 Posts: 3,907
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Forgive my nostalgia, I couldn't resist  He Wishes for the Cloths of HeavenWilliam Butler Yeats Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half light, I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams. How Do I Love Thee?Elizabeth Browning How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of being and ideal grace. I love thee to the level of every day's Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely, as men strive for right. I love thee purely, as they turn from praise. I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.
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Rank: Elder Joined: 7/11/2012 Posts: 5,222
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Its whispered that ours is an audiovisual generation... A generation that would much rather watch than read. True? Almost by Ezekiel
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Rank: Member Joined: 8/5/2008 Posts: 602
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This is lovely, Music to the soul. keep up...feels like the old SK. Quote:
I Shall Return
I shall return again; I shall return
To laugh and love and watch with wonder-eyes
At golden noon the forest fires burn,
Wafting their blue-black smoke to sapphire skies.
I shall return to loiter by the streams
That bathe the brown blades of the bending grasses,
And realize once more my thousand dreams
Of waters rushing down the mountain passes.
I shall return to hear the fiddle and fife
Of village dances, dear delicious tunes
That stir the hidden depths of native life,
Stray melodies of dim remembered runes.
I shall return, I shall return again,
To ease my mind of long, long years of pain.
Claude McKay
"The chief danger in life is that you may take too many precautions" - Alfred adler
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Rank: Elder Joined: 9/15/2006 Posts: 3,907
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Lord My Woman Is Talking
Oluoch Madiang'
Lord, my woman is talking
Give me four ears to hear her…
Lord my woman is talking and speaking
Give me six ears to listen to her…
Lord my woman is talking and speaking and saying things
Give me eight ears to understand her…
Give me more ears Lord.
She is saying this and that, that and this…
That I this and that she that.
Blah, blah, blah, my woman’s bleating.
Lord, she is saying that in 2004, January 4th, in the morning, at 4 a.m. I…
Lord, how does the morn of early 2004 matter today?
She is saying that I don’t listen, never give her an ear…
Lord, add me ears I share with my woman in coming years!
Lord, my woman is speaking in tongues
About hair and love, pink and lollipop, black and forest, ooh and aah;
My woman, she says Tina is a bitch and Ali is a bitch and I bitch and…
Oh Lord, more ears please: my woman is bitching!
Lord lend me ten, twenty, thirty, hundred ears
(or cut off my woman’s tongues)
Quickly my Lord, because my woman just called to say:
We need to TALK!
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