A bundle of stress

With a razor tongue,
this person lashes out
with little care to how I feel
this person slashes off
what treasure I keep in my heart

stings my tail on facebook

presses me to call many times a day
and when I call, blows fire on phone

threatens me with suicide...

The Dead Teeth

Three months have barely passed, when he died;
Mom said  that like a helpless horse
He died while tears gathered on his dying cheeks:
He has lost a precious life, full of promise.

I still cannot reconcile with the loss of my cousin
Beaten to death in the morning, on his way to the University
 By  the brothers of a girl he had made pregnant.

His tragic death was not reported in the newspapers:
It is common phenomenon in my community
For a young man with a promising future to be martyred
On the altar of forn relationships
His memory sealed in the minds and hearts
Of grieving relatives, bereaved parents
And the villains languishing in jail,
Hoping that the customary legal statute of 31 cows
will be collected from relatives to bail them out.
 These animals are are also expected to purge the sin
clean the blood on their hands
and to compensate for my cousin's 31 dead teeth.

Writing

So now what will you do?

I will write.

what will you write?

anything. I feel I should
write and write to express
 things

what things?


things which matter.

fame?


I write not because I want fame,

but because I want to express the subjective voice


of Truth.


I see. But it is weird to write
truth, because she stings

That is why i write.

do you write to sting?

I write to express.

Corporal Mariel

They decided that he should go
then when the council man came
to carry my brother over to war
my uncle, who earlier offered his consent
and who was ill nearly fainted


My Auntie was too angry to speak.

He fought for 19 years and became a corporal
but on his 20th  year, he was shot in the head.

"He was lucky," they said:
"the bullet grazed the skull." 

The middle of no-thing

In conferences we often talk of things,

with them, who celebrate some of my things

yet when we meet on the roadside,

 a thing seems to keep us apart.

I cannot say I come from here or there,

I am here but not here – there but not there.

As I walk down this road,

I meet shying eyes, who yesterday

spoke boldly

 on the oneness of the spirit.

I turn – I turn in search of a place, where a thing will fit

even there, where it fits, it fits not there.

I am an old lion

I am too old and too cold to vibrate

in my early years, I was in love

with these true humans

But oh yes, years flew by

I found myself alone – fighting quiet:

some have left me by fate

others have left due to the problems I caused them
 a few were snatched and thrust into wrong hands,

where they whimper in mental solitude

As each of them tearfully left,

I sat alone and cried like a child, cried my heart sore

when you came along and whispered: Ca Xen Nhiaar?

I said: “what?”

You moved closer to me

and  whispered: “Do you love me?”

“Acan, are you asking me?”  

“Yes, I saw it in your lousy eyes.”

One minute elapsed, before I said:

 “of course I-I do.”

I Do Not Believe What You Say

I knew you were born before me
I knew you have grey hairs
I knew you have suffered
while fighting for freedom

I will not count how I too
have suffered digging in the garden
fields to feed you and the rest.
I will not complain
 we stand on an unequal strengths

But just because you born before me
and fought for independence does not provide
you with a free ticket to interfere with me
hold keys to my life, mess my future
and force me to bow for crumbs.

I do not want to doubt your honesty
but if indeed you were fighting for my freedom
and the freedom of this land
why then are you selling this land for $1?

You said my father is a martyr 
and you stand erect on martyr's day
but you stood on the blood you have sold
was this the freedom of the land
 you promised him when he died on your lap?

I do not want to doubt you
but I think I no longer believe what you say
behind these newly acquired glasses