Bwaga-Moyo
Lay down your heart
I am remembering somewhere beyond colour
watching the desert as an ocean
in the movement of a dune
I was fainting since before the womb
I. Kumbi Kumbi
Night of the Flying Termite
The pumice is pure
still
I’ve lost what we come here for
The baboon knows water I know salt
round and round the termite mound
we crawl utter and dance
we are but blood, fur and salt
hardened in a ball of rose-quartz
tail now tongue
ignorance and consciousness
inhabit one palm, dis-
locate one voice
we wait for the flood and the flutter
with torchlight and bucket, finger,
handful, mouth and belly
Birth, you wanted a journey
then let me beat my own drum
II. Pamoja kama mmoja
Together
as one
Always walking into the intersection
of your two shadows
addicted to freedom
and your own suffering
its time
time
time to let one go
become whole
uko
pamoja
there’s no one left
no basin to reflect
but the self
you are sacred Carlo
you are blessed,
neglected ancient
child
bloated over-
heard
skeleton
little more
than here fainting
forever back
to dance
Shit, sweat, tear or piss – some/thing
has got to come out of me
stir from this
brilliance, hit or miss
simple really,
be honest
III. Msafiri Wa Sauti
Sound’s traveller
Pythons writhe around the spine
eels grip, wrestle and net deep
slipping sticky through lymph
and connective tissue
riddled
in a wriggling nest of ner-nerves
jaundiced and kissed
by mosquito spider and tick – thrombophilic
with a clot in my liver. the bleed
and the maelena
the dizziness
and this odd
odd
odd prominence of spleen
little more
than the worms of beginning
a string of ic, ism and itis
sickness and deliverance
symptom
slumped upon symptom
PTSD — resultant
of no solid diagnosis – mal-
practice of the doctor’s pride
dig deeper
medicine needle intervention upon
inventive intervention
cut open, guinea pigged
repeated repeated until
released
this little one
is the intelligence and instinct
to continually heal
once an addict
now a healer
travelled continents on foot
motorbike bicycle tuk-tuk
train bus and Lucky
Lucky the camel
getting by
by making necklaces
out of knots
only a backpack of water
shawl and hammock
calmest
when tied to my father with a shoelace,
gun barrel
and man above us
spitting violence
he taught us how to mouth
a final goodbye with the touch
of our eyes
slept in bodies of the dead
and the dying
a life
hospitalized
Mother, alone in the priory
but I, I, like her
am survivor
learning that all life is
not survival
IV. Hewa na Ngozi
Air and skin
Air opened word
word now open air
spread
dissolved
In weight, freed by pain
come to will, come to
will to come to confront
accept and master
the self
a petal of presence
forever at entrance of elements
and sense, no distance exists
between elements
and self, a chameleon
blending in amongst everything
uncovering shelter
in nature
the belly
and drum,
the beating
of my own warmth
V. Alfajiri
Dawn
The noise of man is carrion
is ha-ha harm
do not be alarmed
the sound of stars and currents
the owl and the bat circling above water
is always a-round
nothing is ominous
when the eternal walks
on the dew
on the grass
footstep
breath
Silence
the frost climbs back
like a web retracting from dawn
lay back
pulse is a root
veining in creation
the x of xylem—
my mind
absolute
Bwaga-moyo
that
that I am not
now dies
and what’s left of (there) when you break
is love
love eterna
VI. Maji ya jua
Sun’s Water
Neck to the heavens
the cock crows not at dawn
not at quarter past four
but always
wake up
the world is always
waking
water falls important
as nothing
we depart are born
drip drop
morsel—
cell of moisture, dew—
cocoon of self,
resonance
but the echo is held
no more
the mask is best kept
on the wall
I am Oleretu
I dance with the body
Waning
in the moon’s music
of silence
in the end
the question of death
is answered
by more than a life
