Date You

Now that you want a date, someone to change the tone and taste, of things you’ve been doing, people you’ve been seeing, thoughts you’ve been having//
Yeah, am thinking I can be in all your plans, all your dreams I’ll cram, all your fav things I’ll learn//
And then shine them back to you like this naked sun//
Intensely drape them in nothing, but pampering and sweet nothings//
Yet, if you take this step, and I take the next, who knows might become something//
And make it worth your while, in style, am sure to bring the glow back into your smile//
Keep it there for the longest while//
Its inside there, just faded with the love well gone drier//

In between love lines you‘ll be searching for clues//

When you explore the possibilities, half a chance to tackle you, make the glow in your adorable eyes sparkle, become your heart’s call, you’ll take this chance//
And get it rolling, after all it’s just a date, maybe just this once//
Nurture it to become something you’d be feeling, the commonness antidote//
Not like anything you ever thought to sort//
After that we proceed to//

Dazzling you, lay back, let me adorn your thoughts with fact, your desires with tact, anticipation//
And wrap your hopes with exact, expectation//
Then pour passion like our red dinner candle dripping wax, exhilaration//
Embody the way you wanna be treated, shower you in relaxed, adoration//

Yearn for little things that give me an edge over the rest//
Outwit them till you fall through the stars straight into my arms//
Until you have no doubt to date you I should be the one.

44 Years Later!

It’s a crying shame and an unfortunate sarcasm that we are finally able to recognize Kenya’s foremost freedom fighters after 44 years. Moreover, just one – Field Marshall Dedan Kimathi Wachiuri. Whatever happened to all the rest who fought alongside and under his marshal? Don’t they deserve some kind of honorary acknowledgment too? Tumewacha mbachao kwa msala upitao, tusishtuke tutakapo ambulia patupu!

It’s a crying shame and an unfortunate sarcasm that when we purport to celebrate the essence of this inauguration which is FREEDOM, we are muffled by formalities that stifle that very freedom. I was arrested taking photos of the monumental launch! My crime was taking the damn photos!!!!!!! 44 years after our so-called independence, ordinary Kenyans cannot take fu@#%$ ordinary photos in public?! And at that of their freedom protagonists! Yet they keep telling us to shout “Najivunia kuwa Mkenya”! Utajuvunia vipi kama huru chache hizi huna?

It’s a crying shame and an unfortunate sarcasm that not only was this recognition long, long overdue, but also the audacity that such an occasion can be used to dampen the liberties that these great women and men fought for is outright appalling! Kuna sababu wanaiitwa Mashujaa wa Uhuru!

It’s a crying shame and an unfortunate sarcasm that our leaders are still living in the analog days where owning a camera meant you had a studio! Hallo! Camphones, camcorders and camera-ipod-phones are the jargon of this generation that you are blindly leading! That means a photo is a by-the-way-fu#%$^&*-stick-your-middle-finger-out snap! We need ask rights for that? Hawa wazee wamechoka, sioni hata Energizer ikiwasaidia!

At this rate, I think it should be around 2051 when we come round to appreciating the efforts of the revolutionaries of our time - Githogo et al. Damn! So analog-minded, no wonder they just can’t comprehend how the taped messages were done! Huku wakisema wakenya tuna uhuru kushinda hapo kitambo? Can you define uhuru?????????? What we have is In-Dependence.

So at the end of it all, i managed only the photo above, maybe appropriate. Freedom hidden in some patriotic false cover!

Mshairi Holla!

mshairi! been trying to upload my comments on your site but alas! you've had some incredible poetry and i have been feeling the posts but it bugs that i can't comment - some technical hitches! the post you have currently is equally impressive, its great you holla on graff art! inspiring to say the least ...... i hope this uploads, and more importantly, that you see it!

And the poem i promised you looooooooooooooooooooong ago, almost to the point when we transcribed our emotions on cave walls to stand the pages of ages.

Mshairi

loved the smile word playing poet

her lines drifted me to that duet

in quiet basement siestas

in solitude where i thought

daydreamed and internalised

her smile

her play on unspoken words

flood my mind with blind infatuation

her style

her say on unsung ballads

Complexities III - The Spider

This life is like a spider’s web. The flimsiest of all that you can fall back on, yet to the owner, seems so strong and so dependable. Our claim to this fleeting space is filled with nothingness, yet we seem to cling onto it like it was eternity itself. We ourselves are the epicenter of this desolation and selfishness ensuring that everything else revolves around us. Anything that comes into our radii of clout, we quickly squash, chase away or simply stifle with our egocentrism. Yet, in a swift swing of time, the web we so painstakingly and intricately weaved and then called it our life is hurled into nothingness, the empty spaces it leaves behind inherited by others doomed to counter the same fate. Wind-blown, discarded and isolated, we learn only too late how we could have been so much better, so much fuller. We learn to love and to shower caring to vacuity when these things matter no more.

We just lowered my Great grandmother to her grave and whilst others thought of it as her final resting place, I thought of it as the beginning of her epic journey. A journey to eternal bliss. Great wasn’t just her title for being a third generation from me. Great was her title for the way she lived her life and when it mattered most, how she swung with the wind. She had unlocked the secret to life, effectively making everything in nature subservient to her needs. Great were her ways that flowed in my grandmother and my mother and onto all of us who claimed her as the root. I could feel the oneness like branches of giant Baobabs feel their bulk stump. Great was her journey just beginning and great was the loss we just bore.

Great lessons are being taught everyday around us but it seems little sinks in. We have become hardened by the silver tubes in our homes continuously splashing images of negativity. Africa weeps, Iraqis die and these sequential persuasions feed our souls, stripping away our humanity. I mistrust all the talk about solving these problems while they only seem to spill over. I desperately hold the hope that I myself have not passed that point of being bereft of any form of erudition. Everyday, men are being snatched away from all around us, to a sanctuary secure, where the living cannot penetrate and still we cast doubts to meeting the Great One. Deluded by worldly enjoyment, we’d rather keep this one eye closed to these truths and the other on our amusements. Hypnotized in this state of distraction, our appointed term reaches us effortlessly, plucking our feeble web. If there was only one lesson sufficient for men to learn from, it would have to be death.


All these thoughts came flooding when as we lay wreathes of flowers on her grave, a spotless white spider crawled unnoticed from underneath one of the large leaves and disappeared under another. I thought to myself what a parable. The spider in her own world believes her web to be secure and indomitable. But all it takes is a baby’s waft to destroy it. Have you ever thought how God views our world?

100th Post - Yeah Baby!

Man, though its been a long time coming, i can't believe this is actually my 100th post! Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious! Najipongeza!

my original 100th post was hijacked at the WSF yesterday so i'll call this my 100th post part I! i decided rather than bashing the forum for what i consider to be NGOism laid-back-no-actionism, i'd go to the venue (this time uhuru park) nijionee kile hawa watu wote walikusanyika kwayo. a stone-throw from my place, i got there in the middle of the raining sun, hottest at its peak. impressive, there were like several thousand jamaz braving the heat to listen, demo and chat. Niliwasili just in time for nobel laureate Wangari Maathai's speech and went ahead to take a few snaps courtesy of the podium access from my man Blaze. this woman is phenomenal, standing there, saying such simple words but whose meaning sink to the depth of your humanity and you suddenly feel the rush to stand up and do something!

i talked WSF with a few people and some wreckon it might fade off into some social jamboree gathering of some kind, whilst others truly believe in its ability to change and shape social policies. am kinda in betwixt the two sentiments. there is some impact that has been derived from the WSF, notably the voice that has gotten to the (near) cancellation of third world debts, boycotting of slope-sided economic agreements etc, yet some of the major issues like poverty, sanitation, corruption seem unabated. to my surprise, i imagined the WSF to have been "the place to be" for all the "bonos" trying to do something about the world's social ills. the absence couldn't be more deafening. all in all, there was a cauldron of great people there and i managed kujiingiza miongoni mwao, felt different - among them my fav Bongoflava artist Prof J, Danny Glover (in yellow), Kenneth Kaunda, Soul Force, Eric Wainaina, Nyota Ndogo and the list went on and on.

someone argued we don't need celebrities to have a meaningul WSF, but i think it could do with the high profile PR. i mean, don't we see all these social events they appear in making the needed impact? ok, forget about madonna and the adoption, am talking nas "i know i can".

WSF, WAPI 8 & Other Stories

The World Social Forum started in Nairobi on Sato, 20^th and thousands of colourful activists were everywhere wamebeba mabango with different social messages. Each group had their own focus area, albeit some seeming opposing. The sight of hundreds of participants at Uhuru Park for the opening ceremony brought back memories of the “Make Poverty History” campaign with the Live 8 concert at its culmination. Anyone remember what happened to the “promises” made on that? If you ask me, things in Africa seem worse than when they held that much-publicized event. I wonder whether they question if they made anything history apart from the memory of the event!

So I beg the question, do these forums live up to their billing? The WSF has been around for what? 6 years? Feel any influence yet? If this was a competition; which it should be, for the benefit of peasants across the world, the World Economic Forum (WEF) on the other divide could have long taken the cup home. It seems to have all the clout (and muscle) to bulldoze its agendas on every government on earth. So instead of having something on the table to eat, debts and slope-sided economic agreements are shoved down our throats. And we say money ain’t everything. Moreover, when the WSF has over a thao concurrent events focusing on diverse (often divergent) issues, within a space of 4 days, how the hell do we expect a unified voice on resolutions discussed there?

Funny that all these social-focused organizations engage in multi-million dollar campaigns with little of the messages hitting home. Doesn’t it make more sense to go to some village in the middle of Rachuonyo and just dish out the money, built some latrines, buy the residents scones or dentures, do something! Make a difference, not just clamor about it!

The 20^th was also the date for the 8^th WAPI dubbed Mwananchi, gathering together underground artists, poets etc to display and perform. I had 3 artworks to showcase this time round and as the theme determined, they had to be all political. Because I have little to write about this time round, I’ll let the images do the talking.

On other news, this past week I rediscovered an important lesson. If you don’t jua where a jamaa is coming from, why the hell would you let them lead you where they are going? I don’t know if it’s the tv’s or people are just becoming overly wanna-be’s. I can’t think of a scenario where am caught up in an act that deep down am not even feeling just to “flow with the clique”. Get your own road and follow it! Tafuta barabara yako na uifuate!

Lastly, I decided to continue the “Complexities” series from my next blog so watch out for that – it’s a self-reflecting look at complex stuff that make up my life and the unspoken and unwritten resolutions to resolve them. Not to mention that will be my 100th post!

Protecting the Police

I tell you if you're kenyan, everyday is a comedy. The politicians are maddening like the 7 in the year was an aphrodisiac and everywhere you look, people are engrossed in ........ i don't know what. They are just engrossed.

So the other day, these 5o who escort cream to the banks decided to down their tools. They wanted "better protection". A serious matter that is almost laughable. Police wanting protection!

Ngai! If cops want protection, what would we ask for? Only God can help us now.

They want protection from the automatic-revolver-totting gangsters who by every raid become bolder and bolder. Them - the 50, are stuck with rifles that you need to cock before it realises there's a bullet inside. And so begging the question where does all the tax money we pay go to? Clearly not security. Neither can we say its roads, we have potholes huge enuff to be called craters. We can't say health either, you only need to ask how many hospitals we have to realize that. Can't the gov't get better equipment for the police force? The irony with this situation is that, among the things they escort is the taxpayer's cash to the banks from KRA! And we wonder why robberies increase...

Now, am thinking, so who would protect the police? Private security firms?...........

Constant State of Unfulfilled Desire

Someone once quipped a new year with a new job don’t go. They never met me.

So I quit my job last December for various reasons. It felt like the right time to move on. It had become this one gigantic monotonous bore and the fact that there was zilch job security made it not quite the ideal environ to work for nor the ideal job to keep. Then there was the inner voices enticing me to jump into fresh waters and make something out of working – besides the mid-morning coffee and the free broadband internet! Thus, I quit to pursue that dream. The dream of fun, contentment and self-discovery, regardless of time. Year in, year out.

Pursuing your individual dream is not an easy thing to do. You’ve got all these bunch of negative people haranguing you on the bad choice you’ll be making, that you should be comfortable with what you’re getting at the end of every month. What happens if you’re really not comfortable with that? Most of them want more out of life too but are just afraid to step up to the open stage. Most of us want to be able to say “I LOVE my job”, “Am doing exactly what I want and love every bit of it”. But how many say that? Could we even if we wanted to? Could we dream of saying it sometime, maybe this year, maybe next?

Then there’s the obstacles (read challenges) that you face trying to pursue what you love doing. More often, they deter you from realizing your dreams. But the most precious diamonds are made from the most intense pressure. So, keep pushing, year in, year out.

Most of us are blinded by populist thoughts and can hardly dare peep outside our cozy little boxes. We get caught in the cookie-cutter profiles of what others expect of us. We desperately desire happiness & contentment and search these in material things without realizing that the newest Sony Ericcson or the 4Gb ipod won’t give us that. Every month, there’s a new colorful catalogue churned out to fuel our desires of happiness. Soon we realize we need another item and yet another to make us feel whole, all the while we remain incomplete. Year in, year out.

I’ve taken the first step to becoming complete. I’ve envisioned what I want to be and stepped forward to meet it and be shaped by its lessons. And that’s nothing like the feeling of contentment with thyself.

In short, you better get your act right this year!

Shout out to all my blogmates, Fanyeni Mambo!

breaky na shukrani

blogging can be a very tempting thing. so i learnt after getting into the blogosphere in march this year. it's been a great 9 or so months.

who remembers breaktime in primo and seko? those were anticipated moments, many were times i daydreamed about how i'll devour that "maembe ya pilipili" during breaky instead of listening to some equation formula sh@#!

this is like that time, i wanna delve into other things, holiday, bikini-watching (oops!), checking out the oceanic scenery (some say sinnery) and chill out till whenever. a well deserved break if i must say so myself.

i just left my current job and it feels stupendous! the freedom is refreshing. i feel rejuved even before i start my holiday! talk about change of scenery.... so my advice to all y'all, when that work ain't doing it for you no more, step! visualize the doors opening up for you and not concentrate on the ones closing. there's a blessing in disguise in every twist. believe it!

shout out to all the peeps who've made my blogging this year a worthwhile xp. am going to violate your rights to get links but am doing this while sipping pinacolada and the breeze can't let me search each n every link so bear with m. for those i'd forget, it's the sinnery but you know i've still got mad lav for you!

nu mocha, ndesanjo, akiey, miriam, aco, muki, serina, little ash, mwangi, mloyi, Czar100, whoelse?, ma anon kibao!, tati, kasakwa, a., kipusa, nas, sasha, kenyanchick, shiro, makanga, vagabond, dobvious, mshairi, potash, genkigirl, bankelele, msanii_xl, kenyanpundit, alexcia, magaidi, maitha, scarla, poet mutiso, prousette, mental, ostalgia, egm, uaridi, ak, 69m, jadekitten, jp, supreme g.r.e.a.m, half and half, princess, bomseh, unyc, pesa tu, vee, afrom, proud nyeuthi, tezza and last but certainly not least bigwig.

super thenx for making Great things happen this year, my boy Jhabali always standing by my side, fady, ashi, timo, maj, British Council especially Eva and Buddha Blaze, saluoch, my bro HINT for the BC hookup and pentamony.

thanks for all your comments and flares that still burn me towards my supernova journey.

and to gbaby, regardless of the paths we take, i pray to God, yours glorious & easy to make, coz i try to shake off the thots but its nothing i can ever fake.

peace out, cheers and great hols!

Kwa Shina na Shida

**

Sijui katika kiswahili tunamwitaje mama wa mama wa mama, au kwa vingine nyanya wa mama yangu. labda itakuwa bii mkubwa - lakini sioni. labda nyanya mkubwa? nitawachia wenzangu waliokita katika lugha kunifahamisha.

juzi basi, nyanya wa mama yangu alipatwa na jeraha kutokana na kuanguka toka juu kitandani mpaka sakafuni. akapelekwa hospitalini ili kuchunguzwa na kupata tiba. sote tukawa tunampitia kumjulia hali na ilipokuwa desturi yake, tukacheka na kutaniana kwenye wodi utadhani hakuwa mgonjwa!

nilipotoka huko, nilifikiria sana. fikira zenyewe ziligonga kuwa yeye ndiye shina la familia yetu na alivyotoka mbali, hatuna budi kumshukuru Mola kumfikisha mpaka alipo. Isitoshe, wengu wetu hatukupata fursa ya kuwaona wazee wa wazazi wetu, hivi mimi najihesabu kubarikiwa sana kumwona nyanya wa mama! isitoshe tena, tukaweza kukaa chini na kuwa na mazungumzo ya maana, akinipa ujasiri na ufahamu wa mambo.

kisha nikawaza sisi tulivyo na watoto wetu wanavyolelewa. Kama huku si shida, basi sijui nilitamkie neno gani. Watoto waliolelewa na runinga na "mobiles". Wasiojua tofauti katika umri na heshima. Naweza kuendelea lakini sote katika jamii tunajionea.

Nikafikia kuwaza, yaani sisi katika shida na balaa zote hizi tutaweza kukaribia au hata kufikia vyegezo waliofika wazazi wetu. Au babu zetu?

Is Wapi Going Anywhere? A Response

As I read Mbaratho’s version of what WAPI is, what the neo-poets and artists that flock it are or have become, the thin yet very loud trail of skepticism in this entire article just couldn’t escape me. Comparisons with greats Okot p’Bitek and Taban lo Liyong are splattered everywhere. My frail understanding begs the question why?

I ask why because it shakes the very cornerstone of my interpretation of what WAPI is. And most importantly where it’s going. Where its going in terms of the influence it will have on these “rebel-soldiers-look-alike-sweaty-gum-chewing-rough-rap-loving with dreadlocks Mau Mau wannabe’s”.

Forgive me for (maybe) extrapolating the description of how these artists are viewed by Mbaratho, but the article has litters of extrapolated overtures of what they are, or aren’t and am left wondering, who is s(he) to judge? Can’t they be hip-hoping, Sean John clad sagging their extra baggy jeans and still contribute to a cultural reawakening? Can’t they because of their outer look and disposition have a say on the societal issues that affect them? Must they be “mainstream”, cultivated in the words of Soyinka, Okot or Shakespeare, refined with the strokes of Rembrandt, Pablo or Maasai paintings to be culturally relevant?

What WAPI is in my view is simple. It’s a forum for underground artists to express themselves. Artists of any persuasion. Artists who are NOT mainstream. And what is mainstream anyway – actually obliterate that word. Artists who are not mainstream or are mainstream, the whole bunch, mixed together into a cauldron of creative space. So in the midst of this “…splatter (of) unintelligible paint on the wall of a parking lot”, they might discover the next graf king. In this process of doing “…everything and anything with everything and anything to achieve nothing”, they might just discover themselves and maybe by a stroke of luck, achieve something!

Where is WAPI going? I’d rather look at it this way. What would the artists involved in WAPI get out of it? In my opinion an awful lot. They come from different walks of life, quite contrary to the generalization that Mbaratho paints in his/her article. They come with one vision in mind, to share their talent, their passion. To get inspired by interacting with like-minded and not-so-like-minded individuals. They come to watch others up their game and get motivated to reach that height too. They come to find a creative outlet that dissolves the troubles that confound them as youth, if only once a monthly Saturday. They come to be given that chance to pursue their dreams, whatever they may be. And ultimately they come to have an opportunity to discuss, express and voice their opinions on anything and everything they feel and experience.

So rewind, where is WAPI going? Only the artists who have found a voice through WAPI will answer that question. In a few days, weeks, years when those activities they were hauling right in the middle of the British Council parking lot come full circle and they touch their triple beam dreams, they will tell you where it all began.

Visual Poetic Weekend IV

slumvillage

I thought i'd compare slum life and basketball. Vile naishi maisha yangu kwa hizi slums, utadhani life ili slam dunk on my face. Dreaming of making out of these playoffs za mangeta na kangeta na kunyeta.....

This was one of my exhibitions at the 6th WAPI this weekend, the theme being "Slum Village". We were out there to take a critical look at the slum life (and one of my pieces was too radical to get any air play... and i shall refrain from displaying it here - case in point, the recent Mathare violence). Anywaaaaaaaaaaay, we were also there to celebrate the slums and people who against all odds came up from there! Diego Maradona, Mandela, Hip Hop Founding Fathers.

Uhuru killed it this time.... i think he's more creative with a furahi-day hangie! The graf officiel screaming "Slum Villa!"

Bankslave as usual made the compe seem faded. His wax here "Kibera" and crowning himself (which he deserves). Check out the dark terror gripping the slums.

And yes, this time, BC was a full hauz! It rained, then it shone. Yet, they came.

Aaaaaah, camera slipped. Oops!

My dude Pointblank had me envious. His piece "Revolution" just says it all and he says when he/she comes from the ghetto, that future leader, he/she has my vote. No Question. Am with that!

More graf wax. Feel the ease flow jo!

And more. Phiks fixed himself on the concrete! Hatucheki na wadiiiiiiii!

The other dude acheki na watu is Ill Art Squad, jamaa uses the wall like a canvas!

Our very mobile Choo. Ujipate ndani na imetoka!

Yes, going to whatever lengths to do it.

Simba wa Yuda fully represented.

Watu Kibao kila mtu na pose yake!

I'll let you decipher what that is. 1st to get it right gets a graf of her/his name done right here. Free.

The temperature rose, and rose and the umbrellas became shades.

Bila fashion show ingekuwaje? Though kuna vile i couldn't understand tangu lini gunia imekuwa fashion??? Ladies, help me out.... as to the point of wearing anything???? It was all good though, flowed vilivyo.

the end.