NAIROBI LIGHTS

The lights…

The city lights are bright.

The people rush by, somehow looking too busy

Their destinations remain a mystery,

Maybe even to themselves.

Pushed forward by an unknown force.

They shove and elbow.

The lights…

The city lights are bright.

They blind the young, nay overwhelm them.

Like a succubus they suck their souls and feed on their dreams,

Offer them deep bottomless promises…

An empty hole.

The lights…

The city lights are bright.

The young female paints her face,

Striving to rival the beauty of the lights.

She bears her discomfort amidst the stares,

Jeers, Cat calls, She dreams of release,

All the while losing herself in the vast humanity here.

Her feet ache.

The lights…

The city lights are bright.

Mr. Young man feigns the bounce in his step.

His peers encourage him,

For this is the way of the lights.

His future an unclear portrait of his past,

His eyes shifty.

The lights…

The city lights are bright.

The old folk raise their fists at them.

A journey travelled with no real destination.

They cry salvation for this seemingly new world.

Houses devoid of the comfort of homes.

Children buried before them

The lights…

The city lights are bright.

THE DANCE

There was once a story told…

A story of greatness and power hunger

Of tradition distorted by strange influence

A dance created by multiple beats out of place.

The young dancer is unripe to the ways

The ways of the African intense sound of song

She looks beyond the hills and the fading sunshine

To the direction from where the song that woos her heart comes.

Thrust into the crowd to learn through observation

Her hips move awkwardly as the music swells her heart

Like a secret love she visits the hills late in the hour of self

The crescendo startles her, she missed her step.

The music in the hills makes her eyes glitter and smile

She moves her waist to the two different beats of her life

And her feet shuffle in a semi-trance that became the dance

Her fingers and hands form the shape of the river down south.

People around her look frenzied now, the drums frantic

The violins weep louder, the pianos serenade her intensities

She falls to her knees, her strength gone to the hills beyond yonder

Her fingers clutch at the soil so warm against her blood.

She weeps loudly now as her mind and soul beg release

A bigger root to go deeper and grant her stability unshaken by time

For the wind to sway her yet not move her an inch further from home

The music starts again, and her tired feet lift her towards the crowd.

WORDS OF INTUITION

Whisper, whisper
You know you hear me
That Shadow to your left shouldn't be there
No, no darling
Ignore the bustle of the day
And listen to me

Whisper, whisper
Should you be doing that?
Forget the piety of morality
But the truth is tattooed in me
i am not Jesus, i am a scroll
Listen to me

Whisper, whisper
That itch under your skin
No the weather is warm not cold
You can"t sit still
No your attention span is fine
Just listen to me

Whisper, whisper
That's your heart, I'm rushing it
That's your adrenaline, I'm flooding it
Hey! hey!
Are you deaf?
Would you listen to me!

Whisper, whisper
My vocal chord are tired
Strained from the effort
Darling, forgive me but i shall take my leave
I have no more patience
You should have listened to me.

THE BREAK UP SONG

Today I cried… and every tear had great meaning.

Today I painted my past and it made me cry

Yes, my darling, I cried for you.

I counted the tears as they hit my pillow…right before they sank in.

I cried for me, for us.

My dear darling I cried with my heart… wept with my very being.

I wept not for regret but rather disappointment.

My expectations were not high, yet you went lower than the ground.

So I bid thee farewell… and I only wish that my face is the last you see.

For in my head you see, I am schizophrenic… I am psychotic.

I lick the blood staining my hands…

I swore to never carve my heart out for you.

But a sacrifice had to be made yet there were only two of us.

Yes my darling, embrace the pain and do not let your heart flutter,

For even sacrifices have to be flawless.

I bid thee farewell… your blood filled with all its essence made the best ink.

I created our last portrait. Stained red with no real dimensions.

Let it not alarm you, I would never sell it.

Instead, due to the great amount of emotion you caused me,

I will burn it.

The skies will turn dark.

And I will smile.

SINCE I LEFT

Since I Left…

Since I left I have been in some sort of a trance

Without you my life has stood somewhat still

Almost as if my still waters have been unjustly stirred

I ache for you, yet somehow I still feel your presence

All around me…within me.

Since I left I have been finding myself through a long journey

A journey to find you yet I know exactly where you are

Like an addicted drug user I seek to find your high again

Yet somehow I am afraid to find a replacement of you

For that would mean I would have to forget you.

Since I left I have been wondering how you are now

Wondering how your nights feel without your sheets rumpled

Do you still enjoy the stars or have their colors begun to change

Somehow the nights are slower now, while my honey lays untapped

Trying to bury myself in emotion only confuses me.

Since I left I have been wondering whether or not I miss you

Here I realize that I love missing you from a safer distance

So I bid thee farewell my love, whom I will always hold dear

I ask that you miss me with that longing like a somewhat gentle tug

Let not our memories be a sword to the soul.

HOLDING HANDS WITH A STRANGER

HOLDING HANDS WITH A STRANGER

They met, unofficially introduced by nature

Each at a strategic vantage point from the other

Their coexistence held neither rivalry nor malice

Their connection seemed almost like smoke and mirrors

Their passion a familiar legend told amongst humanity

They stare boldly at each other and their hearts flutter

A horizon simultaneously separating yet bonding them together

Sometimes if only for the slightest of moments their skins tingle

A feeling of the other looking towards them, searching for them,

Their eyes meet yet they cannot see each other.

In their times of great emotion this becomes their haven

Here they often meet and whisper their secrets to each other

Their lips do not move and their feeling carried on by the wind

Sometimes they smile to each other in gratification not feigned

With hearts swollen with joy only they could understand.

These two souls may never meet yet there will be no disappointments

For their late nights shared may very well be almost conjured

Their view of the horizon from different points of the earth

Such is the joy of a shared experience from so many miles apart

Such is the magic in holding hands with a stranger.

Inspired by JKIA lights….

                             By Kui Kubai

JACK COME OUT TO PLAY

There’s a girl

Standing in the rain

Waiting to knock on a door

But the fear consumes her

So she doesn't

She just stands there

Waiting for the door to open

Like magic

Like in the movies

There’s a reality

When the sun shines,

The romance is over for her

The door will open

Jack will come out to play

Lest he becomes a dull boy

Or maybe a social outcast

So it’s not for her

A play of fate

A normal thing

Nothing special

So she stands in the rain

Waiting for the door to open

Jack come out to play

In the rain

We can play pretend-

That the rain is dew

We can swim in the river

If we drowned

At least we’d hold hands

When we walked towards the light

Then when the sun shines

She’ll walk away

Happiness is too painful

It makes the world stop spinning

Because pain is all we really want

Like a girl standing in the rain

Willing to die

Willing to live

Open the door jack

I'm here

I won’t ring the door bell

Do you feel my heart?

It’s in the thunder

Scratching at your window

Can you hear me breathe?

I make the trees fall-

In your lawn

Come come

Hold me before the sun shines

While I whisper wet despicable things-

In your ears

For a moment...

On your doorstep

Jack come out to play

Before the sun shines...

I NEED YOU

One letter

Two letters

Say something

Anything.

I see you in my dreams

I can feel your heart beat

The hair on my arms…

They tingle

Yesterday you were mine

Today it’s not the same

You have moved to the planet Mars

Left me on earth

My sisters on Venus weep

Weep for my demise

That’s what I told them

When I met you

Day and night married

They bore…

They bore us

Hand clasped tight

Now I'm cold

Out on the earth’s atmosphere

I need you

I don’t know why I do

Remember when I told you that

That healing is beautiful

I don’t want to heal

I'm tired of bleeding

I've carved my heart out before

I loved it

But it’s different with you

I want to die happy

What do YOU want?

Are YOU happy?

A puzzle with all YOUR pieces?

Or do YOU lack?

A ying spends a lifetime

Looking for its yang

Is that you?

With all that brick around you

I fall into black holes everyday

I need rope

Some sort of connection to reality

I need you.

UNTITLED

I lost my soul, somewhere in the jungle

So deep is the thicket-my life, that I lost

My feeling stripped from the only heart I own

I have spread myself to  every corner

I am translucent now.

I wonder if I ever really had my soul

It always felt like a constant endless battle

A plea of emancipation, nay, freedom

My shadow grew so afraid of that it ran

Hid somewhere beyond the moon

My soul turned me into a monster

I was jealous and selfish-nay both

I locked myself in a dungeon, discarded the key

Starving myself to punish my soul

Both master and slave I was.

It finally broke free, my soul

It ran wildly, like a wounded wildebeest

All my limbs were weak from hunger

So my past ran through my fingers like water

I could outrun or catch my wild buck

I now sit under the sky, soul at large

My empire collapsed, and the history recorded

I have to start again… I have got to rebuild

The whispers in the rustling leaves a conversation

All I need is a soul.

THESE FOUR WALLS.

These four walls I call home

Comfort me and swallow my screams

Echo me when I laugh without decorum

Hold my secrets dear to their bosom

These four walls I call my heart

Cracked, with paint splashed all about

Damaged to a point that they look ancient

With only two decades worth of beats

These four walls I call my life

Always looking for a window, a door

Screaming for the outside like a caged panther

Half afraid that I might be too tame

These four walls that banish me

To an unknown reality that is my own

A delusion that leads to madness not uncommon to me

A prisoner in my own space.

These four walls talk back to me every so often

Building me up, then breaking me down

Brick by painful, unnerving brick

No wind to dry away my blood, sweat and tears

These four walls… these four walls

I would like to scream if the echo wouldn’t deafen me

And my tears would cause a flood to drown me in my own sorrow

The sound of my heart breaking would thunder, reverberate.

These four walls, they comfort me

The cracks steal moments of sunshine to warm me

And the birds visit me to sing lullabies, dirges, a concert.

I call these four walls…me.

HUMANITY IN ITS SIMPLEST...

Simply a girl
looking at the mirror
willing herself to get thinner
like the opposite vision in the other mirror
the tele.

Simply half a heart
looking for its other half
that which it sees daily in its dreams
night after night.

Simply a friend
wishing to be there for you
who held my hand
as i walked on glass.

Simply the present
the future of yesterday
the yesterday of the future
yet we worry all the time.

Simply human
trying to be righteous
wondering if the man in the sky exists
nay the devil? 

we are simply a family
trying to live together
my blood red, just like yours
you cut me, you bleed.

The taste of her lips

The taste of her lips, her feminine whiles…

The whisper of her soft song in my ear

“I love you” she breathed, I kiss her,

Covering her mouth so she could confuse me no more

I am trapped, trapped in a novelty

 Her smile, it speaks of her secrets,

Her not well hidden secret, our secret.

“I love you” she breathes, I kiss her

I will her to speak no more

Her hand soft against mine own

Not sweaty, not clammy or insistive

I watch her as she laughs,

As she watches me laugh,

She leads me away, but the eyes follow us

Up against the wall I pin her

“I love you” she breathes, I kiss her

Under the water I watch her,

Dancing away the cares the world throws at her

Her waist enchanting, her eyes a portal

I love her??

That is a story I hope to tell another day.

KISS ME NOW

Kiss me now, and let your lips not flutter
Come wine and dine in the lushness of my lips
I hope you won't crave any more nay, less

Kiss me now in the moonlight
Do not be shy that the owls may disapprove
Nor that the bats may distort the moment

Kiss me now, kiss me to the music
My eyes a violin, yours a sad guitar
I am your piano... play me to the beat of your racing heart

Kiss me now and i shall be yours
Plant your truth on me, no matter how bitter it may be
I'd rather taste it than hear it

Kiss me now my darling
This is a moment planned in destiny; past and present
Frozen in time, we will stay this age forever.

diary of a teenager

Shall I compare my freedom father?

To that of a caged bird…

The pretty and multicolored birds hit the window

In their speed and eagerness to discover this new world

Their eyes twinkle with elated bliss

Such is the nature of birds with wings

Father this cage is too small

My wings hurt and bleed from the inside out

Even the little bird seeds always in plenty taste so bland now

You teach me how to be beautiful; a beautifully hidden secret…

In constant endless grooming

I hurt myself father,

I hurt myself trying to hurt you

Every Sunday we walk in the park and you let me fly off for a minute

I fly too close to the sun, my beautifully groomed wings sparkle

Like a glint in an old man’s eyes...

I sing songs of freedom in my cage

The songs that you taught me…

A freedom I know nothing about

I shed a lonely tear, and you’ve packed and left

Left me enough raisins, enough water that I may neither thirst nor sleep hungry

You’re back soon… smelling of the strange lands yonder

Being a stranger with my fragility.

Thougts Whispered To A Wind

The general coughed; choked by the pungent smoke

His eyes reddened nay swollen by tears withheld

From his vantage point hidden far in the hills

He looked down at his soldiers’ bodies lying awkward

Their souls long left their bodies cold.

His sigh echoed amongst the trees bent to eavesdrop

A vast army lost to the war and the element fear

Shaking like a newborn exposed to the harsh elements

Flashing back to his past victory-a legend afore created

He heaved, weighed by his manliness and death.

Heart heavy from worry and guilt of dragging in a friend

To the torments and guilty pleasures of gorged flesh

To the bitter sweet taste of the godly power of death

To the memories of happiness slowly drained from one

To the edge of a glory whose craving intensifies by the minute

The smell of smoke now became a visible and thickening sight

Becoming a backdrop for a vision of a strangely light filled day

An idle lingering on a straight path without corners or re-routes

A writing of a memoir weakening him with confusing emotions

A release from his body limp from thought.

A yellow light illuminated the smoke awakening his senses

His vision slowly becoming a fate to which he was chained

His blackening body now somewhat blushed by the heat

The general’s dying thoughts whispered to the dry wispy air

His soul’s judgment beginning by the lick of a flame

To Love...

Those devoid of self love cannot love another,
for "thou shalt love another as thou loveth thyself".
Only in accepting yourself with your faults shall you find peace,
and room creates itself.

Thus it is only logical to reprimand yourself gently
To settle scores with your demons...
The inner ghouls with such blood-thirst
that killing your own soul becomes attest-able.

Thus your inner soul should ignite,
let the fire grow large...
Let the tears that you cry be in mourning of that which has refused love.

When love is abundant in one,
all religious and moral duties are somewhat fulfilled.
All fears banished...
only then can one find comfort in their own skin.

The Burial I would not attend

when i first got word of his death,
my heart momentarily pained..
i searched myself for an emotion
but my soul was drenched in emptiness..
and my eyes dried up
i yearned for strength but that was not what i required at the time.
i refused to be strong in the face of sorrow
i found no comfort in modesty... nay meekness
and malice beckoned.

i was not happy still, for in rejoicing in another's death meant malevolence
and yet i did not hate
yes.
i had no capacity to hate the dead.
and this story i tell had a twist.
maybe the evil could wage a fair war this time.
and winning depended solely on me, the puppet master of my own emotions.

the story, i say again, had a twist.
for this man knew not of his death.
he went through life with a spring in his step.
maybe he found happiness in his semi-life.
this poor soul i had killed in my head.
his death was not at all heroic.
both in life and the beginning of the end he was a coward.
yes, this war was a secret only i knew.
but i made his death public.
And the burial i would not attend.

''let the dead bury their own dead''..

By Kui Kubai

The Burial Of the She-wolf

She could feel her future oozing from him,
and she refused to look into his eyes
for she knew she would not be able to look away..
For the past and present haunted her..
But the future scared her
He stood strong against her currents..
She was tempted to raise her battle axe, just to watch him flinch..

so she hid..and wished away her happiness.
In trouble and hurt she found solace
in confusion she found peace
in battling the darkness she found order..
It was almost selfish, what she felt
Defending a non-existent wound..
She forgot that in pain there came strength

His offering of light made her scream with doubt
and the idea of needing someone other than herself made her shudder..
She did not want to have to carve out her heart as an offering..
She doubted his deserve.
So she buried herself in doubt..
Buried herself in her past present.
And watched them sing dirges to her..
Watched her clan fall apart.

By Kui Kubai

The Broken Toy

The toy looks so lovely from the outside of the window shop...
And oh so beautiful in the wrapping
but really it was broken in the most unfixable of ways..
It was not warm nor was it soft..
For it was a toy so humanlike such qualities became expected of it..

With the toy came a disclaimer..
But the broken toy's beauty was soo great one did not notice it..
I did not know the return policy,
and i struggled to fix it.
And though the crack was minor..
It seems like a canyon..
Thus the name..the broken toy

i sat on my bed..with my broken toy,
torn,
torn between kissing it and crying
Staring at it, i realised that i was confused because i too was broken..
I was a broken master...
With a broken toy.

By Kui Kubai

This single brand of Heroine..

Here are some words/pieces of writing by some great men...(such is the nature of most lovers)
...some great men of/to the women they love...

John Rolfe in writing to the governor asking for permission to wed Pocahontas who was also known as Rebecca after her baptism ''motivated not by the unbridled desire of carnal
affection, but for the good of this plantation, for
the honor of our country, for the Glory of God,
for my own salvation... namely Pocahontas, to
whom my hearty and best thoughts are, and
have been a long time so entangled, and enthralled in so intricate a labyrinth that I was even a-wearied to unwind myself thereout''...


In the romantic tragedy of Mark Antony and Cleopatra, Antony loves his vain Cleopatra,despite being already married to Octavia. He abandoned her and their children for Cleopatra. They later divorced of course..
Back to my story(well according to Shakespeare), when Mark was told by Mardian; a servant of Cleo's; that she had died..he said these words
'' I will o'ertake thee, Cleopatra, and
Weep for my pardon. So it must be, for now
All length is torture: since the torch is out,
Lie down, and stray no farther: now all labour
Mars what it does; yea, very force entangles
Itself with strength: seal then, all is done.
Eros!--I come, my queen:--Eros!--Stay for me:
Where souls do couch on flowers, we'll hand in hand,
And with our sprightly port make the ghosts gaze:
Dido and AEneas shall want troops,
And all the haunt be ours. Come, Eros, Eros!''

Cleo wasnt dead, and her attempt to gain back Mark Antony's love caused both their deaths..
Read the whole play at > shakespeare.mit.edu/cleopatra/index.html

Compiled by Kui Kubai