Let Me Know
If I ever offended you
Discuss it with me, dear love
Don’t keep it in the heart for too long
Let me know of the mistake
I have made, dear love
That makes you pale, mute
If I once shouted at you
And you were flustered, dear love
It is because I cared, or so I thought
Let us talk with open minds
Of the flaws, the pitfalls
And mend the broken fences
Bring to an end this silence
And hear your voice again, dear love
As it always came to me.
In The Blues
(For her)
You are in
the cauldrons
In the blues
The hour of the long shadow
Your heart sits on your chest
As heavy as a stone
Words from your mouth come out
Like uncooked lumps of porridge
You wrinkle your forehead
with temperament, irritable and sullen
See for yourself
The damage caused by irrational
Behavior, the result of
A drop of a red mood
On your most sacred of clothes.
Discuss it with me, dear love
Don’t keep it in the heart for too long
Let me know of the mistake
I have made, dear love
That makes you pale, mute
If I once shouted at you
And you were flustered, dear love
It is because I cared, or so I thought
Let us talk with open minds
Of the flaws, the pitfalls
And mend the broken fences
Bring to an end this silence
And hear your voice again, dear love
As it always came to me.
(For her)
In the blues
The hour of the long shadow
Your heart sits on your chest
As heavy as a stone
Words from your mouth come out
Like uncooked lumps of porridge
You wrinkle your forehead
with temperament, irritable and sullen
See for yourself
The damage caused by irrational
Behavior, the result of
A drop of a red mood
On your most sacred of clothes.
Whisky or juice, or a huge bottle of wine
Nor a packed chicken or pizza or ghee
Bring me your lips, with mine intertwine
Roast turkey, roast chicken, or goose
Nor pork roast combined with pine
Bring me your tongue to get your juice
Nor Yorkshire pudding, gravy, or cheese shred
Or drinks that raise me unnecessarily too high
I am better off with the juice of your tongue
Taste of your lips, and radiation from your eyes.
*Dr. Christopher Okemwa is a lecturer of poetry and drama at Kisii University, Kenya. He has a PhD in performance poetry from Moi University, Kenya. He is the founder and current director of Kistrech International Poetry Festival in Kenya (www.kistrechpoetry.org). His novella, “Sabina and the Mystery of the Ogre”, won the Canadian Burt Award for African Literature in 2015. Its sequel, “Sabina the Rain Girl” and “Chubot the Cursed One and Other Stories”, were both selected for the UN SDG 2 Zero Hunger reading list in 2022. Dr. Okemwa has authored fifteen poetry books, four children’s books, four novels, four oral literature texts books, five folktales of the Abagusii people of Kenya, translated six works of international writers to Swahili and compiled six international poetry anthologies.