It takes two to tangle. I read this phrase somewhere but it only surfaced as I sat on the opposite side of the table licking my bottle of sprite that I wasn’t enjoying anymore. Everything was in place and the party was about to be enlisted as one of the few house parties I have ever enjoyed. This was a graduation party, need I say I didn’t even know the graduate? I was here exploiting the few privileges of being a friend of Alal. I had left my place to visit him. He had just jetted in Nairobi from Kitui. After sharing pleasantries and a plate of beef stew he unleashed our next move which was to attend this party, what was I to do? Push aside my only ticket to enjoying free sumptuous meals and drinks…and music? I stood up my phone in my right palm and left for the door, he followed closely behind; talk of the shepherd being taken to the fields by the very sheep he intends to feed.
The house was already full by the time we got in but no worry there was lots to be eaten and to be drank and the way they pamper you with karibu karibu, chasing these kids to leave the seats empty for guests (I was a guest?) not really. I was more of a stranger. Impatiently waiting for them to pass me some warm water, clean my sweaty palms and stick my robust fingers into the mouth-watering delicacies that filled the dining table. I didn’t have to be told to come to the realization that the cook must have been hired from Utalii College. The dishes spoke on her behalf. The way they fry red meat until it turns brown and what spices do they add to it to make it that tender? Yawa jamaneni this cook was the only genuine graduate here! I bet the day my wife learns to cook half as delicious meals as she does, I will buy very heavy curtains and have them tied to my windows so that not a speck of aroma would escape to my neighbors failure to which my house will become an eatery generating no profits. Mother Teresa is my heroine but I betray her on this.
Guys what is damn lethal in washing your socks and keeping them clean? How could this guy come to a party knowing all too well that 80% of houses in Nairobi are carpeted and you’ve got to remove your shoes to get in? This is Nairobi, the capital city of this country why the hell are torn socks suffocating your feet? This guy just stepped in and the air composition changed completely for the worst, you would think some reptile was rotting under the table. I felt an urgent need to leave the party and save my breath…mfffffff…Guys a pair of socks goes for as little as Sh.20 in Gikomba buy 8 pairs and save our parties. Shame! Wait, who still ails from athletes feet? Here is a free medical advice; wash your feet with HOT water (no pain no gain) and then apply GENEROUSLY a cream of CLOZOLE B…problem solved.
Monthly Archives: December 2014
My Ungrateful friends
Monkeys are Ungrateful Lot
I first fed them
Not knowing they were planning
To Rob me of my ball
Dress the Undressed
Christmas isn’t a day to be the best dressed
It is a day to dress the undressed
Copyright ©GeorgeAgak 2014
On Christmas Eve
AS Mary and Joseph are looking for a free room
Some drunkard is gulping down a bottle of blue moon
I will fight you!
You have refused to stay away
You have become the tail I never had
Dragging me back in rapid steps
Chocking me, cutting my breath
I tried to hide in fancy clothes
From you whose presence I loathe
But still you slid in my wallet
You did what you do best, dictate what I spend
You claim you know my ancestry
My grandfathers with whom you had a binding chemistry
You say you flow in my veins
That my attempts to divorce you are in vain
You tripped me falling head first into debts
Made me a loser in the eyes of dames
Taught my canine to bite vegetables
Sometimes without salt to make them palatable
My sister called asking for some shillings
How could I help her when you stole all my money?
To her I’ve become a hopeless sibling
What’s worse my woman no longer calls me honey
Tonight be prepared for a fight
Pitch your tent, take with you lethargy
No room for you here, you’re hated with all might
I will fight you POVERTY
Copyright ©GeorgeAgak2014
Poetry Got Me Here
The World Isn’t Fair
When born she named me George
But that isn’t how I am known
Growing up they called me Agak
Living up to date is quite a luck
She looked at me in the eyes
Her palms as cold as ice
And as if she saw the end of time
She said to me; Son
The world isn’t fair
You’ve got to Fight for your fair share
The meaning was hard to unravel
Not knowing how close she had to travel
Before she finally bit the gravel
She said to me; Son
The world isn’t fair
You’ve got to Fight for your fair share
The eighth minute she died
Leaving me asking why
Had they taken all I had?
The world isn’t fair
You’ve got to Fight for your fair share
I love you mum with every breath
And it’s a shame my treasure they take
I pray you get the key to heaven’s gate
That you may get the reward for the life you gave.
To you the world was never fair
It gave you sorrows much more than your fair share
Losing every tear
Confirming all my fear
For a destination not so near
But what she said I still hear
Son
The world isn’t fair
You’ve got to Fight for your fair share
I remember being in the streets
The thought of that make me sick
With wounds too deep to heal
The touch of death I still feel
In the streets where we only had one use of water- drinking no bathing or laundry
In the streets where we had to fight with pig owners every morning over leftovers from hotel trash bins
In the streets where we wrapped ourselves in greasy sacks and slept in the open rain and cold being treats we couldn’t afford to miss
In the streets where guns and gangs ruled you can’t really imagine how many friends I lost to the shoot to kill policy
In the streets where no woman could love us but we still got love bites from bedbugs that had chosen to keep us company in these trying moments. I still wonder why we were bitten by bedbugs when we neither had beds nor bags
In the streets where I faced tough decisions, I remember when Mswahili showed me a sum of Sh.6000 and begged me to join his gang, were it not for the values you taught me I could have fallen for that and maybe only my skull could be remaining in my grave
I remember nights when I went without food but in all this aridity your words echoed in my ears telling me that tomorrow will be better
In all this aridity I found friends who really cared for me. I still remember soldier, the guy who used to feed me when I was still a freshman in the University of Streets Fanana Campus
I remember how everything changed when he was robbed by mswahili led gang
That morning he called me, we sat on a heap of plastic bottles and he told, his voice is still fresh in my mind; hapa itabidi umeanza kusaka ndiyo nikiibiwa ama polisi wakinishika usilale njaa
The next day was a big day in my life; it was the day I began……
Looking for meaning
Looking for life
Looking for a place where I could call home
Street is my life, street is my life
I thought my life could be wonderful
I thought my life could be so beautiful
But it brings me so low
Mamaaaaa
he dressed me in a greasy old stinking jacket and taught me how to carry a big sack on my back as we scavenged for valuables in dumpsites. That day was my graduation day and the greasy jacket, torn cap were my graduation attire and Soldier was my lecturer. This being the first graduation in my life.
I remember Omondi Ndogo he was the one who gave me the job of washing plates at Mama Mandela hotel. He got shot and died at underson estate.
My experience in streets taught me that sometimes the only thing you have is a pair of hands. These very same hands that I stuck in filth at dump sites, these very same hands that now enjoys racing on my laptop’s keyboard I won’t hesitate to stick in mud if that is all life needs of me
The world isn’t fair
You’ve got to Fight for your fair share
And now to all my friends
Those who hustle for their daily bread
Go for the best nothing less
For
The world isn’t fair
You’ve got to Fight for your fair share
We’ll have to part it’s quite a shame
But who am I to take the blame
When all of you were part of the game
Let’s meet there when we make it to the heaven’s gate
For The world isn’t fair
You’ve got to Fight for your fair share
-George Agak.
She Unchained Django
There are mysteries you are always yearning to unravel. In most cases you will plan how and when to see beyond what is exposed before eyes and hear what is heard in the mask of the silence of the surrounding. This wasn’t the case, I never knew I would be here in the first place and the thought of knowing her name had not struck my mind even once but here we were- strangers in the night, no were we still strangers? I guess not, after all the unpleasant treats nature had served us together at the fall of dusk; the rain that got us wet to the pants and the mud that sank our feet to the ankles we were more than strangers- at least we were friends, yeah friends who were about to cross a crucial boundary to an island known to many as ‘more than just friends’.
Sleeping in different rooms yet under the same roof with a woman not related to you by blood is quite impossible especially when you are not a victim of hypogonadism. With healthy testosterone levels, a phone on the bedside stool and a mind craving for venture of all things passion, the urge to press call button of impromptu sermon to the woman cannot be easily resisted, to be blunt it is irresistible when the Holy Spirit has refused to pay you homage at such unfaithful hours. I sat upright on bed and scrolled through my phone contacts for her digits. Having got it, pressing the green button become a challenge, my mind got crowded with ‘what if’ thoughts. What if she has slept and can’t pick the call? What if she is not alone in her room? What if she got angry and threw me out into the cold? No I’m not doing this, I dropped the phone on the stool and just then a thought struck me- what if she expected this and I failed her? Won’t that make me gay? Then it dawned on me that whatever I did or did not do at this instant had fruits both bitter and sweet and so I pressed the green button. She didn’t receive the call but hysterically rushed to my room as if it was on fire.
There she stood leaning on the door and watched me as I fumbled for words that could best serve a reason for calling her. Of course I hadn’t called her for a glass of water, I wanted something quite obvious, yeah your guess is right. I beckoned her to come and sit on the bed and she obeyed, all I could say was ‘I thought it weird for us to be sleeping under the same roof yet different rooms’ she didn’t have to speak for me to know she had the same thought. I pulled her arm and laid her next to me, facing me. The innocence in her eyes made me feel the in beast me, what was I really doing? Otoyo ne pok oriwga gi rombo (a hyena and a lamb has never been put together). For a minute I gently moved my fingers through her hair, she smiled I guess enjoying the touch. Fast forward, she sandwiched my lower lip between hers and slipped her tongue in. my heartbeat got faster as her lips caressed mine and for some seconds they got chained in momentary tight embrace.
Lying on my back, she mounted on me, clothes flying in air exposing a porcelain skin hidden beneath and two daring gate keepers of the chestlands. Her nipples prickling my chest sent ripples down me and I felt my Django raise its head. She bit my ear gently; the touch of her tongue on my pinna sent me to an earthly paradise. She moved her hand down the junction and cupped my package as if they were some mangoes on groceries stall, an act that irritated Django. An angry Django is a dangerous buffoon. As her lips glided on my skin I turned her ready to strike having given in to Django’s pleas just then she made an unexpected reaction, she covered her treasure with her left hand ‘we can’t do this’ is all she said, pushed me aside and began putting on her clothes, she wore her pants and stood facing the door, her nightdress in her right hand. ‘Sorry’ she said and walked briskly to the door, opened it and closed it behind her leaving me to burn in the fire she had lit.
Sliver of Darkness 