Nairobi-based LitMag
by Michelle Angwenyi
dans la maladie
I came across it in my dreams and I woke up singing the French for it – dans la maladie, dans la maladie.
A meshwork of metal
Inside the disease
Becoming an illness.
I saw it the next day and it was
All over the place, in pieces.
It must have taken more than strength to pry my eyes open and
collect them, and once there, put it together again, paint it
tell it to relax, try not to kill me.
by Michael Onsando
What you are about to see is the creation of a canon. As with all creations, it begins with destruction. Your front row seats are free, they have been paid for, in full, by history. Time, again, is the title sponsor of this event. If you look under your seat you will find rose coloured glasses. They are there for those would not rather see what the act of creation entails. Every seat accommodates one and one only. In the theatre of dreamers every mind speaks for itself as every heart beats for itself. Please keep your cellphone on at all times during the performance. Be sure to take as many pictures as possible – the best of them may survive the journey. If you hear someone next to you talking, kindly join in the conversation – you never know how long you’ll have them near you.
The Will: An Introduction to The Anguish and Vigilance of Things by Richard Ali
by
Imru al-Qais
The poet is a grey eminence always sitting at an angle to the market of affairs, making notes, seeing everything, entering into every nuance in intercourse. From these notes come the poems, things distilled. The job of the poet is to agitate words so they yield their true core as does wine, to induce in the reader what each word is nakedly, that is, pure mood.
Bullet Points
I will not shoot myself
In the head, and I will not shoot myself
In the back, and I will not hang myself
With a trashbag, and if I do,
I promise you, I will not do it
In a police car while handcuffed
Or in the jail cell of a town
I only know the name of
Because I have to drive through it
To get home. Yes, I may be at risk,
But I promise you, I trust the maggots
And the ants and the roaches
Who live beneath the floorboards
Of my house to do what they must
To any carcass more than I trust
An officer of the law of the land
To shut my eyes like a man