by Redscar Mcodindo K’Oyuga
and voids, too, can inspire
and when they sought to know why an african merman should think of conceiving verses, why i should think living is velvety, why while at it i should have a voice in black and white, i told them they are my inspiration. and when
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they looked more stunned i rose to occasions, placed missing pieces in their jigsaws, shared the lees of truth, told them. and now they must know my other inspirations. they must think of raggedy ann and other dolls, manikins, gingerbread girls & other
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baked goods & foodstuffs, poison, stingers, killers, pastel cupcake papers, product wrappers, expiration dates, playgrounds, childhood toys, childhood catholicism & pro-life propaganda and by all means they
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must not forget/ vanity-spewing flintlocks, my mom’s gruesome cautionary tales, bad dreams, fear, hospitals, sickness, disease, death, abortion, cosmetic surgery, fairy tale heroines & anti-heroines, the white witch of narnia, owl pellets, sea creatures, mutants, and they must think misfits, dopplegangers, sideshows, the birds & the
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bees, the pussies, the bloody eggs, the railroad track debris, feminism, postmodernism, contemporary poetry, contemporary (wo)manhood, (anti)consumption, (anti)edibility, (anti)palatability, anti vanilla snack pack pudding, not fitting in, not being good enough, resisting the never ending doll injection mold assembly line. and at the heart/ of this labyrinth
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is africa and its brimming vacuums
for crying out loud
must i write about war, about our losses, write
about the plight of bleeding bones, about orphans
manufactured, about borders and blood, about revolutions
and revolvers, must i write about our city
rooftops with antennas and snipers, about rebels
brandishing bazookas, scavengers and our carcasses. must i write
about teargas and the reek of roast meat
from heaps of cadavers after thuds of grenades,
the cackle of sternums as cemeteries brim,
about bread and barefoot children with their dark
skin, their hair blond from the scorch of suns.
must i write about how the sharp-nosed tourist
bought hats for them and gave them out
from her car window saying, put this on
put this on. must i tell the story of the gates
my amputee grandfather painted on his mud wall
to remember, and the gates he painted
on his heart to forget. for god’s sake must i
write about religion, i’m tired
of minarets and crosses, even the prayers
are tired and want to sleep. shouldn’t i just write
some shade for me to sit in? shouldn’t i just draw myself
some mud, two strong legs, a clothesline
upon which to hang my drenched words,
to see what the light will make of them
and black birds on a fence like the pattern
of arafat. i mean must i write about the outlines
of lives, about intestines strewn on the asphalt?
of paradoxes & queer orientations
(for francine j. harris, as inspired by her poetry)
when it’s games time & we’re playing “would you rather …” like serious, i mean like asking a skinny chic “would you rather be fat or raped …”, and it’s queer sister’s turn and she says:
- like. would you rather be gay in Africa? and look how the audience already cowers …
… or gay in America?
and this is how it goes with most dumb straits, right? they laugh at what to them are her inadequacies, like it’s their swagger, like it’s classy. and hear what they say, stupid cackles oozing, lips dripping shit while noses hang on air you’ll think they are fastened along some heterosexual/cisgender clothesline, right? she’s a recipe for nausea.
and everyone’s like Oh Jesus.
and she goes: well. i mean. cause like. if you’re gay in Africa
it’s everyone’s problem
but if you’re gay in America
then it’s only
your problem
and how the audience reacts – which they do – react, cause she adds:
well? i mean. like. you can only choose one.
she was born saharan dry something like twine and cotton
she was born wakawaka with sooty steel wool popping from follicles, born simple & brought up in a kitchen with a towel around her neck and a hot comb hissing, born half past a yellow bone with fine tooth combs that broke upon third use, born – with beadies at the back of her neck brushed quickly in the morning. she was born saharan dry something like twine and cotton in her grandmother’s hands, taught with beeswax and pro style gel stored in her sister’s backpack; she was born natural, permed, for one summer thick strands strung out on chlorine in nairobi swimming pools crying for the thick to come back and it did in between press and curls sweating out and the boys who liked the long-haired girls, she was born with people in her hair, in her ear, wishing it shine, wishing it sheen and straight; born wiry-hot headed dirty brown-haired girl and brittle without oil twisted in the morning and touched by white women for luck, born light and nappy, not knowing the hair and handing it to someone else. she was born with afro puffs and camp counselors who said they were ugly, born bantu dry spice and daddy’s nature’s blessings to soften her edges, born with bad ends and rope twists, born – with a blow dryer busting on the floor. she was born of a knot-haired capricorn and a balding libra in a suit and hair that wouldn’t obey a rubber band. she is in the bathroom combing for hours in heat a thick universe of coils that grows from her and down her back, laughing. she was born with straight parts down the middle and beads with foil on her braids, born with equal pints of keratin upon her dandruff-prone scalp as is atop her lady parts. she was born natural
About the Author:
Redscar McOdindo K’Oyuga is a poet and writer who experiments with words and sound in his subterranean laboratory. Writing in Swahili and English, his work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in African American Review, The Shade Journal, SAND Journal, Clarion Magazine at Boston, Mandala Journal, One (at/of Jacar Press), Jalada, Brittle Paper, Kwani?’s Multiverse: Kenyan Poetry in English Since 2003, Lawino Magazine, EXPOUND, Praxis Magazine, Boda Boda Anthem and Other Poems: A Kampala Poetry Anthology, Best New African Poets 2015 Anthology, and elsewhere. He also contributes to the Swahili poetry pages of Taifa Leo & Taifa Jumapili. He is shortlisted for the Writivism’s Okot p’Bitek Prize for Poetry in Translation and the 2016 BN Poetry Award.
1 Comment
Great poetry.