Hot Cement Dance

-
By:Kevin Kogo


Screaming children,
a few might be yours
Fired again from a job I hated
Dying parents,
who linger until you are busted
Broke, and broken,
sisters and brothers
Cheating spouses
and naked pictures
Risking it all for an urge
never satisfied,
no matter who is
under the sweaty sheets
with you

The darkness in
life shapes us
Cuts away the clutter
Leaves you lean in spirt,
a soul like an old leather shoe
Finally left with nothing
but a murmur
into the glass,
a ‘now what,
just get it on universe

We all dance on the hot cement
Music we never chose
Written by a universe
just wanting to see
how much you can take
Arms overhead,
screaming into the wind
shaking our asses off
until the final notes
leave us alone
Nothing left but
a memory of a man on fire

It has been a beautiful dance
Still is
Listening for the final note
Loving the feel of burning cement

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Double Tongued Deaf

-
Image
 By Kevin Kogo We slept with water cannons cruising through our estates and tear gas canisters flying over our apartments. We heard the wails of massacre and blasts of the oppressors into the dead of night. We woke up to a timeline of gory images, 'Free so & so' hashtags, plus more bodies at the city mortuary. We quietly walked to work, kicking bullet casings and stepping over blood on the pavements, to meet fat apathetic bosses who dared question us about where we were yesterday. We are still staring at computer screens with black eyes and antagonized brains when the president gives a 30-minute press briefing saying only two words: "FUCK YOU." William Ruto - the devil we knew - has turned out to be a villain beyond any phrase. A deaf man with a twisted, reverse loyalty to his political friends, he has just hijacked this whole thing to dilute the self-serving cause. Honestly, WTF! Onesmus Kipchumba Murkomen, a flamboyant lawyer who wears a belt that switches ...
Read more

DRIFT

-
Image
  I never meant to lose her,  but somewhere along the way, I did  she sat across from me,  her smile soft, waiting for something  I kissed her cheek like I always did,  the gesture was there,  but I wasn't.  Not really.  My mind was elsewhere, cluttered, distant,  trapped in a thousand thoughts I couldn't untangle.  She asked about my day, and I gave her an answer that sounded like words,  but felt like nothing.  I could see her waiting, searching my eyes for something real.  But I couldn't find it.  I couldn't find myself.  I wanted to reach to her, to pull her closer.  Her eyes so full of hope, so full of love,  were starting to look like they were seeing through me, not to me.  I wanted to hold her,  but I couldn't even hold to my own thoughts.  When my phone buzzed, I glanced at it without thinking.  I saw her reaction in the corner of my eye, a glimpse of disappointment, ma...
Read more

Silence is Betrayal

-
Image
  By Kevin Kogo Silence Is Betrayal.   To know, to see, to comprehend the grotesque injustice the state and its machinery inflict upon its own citizens and still choose the cowardice of fence-sitting is to admit that your education, however expensive, has rotted into nothing. You are a collaborator in your own oppression.   A young man—a father, a husband, the only son of an aging parent—was torn from his humble home 400 kilometers away. Dragged onto a bodaboda, hurled into unmarked Subaru, beaten, tortured for hours, and finally strangled to death. But the monsters weren’t done. They paraded his grieving father—exhausted from a night-long journey—onto a cold bench at Central Police Station, left him to wither for hours, then spat in his face with a lie: "Your son banged his head on a wall killing himself ."  Albert Ojwang’s death didn’t just break the camel’s back—it shattered our faith in this system. We were the obedient ones. The ones who marched with f...
Read more