My Poetry: Her Apron Strings

With a finger I scooped

the chocolaty goop

from the whisking bowl

into my mouth

The theft was sweetly swift

no time for a spoon,

like gull swooping to nick

your battered fish and chip

The grainy mix a short term fix

while waiting for

that three-tiered treat

but for a second

I returned to apron strings

back to being a kid

at grandma's Sunday knee

while mum went off and hid

Handed whisk, I'd hold it high,

a reward for culinary verve

and licked the twisty

metal clean but for that bit

no tongue could reach.

Joys were simpler then

as I am simple now.

*Dedicated to my grandmother, whose cakes were among the best I've ever tasted

My Poetry: Late Night Apology

You once handcuffed me

with daisy chains

under weakening skies

as the last pale blue drained

from summer hum

in a suburb of a city

I'd never heard of, 

till we moved here.

Now atop that lonely hill 

in a lazy field

I empty foreign beer bottles.

I finish the first

but my rage is till thirsty.

Drinking alone is better, I think

than not drinking at all

and I think of you

how you were right,

I'm just a Freudian cliché

with no alibi

for my behavioural trends.

But long ago I stopped

questioning myself

over such petty crimes

as I've no excuse, anyways

so know my buckled tongue

never meant to twist your insides.

Before you offered me a wing

to hide beneath

I survived on bread and booze,

so as I get drunk

on this lonely hill in a hazy field

I remember how

it could've been

all those years when,

we strived to survive with dignity intact,

wasted youth spent experimenting,

and those goodbyes elicited

with low singing and beer swigging.

Suppose some lessons are learnt

the slow way.

Suppose someday I’ll drink wine

but for now the beer is working fine

as I pretend my soul is not up for rent

and the past is just an illusion.

My Poetry: With The Sugar Came The Taxes

I

With the sugar came the taxes

Before we were happy

With the sourness of our lives,

Now we measure our worth

By what we don't have.

With the taxes came the coin

Need more for pots and cane

And things you cannot see

Like fines for living today

On ancestral land.

And with the coin came desire

For man’s sin and greed

More to hoard and trade,

Then when we have nothing

Left to sell, we’ll barter

Our freedom for some more.

II

Fancy cloth cut into fashion fad

Make our rags look outrageous

In their design and savagery,

Why have I not

While those across the river have?

Men impose taxes 

From hill-top mansion 

Built on land they stole 

With sword and pen.

Poor forced to down tools

To work on oppressor's plans

Our seeded hands once toiled

Field for food or hunted game

Grazed cattle on parent’s lands

Spares shared in brotherly feasts

Now we aspire to hollow excesses.

Inspired after reading the section in 'Dreams From My Father' where Barack Obama discusses his African tribe, the Luo