I see you in the window
of a Kenchic diner
you see me
and quickly look away.
You look away because
my jiggered and cracked
and torn and tattered face
is a reflection of your own face
when all that paint is gone.
My jiggered and cracked
and torn and tattered smell
is your own son’s smell
without his fake muddled
nouveau riche Galvin Klien.
My jiggered and cracked
and torn and tattered face
is the face of your own
grandiose society.
My jiggered and cracked
and torn and tattered clothes
are just like the skimpy clothes
that cover your own nakedness.
My jiggered and cracked
and torn and tattered hands
are the hands that
hold onto the wrought iron
of your own rusty future.
My jiggered and cracked
and torn and tattered body
is the body of your own past.
And now in your present
your Lady Gay fingers
your Johnson and Johnson face
scarce hides the fact that
you could very well be me.
I made you lose your appetite
i made you look,
see the colour inversion
in your own black and white soul.
And when the askari molests me
you look away again
because my jiggered and cracked
and torn and tattered cries
are the ghoulish crescendos
of your own muffled anguish.
© Claudette oduor
No related posts.
9 Comments
boyfulani
the repetition is power-ful.
12 Jul
Orato Kevin
Goodness gracious. Now that’s what you call a stinging indictment. Well thought out, well expressed. Got me thinking.
12 Jul
Kari
Wow! Am liking this guys poetry where have I been?
12 Jul
jem
Aaaawww,kinda hits a chord.niiice
12 Jul
Bodo
Powerful….You should perform it when you get a chance
13 Jul
soul_fool
Thank you (*:
Boyfulani I was just experimenting with it and it worked.
Kevin and Jem I actually saw it in a Kenchic, this street kid was chased away and I felt so guilty coz all he wanted were the left over scraps on people’s plates and the cops beat him up.
Kari I’m a girl
Bodo, someday I shall.
Thanks for your comments, I appreciate them.
23 Jul
nissa
so tru, got me thinking, somehow, we r all the same
….one race th human race.
am glad u did thz great piece.
10 Sep
Simon Njoroge
Great piece
26 Nov
Gichuki
Am an arse, but who is talking here….. the street urchin? the person in the ‘diner’? or the Poet
Good poetry suspends belief, the voice is familiar, it’s a voice very similar to mine, i did not feel the ‘street urchins’ anguish…. instead what i read, what i saw was the “the person in the diner(let’s call her claudette)” pontificating….
“I see you in the window of a Kenchic diner” – the problem is the voice… who is speaking here?… even with my nairobi years i have never called A kenchic joint “a diner”
now you want me to feel the anguish of the “Street urchin” but then you don’t speak in his voice, you have not stood in his shoes and looked at yourself through that grim coated kenchic window…. instead you have looked at him from you high kenchic stool and spoken for him….. in your own voice…. that’s the real poetry here… his voicelessness (if there is a word like that)
does he call himself a street urchin? nouveau riche? Grandiose? wrought iron? ghoulish ?
Agreed it might tag on some heart strings… but in a way that reminds me of my indifference and my impotency… where the suffering of another is a news item…. passive entertainment….
i’ll stop there. like your site though…
20 May
Leave a Comment