songs from my soul

8/6/2019 Songs From My Soul

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Songs from My Soul



Cheruo Levi Cheptora

Poetry

Love and Politics Narratives

Modern Slave 1



A SONG OF A MODERN SLAVE



It was going and coming,

Walking and moving,

As the press pressed further and further,

Voiced the shrill cry,

Though dry-

The cry of the poor,

The whining of the doer,

Who pleaded innocent?

Tossed a cent,

Said it was Vincent,

His dear brother,

Who was more of a bother?

Who did the thing!

Modern Slave 2



*********



The victim had no say,

As the learned judge,

Passed a verdict,

Of not Guilty!

Days staggered,

Months walked,

And years passed by,

Later on, the inevitable happened,

A bouncing baby-boy,

Was born,

A talk of the neighborhood,

A result of a dirty act,

A product of beastly lust,

Of one of the seeds of the late Josam

Modern Slave 3



*******



And there had been fights,

Many a times,

Brothers had to settle their scores,

With swords, piercing insults,

And the beloved Mama that was to be,

Was rumored to be the chief cause,

Each party had a following,

A bunch of mean backers,

Who cheered and jeered,

As blood and one flesh,

Reduced each other,

Into mere, dead embers,

And even in the chambers,

A fine show of the members,

Agreed in one kind voice,

Modern Slave 4



Was worth the battle,

For her renowned beauty was skin-deep!

********

Josam’s farewell from this bloody hole was unfair,

Not even a blessing in disguise,

Rather, a curse whose grin hardly came strong,

So they could be aware.

After he was gone,

And it had become clear,

That trouble there would be always,

Brothers had to part,

Though with shaken conscience,

Some had to sail afar,

Though towards relative sanity,

Modern Slave 5



Minute serenity of some sort,



Not again in the vicinity,

Very, very, far away.

The architect of the whole thing had taken off,

Immediately Mom got me,

I was a fatherless child,

Had no place in the chapters of the society,

Despised, abhorred, condemned…

With no name to inherit,

Except for the giggles and sneers of the world,

Which angrily stared back at me?

A secret there was,

Well guarded in the sentinel’s jaws,

In the arms of brother destiny,

On the bosom of sister fate,

For many years afterwards,

In secret tears,

Modern Slave 6



I lived under a massive shed,



In wholesome darkness-

I never knew a thing,

Wouldn’t have guessed a thing,

Wouldn’t have understood the signs of the shadow,

The forlornness hidden in the thorns of mystery,

The aloofness of every preceding day,

Every seceding hour,

My small world was sealed,

Coated with a black blanket,

They made darkness my goggles,

The ideal present for an accident that was,

A mixture of fate and circumstances,

Wouldn’t allow me to know,

To smile with a near friendly juxtapose,

Of the mystery that ever hanged over me,

To share in the picturesque dress life wore,

Modern Slave 7



To hug the ugly days and nights,



To breathe in the dirt of the eternal hours made to trudge up my way,

And nobody was willing,

To help open my third blinded eye,

So I could see without a struggle,

That we were all fruits,

Fruits all of us,

But just like mangoes and oranges,

We had different colors,

With a variety of taste!

******

Mama had been married off,

For allegedly disgracing her parents,

Her sin was allowing Josam’s son,

To abase her in broad daylight,

Modern Slave 8



Leave her with a thing,



That forever caused,

The talk to walk everywhere,

Them a laughing stalks of the villagers…

Enemies in distant places,

Though dogs them they were,

Overstretched their fears,

Made their days and nights,

An eternal shower of penury,

A cold shower during winter,

A coat of an oven,

Coiled with the forceful marriage,

With the fiercest son of the late Josam,

Whose generosity of kicks and blows,

Had forced others to pack,

And run for dear lives.

A monster, a crooked, odious, ominous snake,

Modern Slave 9



A cannibal whose lofty priority,



Was to bring discomfort,

And soul disturbance,

To everybody around him,

An abominable son of destiny,

A ruthless life taker,

A great stalker,

Who once rained blows?

On his dying father!

Oiled him with hefty kicks,

Rubbed him with slaps,

A son of a bitch!

Who demanded with roars?

For them all to embrace his foul spittle,

For them bloody brothers,

To kiss and lick his venom away,

Modern Slave 10

songs from my soul

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