Poem: Sometimes I Write by Manuel Odeny

Sometimes I write

because mine is a face

that dreamt a thousand dreams

captured in a thousand-and-one words

In silence and solitude

i write the wailing quietness

delicately picking the sound of a pin drop

capturing floating, settling dust

In ghastly realism.

Sometimes I write

in cacophony of city bustle

my words roaming the human jungle

capturing city’s hustle

out of impatient honks,

hurrying thumping feet

to filter meaning from the gibber.

On the Mara boulders I cat call

words free reining plains, hills

before me pen, me notebook picks:

on rustling grass

whistling foliage

on lull of lapping cool rivers

to the roar of dark, foamy Victoria

the echoes of the cat call.

Sometimes I write

in heady African prayers

throbbing with the bul*

shrilling with the asili’

with clap of hands, gyrate of bodies

dropping with sweat libations

raising slowly amid chants

before letting my words hung loose

accompanying invoked spirits of ancestors.

Sometimes I write

(like now)

in a warm insomniac night

amid soggy sheets, sleep disserted

when the world listens

to some things I don’t say.

·                     bul From Dholuo, a Luo drum.

·                     Asili, from Dholuo, a Luo flute