What sex are you
Coz she wants you and I really really do
I loved you, before I was born
I longed to have you, but you were always gone
There’s no where to find you, I’m all alone
Please money honey be my bunny
I miss you much
Forgot the last time I felt your touch
Wish we could make love on couch
But you are hardly even in my pochi (wallet)
I thought I could bribe you
Gave you a French kiss
But not you
It’s another miss
Please money honey be my bunny
I tried to keep you
You wanted to be spent
I tried to love you
And you went
What’s the reason to have you?
If all that I ask you cant
Please money honey be my bunny
I need food on my plate
Without you nothing I’ll get
Some say its fate
But I, I think I’m the one you hate
You went to Bill Gates
To me you closed all the gates
Remember all the dates?
How I refused to put you on exchange rates?
Please money honey, be my bunny
I thought I was Donald Trump
Till I figured to you, I’m just a trumpet
Wish I could jump and land in your camp
But before I reached I’m dumped
Please money honey be my bunny
KA-CHING/Thomas Green
It don’t go Ka-Ching,
And it doesn’t have a ring,
When you punch that warm
walking ATM machine.
Could be a she,
Or it could be a he.
What difference does it make,
When you’re on the arm
Of a warm walking ATM machine.
Cash,
All the masses need it.
Cash,
Like air, to breath it.
It keeps life going,
Cash from
A warm walking ATM machine.
Cash, it greases cogs,
Cash,
Hear the wheels whir and slog.
Like a synchronized clock
The he or she dispenses,
Like a bank, gender senseless
That warm walking ATM machine.
The elderly man about fifty or so,
He’s down the street.
He pleases young girls who treat him just so.
They punch that card in,
Both walk away with a grin
For that good time just had,
Financial deal not bad,
In whispers they call him
That warm walking ATM machine.
Doesn’t matter she’s so fat,
old or ugly, What’s that?
To young guys on the make,
Dollar signs in their eyes
They’re a rush’n to pie in the sky
Leave this dull drab existence
Adventures? We’ll fly high
For her ? just a pittance
She’ll turn a blind eye
Punch into the slot and you’ll get what you want
From that warm walking ATM machine
Is it right , is it wrong?
Neither one loses sleep
As long as they reap what they want.
Even though it seems cheap
The epiphany comes round complete
feeding some fanciful dream
Just slip your card in-
to the warm walking ATM machine
Don’t have to be deserving,
Just demand what you want
Any color with true wealth rocks
should come from over there
Hit them up what’s your care
Infinite cash they can spare
Just punch in your card to
that warm walking ATM machine.
Slam bam Wow Shazam!…. Ka-Ching!
What a warm walking ATM machine.
YOU HAVE TO HAVE IT/Mustafa Sharif
For your affairs to run
And respect to gain
You have to have
That will rise you high
Above you will fly
But you can’t deny
That you have to have it
Your word to command
The young and the old
So loud to be heard
I say, you have to have it
What is that?
Money and only money
SHAIRI MOJA BORA/Dismas Leonard
Fukara mwenye Busara,
Ni Fukara mwenye Furaha,
Furaha ni Busara,
Busara ni Furaha,
Fukara ni Shujaa,
Busara ya Fukara,
Karaha,
Kwa Wanasiasa wenye Mzaha,
Fukara hashibi Furaha,
Fukara haiogopi njaa,
Fukara ana Busara,
Ari ndani ya Fukara,
Haizimwi kwa Kombora,
Fukara ni Kombora,
Kombora lenye Busara,
Busara yenye Ubora,
Aibu ya waiba Kura,
Haiba ya mwenye Furaha,
Fukara! haukimbii Msafara,
Fukara haiogopi Tohara,
Fukara yupo Imara,
Nia yake ipo Salama,
Moyo wake Chuma,
Fukara! siyo Fala,
Hayumbishwi na wenye hela,
Wanasiasa wenye hila,
Makabaila,
Umoja wa Mafukara,
Hujenga mji Imara,
Kabaila hawezi kuutawala,
Sala na Dua ya Fukara,
Umoja, Nguvu, Mshikamano, na hujenga Mustakabali wa jamii bora.
Busara ndani ya Fukara ni msingi Imara.
WISHING FOR THE FALL OF THE LYBIAN KING/Thomas Green
To fall with a bang
Others longed for it so
Hitting down with a clang
The culprit must go.
His crimes they'll be seen
When his rampage is done
Oh the Libyan King
He'll march till he's just one
A battle so unclean
His virtues are none
Killed by his own sting
Reversals are won
Pop out the Champaign
if you must thinks it's time
to celebrate most restrained
his precipitous decline.
He'll never regain
from this position supine.
What is he once gained
Good people is now thine.
I had an idea
Wanted to put it on paper
To get this paper
I had to pay Paper for it
Which made me think of this paper
Some used to dream
Dream of getting Paper
So they had to go to school
And write on a paper
For those who didn't
It's not that they disliked it
They didn't have Paper for it
For those who did
Got jobs that paid big Paper
Go home with big cases
Full of Paper in it
Eating macaroni and pepperoni
Those who don't have jobs
Hardly have Paper for meals
In this life
It's all about Paper or leave
And we all forget
It's just a Paper
The lucky ones write on papers
To get Paper for them
The big ones
Pay through signed Papers
And not numbered Papers
The corrupt ones
Lie through paper
To get much of our Paper
They ride on expensive Paper-paid cars
While some ride on nature made Paper-less rides
And still we forget
It's just a Paper
I wonder
We are creators of Papers
But some praise the Paper
Some curse the day it was made
Some wished they had read a bunch of collected papers
Coz by now they would be Paper paid
And we all wish to be on a Paper trail
Ending up being Paper slaves
And we forget
It's just a Paper
True it's a Paper
MZUNGU PRICE/Raja Jarrah
In my country, what I do is called charity:
"How Noble! How Humble! What a sacrifice you make!"
In your country, it's called development:
"How privileged! How lucky! What salary do you make?"
In my country my pay goes on house rent and taxes and going by train to work.
I dream of the beach!
In your country I can pay for house maids and taxis and objects of artwork.
I sit on the beach!
In my country, I have a voice, and a right
To fresh water.
In my country, I have a voice, and a right
Not to walk into a pile of stinking garbage at my front door.
In your country,
Hakuna sauti. Hakuna haki. But Hey!
Hakuna matata! Hamna shida! Money will find a way!
(Mzungu price of course).
How privileged. How lucky.
But what of your voice, and your right,
And how you find a way?
THIS IS ME/Clare Smith
This is me.
A small but powerful wave
Free to love and dance,
To roll and crash as part of life’s beautiful ocean.
A wave like other passionate waves
I tumble across a boat in my path,
Its wooden deck glistening in the sunlight.
In my wake, it is refreshed.
This is me.
My wave.
Not the one I am but the one inside of me.
This is me.
A small but fiery fire
Free to rage and touch,
Not to extinguish another’s fire
Her fire is valid too you know.
Fires together that rage and touch each other’s heart,
The boundaries of our differences transcended.
The power to change.
This is me.
My fire.
Not the one I am but the one inside of me.
This is me.
A gentle but ferocious love
Free to hold and sooth,
Not paralysed by walls I build
Nor riddled with fears I do not own.
Feet no longer caught in traps I lay for myself
Amongst the murk and mire of my mind’s tricks.
Love that is joyous and forgives.
This is me.
My love.
Not the one I am but the one inside of me.
TAKATAKA RANT/Catherine Blake
In Zanzibar
there is litter everywhere!
Flattened blue plastic water bottles,
bits of paper, torn plastic bags
so thin and dragged you'd hardly recognize them,
food cans, telephone voucher slips
in chartreuse, turquoise, and silver,
coconut husks, orange peels,
you name it, it's there!
Rubble on the streets and sidewalks,
Sand and potholes everywhere,
Dust when it's dry,
mud and puddles when it's wet,
and then sometimes the litter floats,
or meets you as a surprise
when you are literally wading
through brown opaque puddles
the size of small lagoons . . .
so you don't know what you'll stir up:
a stone, a bottle, or . . a dead rat!
Oh, my, yes:
the takataka is everywhere!
No removal service here,
so people burn the garbage dumps
from time to time
to cut them down in size!
It works!
But the litter on the streets
and in the alleys
dirties and clutters up
an exotic Old Town of Alleys,
into a dirty rubbishy-looking
set of old houses and abandoned-looking lanes,
but they aren't abandoned or empty;
people live here
and everyone just drops their litter.
No one initiates clean-up on a large scale . . .
so it is like a tide washing
in and out, up and down,
flotsam and jetsam,
always there, never absent . . .
And then you lift your eyes from the cracked and broken pavements
awash in sand and coral stone rubble,
and see all the people . . .
So many people, . . . men, especially:
standing about, many unemployed,
lying asleep under or on barrows depending upon the sun,
playing checkers games with
coloured bottle caps
on cardboard boards hand drawn in markers,
old men pushing or pulling barrows
laden with baskets of produce or a mountain of sticks,
way too old for such work, and usually barefoot,
occasionally old women in their black swathing
or coloured kangas a hand thrust out for money,
very in-your-face, but one seldom has the heart to refuse.
And everywhere, children!
A fact: Young people under 18
are 50% of the population!
How can a country struggling
to develop itself, to move
from abject poverty
in mud huts, on mud floors, for some,
to more modern housing,
hospitals, and schools,
possibly do so
if the population insists on doubling itself
every twenty years?
When will the government wake up and see
that it treats its own people as takataka
when it puts largesse for bigwig officials
ahead of services,
when it insists all students, most of whom don't read books
in their own language,
must pass of fail high school
in English, and not their native language of Kiswahili,
thereby condemning
way more than half of them
to failure!
It's madness!
It seems so clear to an outsider!
Switch schooling to Kiswahili
and educate kids to pass—
pass their exams and into the ranks
of confident graduates
instead of condemning them
to the status of "failed student"!
What good does it do for anyone's morale?
Teach them to think, and ask questions
in their mother tongue
and maybe they'll create jobs of their own
for themselves!
And start a nationwide campaign
to limit family size!
Oh, my! look at China's
Great Leap Forward
since families were cut so drastically
to one and two!
Look at the west, where the population's
in decline: parents cannot pay
to educate many children, and
the earth cannot afford us all--!
So, get with the program!
Don't treat your citizens as takataka!
Too many people,
too many poor,
too many unemployed and unschooled,
too many children taught in double shifts
by too few harassed and underpaid teachers,
become human litter
if someone doesn't love them,
teach them,
or give them a chance!
Look at all the children!
natty or tatty in their school uniforms,
the girls white-veiled to their shoulders or waists,
the boys smart in white shirts and dark pants,
and then the ragged boys on their off-school shifts,
playing soccer barefoot or shod,
taking a goat or a cow by its head-rope
to tether in a fresh patch of grass by the roadside,
or in a school yard, wherever,
or just hanging about whacking things with sticks,
with not a blessed thing to do!
You do not see the girls about so often;
they have all the house chores to do—it isn't fair!
Babies so tiny and light in their mothers' arms,
toddlers with huge liquid eyes,
little children left behind when their parents go to mosque to pray,
on the smooth-swept courtyards
and cry when they fall—and no one comes,
are they human takataka?
Allah, if you are listening,
send a new dispensation
to this massively faithful island:
tell them for their own sakes and that of the earth,
that the injunction to be fruitful and multiply
is no longer a "good thing"!!
What worked in the desert as old age security
1500 years ago, is now a liability—for all!
Let the imams wake up and see!
Let the young folk take notice and think!
Let the government wake up and act!
May 18, 2010
MONEY IS FOR THE MONEYED ONLY/Said Suleiman
Money is so strange
It's so strange an asset to think of
It's an asset of unfairness;
While others have plenty
Others have nothing
And it's not that there will be replacement
Not that there will be exchange
That today you are this way
Tomorrow you are other way round
Not that today you have nothing
Tomorrow you get something
You just keep on being who you are; The money-less
Money is an asset of unfairness;
While others are born with money to prosper
Others are born penniless to suffer
And there is no change!
