Sunshine & Rain // Jua & Mvua -- March 20, 2012

THE ASTRONOMICAL EVENT//Amanda Leigh Lichtenstein

 The sun conspires

With the earth

Twice a year

Teaching the world

An equality lesson:

It rises exactly

in the east,

and sets exactly

 in the west,

Agreeing with earth

To align perfectly,

Twelve hour days

For everyone on

This massive planet.

Not a day,

Really, but a

single moment when

sun and earth

agree to meet.

Myths are made

Of our sun’s

Cosmic, shining exactitude.

The fierce bull

Equals fearful man.

That bearded woman

Is loved again.

Your raging husband

Writes a poem.

The fragile egg

stands upright without

cracking, spilling, breaking.

A single hour

When the earth

Is tilted neither

Left nor right.

A single hour

When the child

And mother both

Wail for milk.

A single hour

When the boy

And the man

Both need strength

To kill the

Monster of injustice

Lurking, lunging clockwise.

A single hour

When suicidal girls

Hesitate to jump

A single hour

When the scream

Reverses again inward.

A single hour

When black boys

Are not feared.

(When black boys

Are not killed

For being feared.)

A single hour

When women walk

Alongside men without

Panic or passion.

A single hour

When the king

And the leper

Are fused singing

A single hour

When hope and

History do rhyme.

The thing is,

It’s spectacularly astronomical

Lasting an hour

At most, passing

Through shared skies

With fleeting pageantry.

It’s a scientific

Truth, but not

A social one

A universal secret

But not ours

To keep now

In our unruly

Days on earth.

Holy hour, holy

Travelling sun passing

Through a school

Of seasons, lessons

Learned or burned

Into cosmic memory

But never action.

Oh earth, Oh

Sun forgive us

This reckless imbalance.

Even stars burst ---- unannounced.

With this hour

Upon us now,

I imagine we

Hold this holy

hour closer still.

Bookended by imperfection,

This single hour:

Mandate, balance, prayer.  


RHYMES FOR GOOD TIMES // Clare & Raja

(Last words from Clare and Raja to our last Maneno)

We want to talk about this land, its rain and its sunshine,

We’ve had a few bad moments here but it’s mainly been a fun time.

In a place where things happen, maybe, eventually, sometime,

How come we’ve now reached the end of our own Stone Town movie run time?

Every meeting baraza seating salama greeting however fleeting

A place of Karibu! Welcome! from this person and the next,

Of sullen grumpy service from someone behind a desk,

Of open smiling faces, Africoid and Arabesque,

Except when hidden from public view, a privilege of your sex.

However fleeting salama greeting baraza seating every meeting

So we come to our clan Maneno, to whom we pay our homage,

It’s Kamanda Amanda time , ground control to Major Tom age,

Eleanor, with a spell in her

poems, straight from the heart,

Unanonymous Jerry, oh so very

fine at word play art,

Saidi, we cant hide

from your talent and your smart,

Amir, we need you here,

mzee’s wisdom on life’s chart.

Oh our little spice island!

You are such a nice island!

We love your pilau rice, island

Even living with your mice, island

You really do entice, island

Of life you are a slice.

And so we talk about this land, its sunshine and its rain,

Dear old Zenj, our friend, when will me meet again?

It’s a little too hard to think of this as our final good bye,

So we will make it easy, with just a ..... Tutaonana, baadaye!

BLOOD IN THE BIRTH PLACE OF PEACE: // Said Suleiman
On 26-27/1/2001 

as we took to the streets
in the outskirts of the Islands
to demonstrate, to show our anger, our pain
our protest to a long unjust rule
to protest the strangling of ballot voice
the voice of many
unarmed as we were
marching through a rough road
towards a smooth road of democracy
to a clean road of justice
along a perfect road to prosperity
with our slogans
the weapon of the weak majority, chanting;
“FALSIFIED, Leave Our Islands Be”
we then heard deafening sounds of guns
bullets flooded around
mass volume of blood was shed
the shock of it;
Bullets and blood in the birth place of peace!
The wounds are still raw
as we are crippled for ever
no sun will shine our days
no rain will wash away our pain
till the day the voice of the innocent is heard
the day the justice will take its lead
but as gloomy as we are, we can’t wait too long
we shall again take to the streets
with our slogans chanting;
“Take Them KILLERS To THE HAGUE”  

SUNSHINE MEETS RAIN//Thomas Green

Sunshine

No trace of a breeze at the beginning of the week,

The sun pounds down in the middle of the day.

Monday as temperatures rise to a simmer.

Oh glaring bright orb in the middle of the day.

Too hot , too bright that you cannot meet it’s gaze.

Tuesday noon sweat trickles down my back.

I perspire and my clothes go damp and stick to me.

After only a stroll to there and back,

I sweat, and my clothes are wringing wet.

The air is so thick it’s hard to take breath  

I could cut into this air with a knife

and carve it like a piece of cake.

Rumbling darkness gathers throughout the night

Wednesday the oppressive sun beats down yet again.

I feel a slight drizzle on my face from out of nowhere.

Sweat beads upon my brow and dribbles down my leg,

So uncomfortable the days have become.

People daubing the moisture that beads upon their face,

Sweating buckets as they toil beneath this sun.

In the tropics one thing is for sure

When the sun hails down so unforgiving and unkind

Only in shade, in breeze, in rest, comfort will you find

beneath the tropical roiling brazen sun. 

Rain

Brilliant sky the billowing clouds soon obscure,

And tall and voluminous they grow quickly before our eyes.

Such clouds darken and spread like a canopy above

The downpour starts with a thunderous cry.

Announcing its arrival with a sudden loud clap,

One should take cover and hunker down somewhere dry

Be it morning waking up to clatter above our heads

Stay inside protected or “Go fast get inside.” 

Take shelter or suffer  heaven’s wrath.

Stand under eaves and wait for the storm to pass.

The rain itself arrives first as a pitter patter

Soon it rushes like vermin over rooftops alas.

A riff of dull notes sent by god so it were,

like drums heralding gods in the skies.

 It beats it pounds, a flash, another thunderclap.

Currents as waterfalls gushing down.

Children play in the torrents plunging so quick

 And in streams flowing through narrow streets of town

Quick rivers flowing along gravity’s path

To finally reach the awaiting sea.

A short time and this tempest too will pass

And the water will be gone and leave us be.

Unforgiving sunshine glares down so warm and so hot.

Steam rises as sunshine meets rain.

Damp erased by the sun’s persistent rays,

unbearably hot without trace of breeze.  

Another Year // Mwaka Nyingine -- February 21, 2012

THE HOURGLASS // Eleanor Griplas

Sitting on the beach, thinking of the now and the “to be”

Plunging my hands into the sand

I cup them and dig spade like into the warmth

My fists become crude vessels clutching an uncontainable cargo

Millions of grains of soft sand are held for an instant

Before they start to cascade, spill out

Slip through and over my fingers,

And If I was to scoop again I couldn’t be sure

to pick up exactly the very same grains that I held before

most of them would be gone, scattered in a sea of lost identity

I try to slow down the torrent, squeezing my fingers tight

But still a steady stream escapes and cannot be stemmed

Of course I am not the first to observe the symbolism

Between the grains in my hands… and the passage of time.

Who coined the phrase -Time is slipping through my fingers ?

An image in my head.  The identical inverted bulbs of an hour glass

measuring distance and speed of a ship, the passage of hours

the boiling of an egg, the regulated trickle of sand

as a dependable and hypnotic measurement of time

As the grains fall, another year is clocked and another passes

Sand gives me a tangible connection with the long gone past

My sand carpet used to be a solid, a rock, a whole

Now the rock has become a blanket of tiny specks, minute particles

Fashioned over time from constant contact between two surfaces

The powder like grains can be felt in every crevice of my fingers

My knuckles, palms, nails, sticking to my skin

It seems like the grains consume me, won’t let go of me

I can’t brush them off completely. I don’t want to

Yet nor can I embrace the sand in my arms and cherish it…

This reminds me a little of you and me and the “can’t do’s”

A thought then occurs, we have our own secret hour glass

The grains in which are seeping, but not quite fast enough.

When the top of the hourglass is empty, you promise me

We will be able to grasp it as one and turn it around together

But for now we stand apart and just watch the sand falling.

We don’t know how long it will take for the top glass to be void.

I am asked for patience, to give gravity more time.

You say, it will be just another year or a few and that

the hourglass must empty, as Newton discovered and then

yes then, it will be our time but not now… another year 

Moto // Fire -- January 17, 2012

HOT LIKE FIRE//Said Suleiman

We don’t need fuel
to start this fire
for this is not a homemade fire
but a wild one
from nowhere it starts
with unknown cause
natural cause must be
to last forever
with the same spirit of the wild fire
not a second extinguishable
not with manmade extinguisher
Ablaze and hot, day and night.
Let us make this fire
then let us be the fire itself
to perform love-science theory
where emotions burned with reactions
to produce actions
then let your love-emotions be hot over me
so that my reactions being hot over you
only to produce real-love-actions
where everything I do is for you
and everything you do is to be for me
then everything we do is to be for love’s sake
so that our love remains
as hot as wild fire, forever
for we shall no longer be two
but love makes us one.

UNTITLED // Eleanor Griplas

They gave him a necklace

A perfect circle

It was second hand, already worn

It was black and made of rubber

They forced it round his neck

and doused him with fuel

with hatred in their eyes

Sheer contempt for his fate

they turned him into an inferno

The flames exterminated him

The agony consumed him

Minutes of excruciating horror

His screams alerted others

He was helpless and so were they

his cinder crusted body writhed

Someone grabbed a bucket

Threw water at and over him

 It was too little, too late

As the water extinguished the flames

His life quickly followed

Fire, an essential element

the life giver, the life saver

misused so brutally, so cruelly

I know that fire can transform a solid

into another state, a liquid, a gas or 

in this case a spirit

….. they gave him a necklace

DAY OF DREAD//Thomas Green

Fire, pop, bang, sounds ricochet through the air

Off the walls of narrow city streets.

It pierces the calm of our normal day

Passers by now quick on their feet.

Was that a fire cracker or no?

Was all too soon revealed

Women once relaxed now in panicked disarray

Fear etched on their faces as they swish and rush past

An urgency to move from some evil down the street.

One POP, and a pause, two more and then another

Came this eerie sound with results yet unknown.

A woman screams and her wails penetrate through the air

Our once peaceful street’s calm broken

By vicious men who have now fled the other way.

Two men pierced by gunfire this day

Lay prone bleeding in the nearby street

 I dare not look at the frightening scene.

A pool of blood spreads as life spills away with

each beat of their fear-stricken hearts.

One man grows cold and ashen gray

Life nearly pulsing away

As the woman splashed with acid to her once wholesome face.

Shrieking with painful grief as life will never be the same

Her features boiling away from such an evil act.

Calm returned to our streets in an hour or so.

Victims carried broken but thankfully not dead

With their lives forever changed for naught

What remains to us is unsightly crimson spots

To remind us of this dastardly day of dread.

FIRE AND THE FIRST STEP TO LOVE// Thomas Green

How did it start?

 Was it a word from the dark?

Out from nowhere it was he did dart

From the crowd at Monroe’s Bar that one Spanish night.

To ignite the one sought after spark.

I sat alone at the bar with my head in my hands

Not knowing what I was to do.

I was abandoned there feeling so all alone,

dumped like some ugly little girl

The man he cared nothing

He left me on my own .

The only familiar face, a tall Spaniard

The long–haired barman dark and burly.

He somehow noticed my sorry plight.

He signaled to one youth to come by my side.

From the smoke filled crowd he did appear

but I could not speak his mother tongue

And mine he was unable to speak at all well.

Somehow we carried on with night’s escapades,

That started from that one tiny spark

And a Jack Daniels the fuel we both did drink.

Amancio was his name, cool as dark Spanish nights

Smooth like honey his Arabian skin.

He was so handsome I could say, lush lips like pillows

Dark and deep penetrating eyes.

He treated me like something a princess

A lady right from the start.

A night of dancing we did share.

The loud music did so blare

No need for words through the night

our passion would not abate

Into his bed that night I did fall.

The next meeting was to be

By the stage door where I worked.

It was plain and discreet off to one side

Of the grandest nightclub in town.

There we would meet between shows

planning to eat there neaby

A dinner over red wine with near wordless exchange

Just enjoying each other once more.

That was not the way it went

For the Nightclub soon was rent

By a fire from protesters on that day.

The club was ablaze and chaos reigned there what a frey

Firemen running hoses, the place sooty and scorching hot.

Would he be there by that door?

I hope and I prayed

How else would I see him again

He might be there, but I could not be so sure

So I went and there he was

Just as we had said

Patiently waiting holding a red rose.

With one red rose there he stood

Among the chaos that night

Looking angelic  among the harrowing mess.

“A rose for me!” “thanks” I said and I motioned

“let’s move to a less calamitous place.”

I did greet him there that intrepid day

And who could really say

love lasting a lifetime this beginning would be.

And so our love took flight that one fretful night

Long lasting beyond our wildest dreams.

PLAYING WITH MATCHES// Amanda Leigh Lichtenstein

I was a girl who played with matches

Crouched low in those grimy alley ways

Behind our middle school. It was our afternoon ritual –

Me and my best friend, who also liked to play with matches

Who liked to shake the match box like a tiny maraca,

Her fist full of potential fire in the dark cold that was our lives.

It was the kind of thing that winter would bring:

A restless, bone chilling desire to be devious.

Go out in the freezing cold all bundled up

And strike that one lick of heat that could save us

From the deadly white drone that was our winter hell.

What could keep us so occupied, hidden for hours

In the afternoon that was already night on the dark hemisphere?

The lesson was to strike and keep on striking.

If struck, the promise of fire was already broken.

Set the promise itself on fire.

There was nothing else to do.

It was the light we were after, not heat.

The smell and smudge of ash and smoke

Was all we were after, after all.

Fire was the antidote to loneliness.

Fire was the ancient kiss.

We wanted to smoulder on someone else’s shoulder.

Wanted to win again in the ancestral grin of eternity.  

Wanted our shadows keeping us company in the waiting room

Of lives lived behind the future’s gate.

We let each match burn down to its natural root

Young goddesses unaware yet of our innate powers

To keep a fire going with our breath.

Over and over again we failed to matter beyond the match.

And it was a match made not in heaven but in some factory

Far away in India, China, or Peru, places we girls

Only knew from history books, which we also could have burned

Had we learned to keep our matches lit.

THE COLOR RED// Thomas Green

When those who I trust

Use me like a pawn

When those I depend on

Deceive, mistreat me and abuse me

The fire of anger simmers secretly in my blood.

That fire did rise and my blood did explode.

Unexpectedly my pressure was rising,

my temples painful and pulsing so strong, like a blast.

Hate burned with heat scorching my unsuspecting soul,

A hate so profound I should never have known.

Until one day came such fury and anger

Burning like a fire deep to my very core.

It is just like a blazing burning fire

That seethes well out of control

It turned my world all shades of red.

I was told this could happen, and it’s so.

Seeing the color red is no longer just a saying

To express an anger surging from within.

No colloquial expression meant to prove a point,

It’s a reality, not an imaginary sin.

Blood  spills over to cloud tinting vision red.

A rage that crackles and consumes with such a dire dread.

I had to escape in a frenzy,

RUN from the object of my anger’s lust.

I was afraid that I would loose control.

A woman who I had once considered a fair friend,

Appeared as if from nowhere to torment my soul.

She cheated me of money due for my labors

Six months of my life seemed now totally lost

Six months were my part of the bargain

sacrifice given expecting  money in return .

Two years I patiently requested the money be paid,

Yet each time a crafty lie to me was told.

Lame excuses denied me of any respect.

my money to this day I cannot expect.

my self-respect ruined , dead and cold.

The damage spawned a hate that was so deep seated, I did not know,

but now I do certainly know the hurt was buried and hidden in my soul.

My world turned red in a flash, in an instant like a spark igniting

Just seeing this woman cross my path so inadvertently, not inviting.

I left the scene where I could have committed an ugly dire crime,

if a weapon were there close at hand.

Dreadful consequences I avoided on that one frightful day

ferocity  so fierce that my world suddenly turned a deep dark red.

Oh for release from such deep-seated anger, I do pray,

I still bear them such hate to this very day.

DECEMBER -- HAMNA MANENO! SIKU KIKUU NJEMA, TUTAONANA MWAKA MPYA!

There was no MANENO in December 2011 due to the holidays. We will see each other again in January! Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!

Kuaga/Goodbyes or Hatua za Mwisho/ Last Times -- November 15, 2011

TO BE OUR LAST GOODBYE//Thomas Green

You meant this to be your last goodbye

A night making love so impassioned.

Holding each other tight until dawn

Then you told me we were over forever.

You set off on a life with another.

Your own terms to protect you from pain

Someone secure with riches to spare

Unlike me still a poor gypsy.

Still traveling with no ties but our love.

You left me little hope in your leaving.

Your words left me in despair

No chance to reunite like before so you said.

You gave no promise of ever meeting again

You didn’t want this passionate love,

That hurt each so when we were apart.

Not to suffer separation or hurt ever again.

A separation so long, not of our choice.

It was out of our hands,never a part of our plan.

Things kept us apart and oh so distant.

Once together we’re in each other’s arms.

Why decide to end it with no justifiable reason?

No way! ‘cause I did nothing wrong.

“I’m gone” so it’s are over with two words?

Getting dressed that morning you left me.

You went down and then crossed the street

With a swift steady pace never once looking back

On the balcony where I watched with defeat.

Step by step you vanish into the subway

There just below city streets

Intending never again to see me

So that you nevermore feel this love’s pain.

Like a fool I came to your place a week later

You were there with another that day.

Though you’d taunt me a bit  and so hurt me

You made love in front of me to heighten the pain.

The truth was something much different

That casual lover had also been mine for a day

Taking us both for a ride with that twisted mind.

Your plan failed as we played to someone else’s game

Making us fools at the end of the day.

Years later when you’d come to your senses

You knew now what you never should have lost

We spoke of getting back living together

Your heart finally convinced from within

I was the one for you at whatever cost.

I guess it wasn’t to be in our time,

Fitting together like words in a rhyme

Was it destiny or fate? Just silence.

Unanswered, silence answered my calls

I was puzzled and perplexed and concerned in the end.

It was you who had wanted to be together.

Now I was lonely and vexed by this emptiness.

Letter after letter I sent with no reply.

I finally traveled to your home where I saw one familiar face

One who knew you more closely than most.

Your brother who told me of your sad fate.

It took years to get over that hurt you had tried to prevent

Like the water in the stream,

there was no stopping the agonizing pain.

Mavuno // Harvest -- October 18, 2011

WORDS – THE ABUNDANT HARVEST//Said Suleiman

What else should we sow
if it is not word?
for the harvest of it
is greater than any-
greater than many-
sweeter than honey-
worthier than money-
Let us sow words
to harvest wisdom
to spread education
to implant awareness
to inspire peace and justice
to inculcate a sense of democracy
Let us sow words
to draw happiness
out of miseries
because words are music
with natural rhythm and beat
words are world
make it go round
words are weapon
with two-side effects
either to save or harm you
then sow words to save you.
If we are to harvest love
then let us sow words
for words grow into
emotions, reactions and actions
but if we are to harvest hatred
then put only one word
into a wrong sphere
and you will be damned!

Right here at Maneno
let us sow words
to harvest the sweet fruit of words.
                                                                             

WASTED HARVEST//Said Suleiman

“Life is what you make it”?!
No, such saying doesn’t apply in this neighborhood
where only a half of a half number of graduates are employed
only to earn a half of a half of the money they should be earning!
Life determines who you are to be
for you might choose and learn to be a doctor
but only to end up selling potatoes at the market!
A graduate psychotherapist earns his living through fishing
as if there are no mental disorder cases in the neighborhood!
A degree holder in mechanical engineering
runs a hand-hoe farming at Kibondeni village
soon to forget that he carries the title of engineer!
A renowned lawyer with master degree
shot dead his 14-year-old pregnant house girl
for he was too ashamed
of having a child from a child-house-girl!
An eleven-year-old child selling fresh fishes in the streets
at the time she is supposed to be in a class room
her mind is too much occupied with bread-winning
rather than reading alphabets
after all, she can’t put alphabets on a table
and slice them into bread-like pieces
and pick them with fork to make her belly full.
Religious leaders found selling cocaine
it’s a harvest from holy books of today
for in these books, cocaine prescribed as a dose for pneumonia!
So many resources we have in this neighborhood
but we gain less than half of the harvest
the remaining is taken to abroad
the harvest is too abundant for the neighborhood
so that it has to be taken to somewhere else!
A very beautiful woman sells her body
for she is too much beautiful
to give herself for free to a one faithful husband!
We lost one Nobel winner to gain others new
but it still a big loss
for the other new ones won’t plant a single tree
and there won’t be a 5000-tree-planting-farewell for their departure.
A doctor found raping 12-year-old-girl in a public hospital
seven-year-degree course in medicine
changed him into a sex addict
it perhaps has to do with seeing too much
of females’ nudity in the operating theatre
now, jail is his only seven-year-long harvest!
Africa! a neighborhood of the abundant harvests!

ZENJ HARVEST//Thomas Green

Come October and November time

A waft of spice acrid yet sweet fills the air.

It is penetrating to the senses, yet savory mouthwatering to the senses.

Pass by the port warehouses and the aroma grows overpowering still

Where bags pile high with the pungent precious spice.

Journey along the thoroughfares and remote country roads,

It is there you will catch the dominating scent once more.

Where hand-woven mats do line the way, there festooned,

Piled one finger deep with brightly colored buds,

Cloves soon to grow more black than the men who brought this bounty.

Stems with red and green tiny flower buds

Set out to dry in the hot sun peeking through a cotton candy sky

Dotted with clouds that keep the Sun’s otherwise fiery orb

Bearable and pleasant in the blue heaven above.

The show of so many mats side by side,

laid out as if to show off their bountiful harvest.

Nearby too are the huge lush Mango trees,

Palm trees that dot and often crowd upon each other.

The husks of so many coconuts piled not far away

Where a bare-chested man with a white cloth about his waist toils.

He is as black as soot and dripping rivulets of sweat

Stream down his muscular angular frame.

His brow and body gush from his arduous labors.

Time after time he impales whole coconuts upon a sharp metal spike

Shredding the husks into ever growing mountains of shredded fibers.

One pile for the husk, One pile for the virgin nut.

Such is the marvelous scene at the harvest of Zanzibar cloves,.

They lazily dry under a hot tropical sky

On this Spice Island, by some called Zenj.

 GARDEN OF IDEAS // Collaborative MANENO poem

Equality.

Enhance.

Patience.

I will wait for my right time and not to push things faster.

Motivation.

Make people aware of all their possibilities.

Listen.

Peace, love and understanding.

Empathy.

Really feel someone else’s loss.

Peace/Salama.

Help others wherever you can.

Embrace that every negative has a positive. Learn from your mistakes.

Transforming the rain in confetti.

(Looking at the bright side of life).

Forgiveness.

To cultivate forgiveness, we need to remember our own faults and how we need to be forgiven too.

Trees.

To make more trees in the world, sing a tree song and smash the cars.

Trust.

Assume, first, the purity of other’s intentions.

Faith.

Trust that every life experience happens for a reason.

Honor.

Don’t lie to yourself and to others.

Creativity/Ubunifu

Lose our self-consciousness and be fearless.

Compassion.

To make decisions of other people.

Confidence.

Every day, when you wake up, take a look at yourself in the mirror and reaffirm one thing you do well and shout it out with pride. Keep that moment in mind every time you doubt yourself throughout the day!

 UNTITLED // Julia Bishop

Good soil, good seed

Well watered no weed

Protect from pest, from sun that burns

Guarantees you rich returns

And just like crops

People need light

They need hope

To grow up bright

They must be nourished

Not left in the dark

To make them wise,

Curious, brave..and sharp.

So mama dear, have two or three

Less is more, you must agree,

But school them well, teach right from wrong

And then we'll reap a harvest strong.