Fog Horns Deafen me …
In this Lock-Box, it’s easier to stand in aisles where people steal stuff because— it’s after all the right place for what’s of value and where everything is locked.
To demand service or be heard, I’ve got to push a button to herald YOU and get help.
And on this old spot where I stand there used to be a “Medical Care Center”— there’s now a button that I press until the fog-horn goes unmanageably off: “THIS IS YOUR COUNTRY, FOR GOD AND MY COUNTRY.”
And I’ll wait with the patience of a sick man groaning for a surgeon. But I usually grieve for more years before I can remind them to come over again.
And I place my thumb again when that time elapses. But still they don’t heed to my pain. They’ll drag their heels or won’t come ever. I may well wait anyway, for I’m in need of help.
And to call the tune, who am I? And remember all that I’ve not paid for anything in their taxes.
Fortunately a peoples’ Piper on A.O.B passes by and spots a figure with a body next to a
cardboard wall and asks: “Do you need help in any way, mate?”
My rude sun-dried angry self would have asked, “Didn’t you hear the fog-horn, madam piper?”
But since manners of my type are cruel in places of this nature, to toe the line is a thing to do for crumbs— I code-bend to fit the type with, “Yes, sir-madam. I need the help to heal and feed and be myself.”
I turn my gaze further in the distance to hide from the faces of their eyes. They walk too, each finger in their ears.
What The Earth Crust Buys …
We need more errands for babies here
to arrange their bones and breasts
and plant flowers on their skulls
for our carpets, to walk over them
without soiling our feet
on paper ballots of toilet paper
design seasoned words
decorated with endearments for
burying children
and after their funerals
there’s a bag of cowrie shells
to pay for their blood.
when his food is ready
and the mounds dry, our master;
brings us cement from Hima and Tororo
and the concrete of Mt. Rwenzori
that’ll bury them anew
because my mother said: The Earth Crust makes
its own dear purchases every day,
Of fresh bodies of babies and children—
that’s as good as it gets
when not said of your own
and what is sold isn’t yours
and not from the pains of your groins
and the placenta of your children.
we love merchandise from distant places
cities we glamorize for better designs for purchases
way too far and dear to reach
we pay airplanes to get them here
from China, England, and America,
It’ll reach us when we’re grown or dead,
My mother says Ekibi Kigwana wala—
disaster always strikes furthest from us.
Giving back
My mother told me a Luganda proverb (translation mine):
Giving back to someone even in a small way is a sign of a good heart.
the eye notices the speck that falls for his chest and responds with a blink
that I too have heard and noticed to say I hear you
what can we give you in return
except to dust ourselves off,
after the fall down and the dawn of new time
then smirt in an attempt to walk again
you hit us when we were wounded,
and in addition,
wrestled us when we were down.
It’s too late for our time,
it’s morning and we foolishly bring blankets
the wisdom of these heads
what saves us is our brotherwood,
jars and glasses of brotherwood that knock each other,
but don’t break.
Keep your eyes on the stage screen
you are bigger than us
mere uniformly trimmed tinders
whose length and base won’t beget fire
That is is your wisdom
What you did to us,
chicken does to millet.
Ki-tyo Ssemma’nda was born in Uganda and went to school in Leeds, UK. His debut Social Justice poems Colored Armpits (Archway Publishers, 2016) was selected as a book of Interest to African American Scholars by The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. Ki-tyo’s poem ‘Stella’ was published in It’s Not Easy by Poets Choice (2020). Ki-tyo currently resides in Boston, USA.
Aloka 