Born in These Times by Lillian Aujo

Born in These Times

I’m told of a time
When houses were deserted
And bushes were havens, by night.
Babies’ mouths were plugged
By nipples – sore with welts
From infants’ starved and teething gums
Mothers bit on their lips – drew blood
Anything to muffle the babies’ cries – meld with the night
It was the only way of the times.
In those times, thoughts and breath were borrowed
And short. Triggers, barrels, bullets, singed the skin
Of life. Living was a privilege for those who understood
That other than sugar, salt and soap other things
Also. Had to be bought.

So now I am told I should be grateful for now,
For now that I can shut the lids of my eyes and
Let. My thoughts rest with the peace that comes with night
Now when I can forget that my thoughts roam
In the hoax of hollow excesses. My brain struggles
To wrap itself around ideas like Freedom. A thing
Given. By powers that be and the lids
Of my conscience will not slide open. Failing to
remember that point in time
When history wrote that my freedom wasn’t my own
But something to be deserved, a chattel at a price …

I should sit! Listen to the chatter of crickets and toads by night
From the environs of my lighted warm house.
I should take a self imposed excursion to check on wild life,
Since the luxury to enjoy the aesthetics of being is also mine
To enjoy. In these times of safety and cushioned ease
Of sugar for my tea and soap for my clothes
Of pharmaceutical meds chocking shelves
Oh! I can also now make a choice
Between butter, jam, or margarine, for my bread
Haven’t you heard?
That I was born in times where I can speak my mind
Decide who to vote or whom not to.

So why am I not satisfied with these times?
They ask of me!
Am I that gluttony of a fly,
Sitting contentedly on a mound of shit
Bored by the commonness of faecal matter
Rubbing my feelers for the elixir of nectar
Aspiring to be the glutinous bee?

I would like to say I am grateful to be born in these times,
When melding with the night is far from my thoughts,
And they and my breath are my own
That I am not the fly who aspires to be the bee
But I will not say I am grateful to be born in these times.

Lillian Aujo

Lillian Aujo is a Ugandan author. In 2009, She was the first winner of the first BN poetry prize by Babishai Niwe (BN) Poetry Foundation . In 2015, she was longlisted for, and won the Inaugural Jalada Prize for Literature for her story "Where pumpkin leaves dwell".

For He was a Shrub among the Poplars by Christopher Okigbo

For He was a Shrub among the Poplars

For he was a shrub among the poplars
Needing more roots
More sap to grow to sunlight
Thirsting for sunlight
A low growth among the forest.
Into the soul
The selves extended their branches
Into the moments of each living hour
Feeling for audience
Straining thin among the echoes;
And out for the solitude
Voice and soul with selves unite
Riding the echoes
Horsemen of the apocalypse
And crowned with one self
The name displays its foliage,
Hanging low
A green cloud above the forest.

Christopher Okigbo

Christopher Ifekandu Okigbo was born in 1930. He was a Nigerian poet and he is today widely acknowledged as the outstanding postcolonial English - language African poet and one of the major modernist writers of the twentieth century. He died in 1967 while fighting for the independence of Biafra.

Violent Love by Harriet Anena

Violent Love

We love violently
Cry and kiss at the same time
As our chests heave with want and hesitation
We feel extravagantly
Run to heaven and hell at the same time
As our reconciliation bleeds with desperation and collectedness
And we are on heat
Like a cow battling a dose of artificial stimulator
Then we stop, breathe and conquer these militant things within

Harriet Anena

Harriet Anena is a Ugandan author, poet, and journalist. She is the author of a collection of poems, "A Nation In Labour". She graduated with a Bachelor of Mass Communication degree at Makerere University in 2010 and completed an MA Human Rights from the same institution in 2015.

Dedication by Wole Soyinka

Dedication
for Moremi

Earth will not share the rafter's envy; dung floors
Break, not the gecko's slight skin, but its fall
Taste this soil for death and plumb her deep for life

As this yam, wholly earthed, yet a living tuber
To the warmth of waters, earthed as springs
As roots of baobab, as the hearth.

The air will not deny you. Like a top
Spin you on the navel of the storm, for the hoe
That roots the forests plows a path for squirrels.

Be ageless as dark peat, but only that rain's
Fingers, not the feet of men, may wash you over.
Long wear the sun's shadow; run naked to the night.

Peppers green and red—child—your tongue arch
To scorpion tail, spit straight return to danger's threats
Yet coo with the brown pigeon, tendril dew between your lips.

Shield you like the flesh of palms, skyward held
Cuspids in thorn nesting, insealed as the heart of kernel—
A woman's flesh is oil—child, palm oil on your tongue

Is suppleness to life, and wine of this gourd
From self-same timeless run of runnels as refill
Your podlings, child, weaned from yours we embrace

Earth's honeyed milk, wine of the only rib.
Now roll your tongue in honey till your cheeks are
Swarming honeycombs—your world needs sweetening, child.

Camwood round the heart, chalk for flight
Of blemish—see? it dawns!—antimony beneath
Armpits like a goddess, and leave this taste

Long on your lips, of salt, that you may seek
None from tears. This, rain-water, is the gift
Of gods—drink of its purity, bear fruits in season.

Fruits then to your lips: haste to repay
The debt of birth. Yield man-tides like the sea
And ebbing, leave a meaning of the fossilled sands.

Wole Soyinka

Wole Soyinka is one the most honoured African poets. He is a playwright, poet, lecturer and an activist. He was awarded the Nobel prize in Literature in 1986 being the African to be so honoured. Wole Soyinka was born on 13 July, 1934.

My Home by Mulumba Matia

My Home

This is my home Uganda.
This is the land for me.
This is the place where my heart is at rest.
This is the land for all that is the best.
Here I am alive and free.

This is my home Uganda.
With mountains, with valleys and hills.
The deep dark forest where nobody goes.
The thick green swamps where the wide Nile flows.
The western lakes strange and still.

This is my home Uganda.
Full of the flight of the birds.
The Crested Crane, the Eagle and Dove,
Spinning their cries to the sky up above.
Music of songs with words.

This is my home Uganda.
Full of beasts that God made.
The golden Lion and swift-footed Deer,
The Elephant grey and black is here
And the Leopard who lies in the shade.

This is my Country Uganda.
Here I was born and I will die.
Here is the house I built with my hands,
The trees I planted, the crops on my lands
Grow fruitful beneath a blue sky.

Mulumba Matia