"BILLY"

Billy,

The boy with wax melting from his ears, and thick viscous yellowness hanging from his nose, that he would momentarily snuffle back up into the shadows of his nostrils.

Everyone thought he was a retarded silly, except, the woman that bore him, who held his hand each morning, walking him to school.

One day, everything changed. A priest, in a white long, ground-sweeping gown and a collar, stood before the town men, women and children. A 'Holy Book' on one hand and a lump of soil on the other. Under the shadow of a dark gloomy cloud, "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust..." his throat spluttered, with bits of shreds of hidden joy.

When they finally impaled a cross on the soil that peacefully concealed little Billy's body underneath, and no flowers laid on, they went home perhaps happy from being relieved of the anchor-heavy burden, the little boy had imposed on them. They were finally happy. They'd no longer have to warn their kids of playing with poor Billy or having to deal with his poor hungry stares anymore!

They walked away with smiles in their hearts, disguised as gloomy, mourning faces, as skies broke loose. Only Billy's mother knew of the endless depths and the hollowness left behind by his son's death. She would wake up the next day with nobody's hand to hold and no one to walk to school.

To the man who took his life, he was just a careless boy, who wasn't keen enough while crossing the road, from school. 

"It was an accident that I hit him..."  He'd lightly and carelessly remark. 

The next morning, he tucked his legs under a well-polished executive desk, with a newspaper and a small rectangular wooden piece on his desk, that read, "The Mayor".

"Billy"

Drew Poetry

~Andy Mwalasha

"LOVE ACHES"

Why does love have to be painful,
Why someone has to play the fool?
Why is it right, when you feel like,
And to you wrong when I feel right?

"Love Aches"
Drew Poetry
~Andy Mwalasha

"WHEN I MET YOUR MOTHER"

"When I met your mother",
Said my father,
"She was different, like no other.
I wouldn't ever trade her for another. 

Glorious she was, modest and kind.
A woman with a kind, loving heart,
In any other, I would never find.
I knew that, right from the start.

When I met your mother, my world,
lit up with the love of a strong woman.
Listen to me son, and take my word,
A strong woman's love grows a man." 

"When I Met Your Mother"
Drew Poetry
~Andy Mwalasha

"HE WRITES"

He writes, with his pen, ravaging through the skin of paper, lays his pen down.

He writes with balls of adhesive tears, vicious of the pain dissolved in them, rolling down, washing away.

With his pen and a heart battling with fear, he trembles to strokes of ink, banishing purity, lying his way.

Ravaging through the skin of paper, tattooing it with bitterness, hate and stains of sweat, words cut and slay.

He lays his pen down, on the bleeding bruised paper, pushes back the chair, stands up and walks away. 

This, he had to relay. 

"He Writes"

Drew Poetry

~Andy Mwalasha

 

"A BASKET OF BAGELS"

A basket of bagels,

The boy's arms were shovels.

'Why poor mother', he'd cry,

By their brother, they'd cry.

A basket of bagels,

The boy's arms were shovels.

They paint his life, in a flaw,

Wink and go, 'Murphy's law'.

"A Basket Of Bagels"
Drew Poetry
~Andy Mwalasha

"WHAT IF WE SPOKE!"

We are all afraid to face and admit this. Aren't we? That there is an orphaned teenage girl in the dark alleys of the city's streets, being lured by some stranger to the sins of this world. Turning a blind eye to the young girl, holding hands with a man who's supposedly the age of his father, lumbering around the coast line, leisurely, whilst we do nothing about it, more than say, "Ni maisha yake. Wachaneni na yeye." 

Think of all those boys and girls getting carried away by the hype from their peers, and the wrong justification of ills by everything around them including the media. A rotting generation is all I see. A filthy nest that I am scared in the future, of breeding my own children in. Lips stained with liquor, and lungs all sooty, if not tobacco, Marijuana, is all I see in young people these days. 

"Watoto wa sikuhizi...Nkt...", they keep on branding them. Singing the same song over and over, for a very long stretch of time, repeating the same lyrics, until somewhere along the melodious mix up, the young souls mess up! They become regretful earthly creatures, feeling worthless and dumped in a pit of misery.  

But what if one courageous man/woman went straight to the orphaned teenage girl by the dark alley, pulled her hand away and spat shame on the face of the stranger? What if those people at the beach stopped looking at the girl saying, "Ni maisha yake" and confronted the ruthless monster disguised in the filthy wrinkled human skin? What if our own parents talked us into good morals, instead of remarking in desperation, "Watoto wa sikuhizi...Nkt..." What if the media showed us the truth, and the realities of life, instead of the worthless justifications of ills and sins, that they avail to our screens, for their selfish revenue? What if youthfulness was not what it is today? What if we spoke!

"What If We Spoke"

Drew Poetry

~Andy Mwalasha

"CROWN CUSHIONS"

Do you believe, in love, 
Is it something we have?
I believe you're the truth,
You can have, my youth.

Does the future, scare you,
Or is it the view, we drew?
Cushion me in your crown, 
My being's tumbling down.

"Crown Cushions"
Drew Poetry
~Andy Mwalasha