POEM; YOU ARE LOST (by Isaac Mruma)
To you dada
It’s the days that matter
For we are unable to chat
In the language we had
When I look at you
And see my pay-slip
In your eyes
I feel empty
And sapped.
Your glance, sister
Is to me the measure
Of the heat of the dough
In my pocket.
Never are positions cool
To you I am now a tool
And all my wage is now the fare
I ride on your throbbing kisses
It is you I accuse
Because your love is lost
And you only touch me
With the tenderness that asks
Where any wallet is
It is you dada that my pen tears the pad
For I only see your love
Focused on my purse
With your passion
Chasing my bank account
Analysis of the poem
Poem: YOU ARE LOST
Poet: Isaac Mruma
Content
1. Title
The title of the poems is “YOU ARE LOST” it is nit direct but it’s indirect because it does talk about love that is lost in money.
This can be verified in the 5th stanza with words saying “It is you I accuse because you love is lost”
2. Themes
(i) Hypocrisy
This can be clearly seen in the stanza 5 and stanza 6. The persona complains that,
“And you only touch me
With the tenderness that asks
Where my wallet is”
Also, in the sixth stanza, the persona complains,
“For I only see your love
Focused on my purse
With your passions
Chasing my bank account
(ii) Lust for money
The persona explains how much the woman she is writing to in the 5th and 6th stanza, the explanation show that,
the woman is providing love to the man in order to obtain money that he has; that means that, she has lust of money.
(iii) Awareness
This can be seen in most stanzas that the persona has noticed the trick the woman is playing on him for providing him with love and,
different good actions towards him so that she could get money.
(iv) Exploitation
The persona is being exploited by the one she loves. The 4th stanza
“Never are positions cool
To you I am now a tool”
This means that, the passions are given to him so that he is used as a tool for providing money.
(v) Untrue love
The love existing between the persona and the woman is not true because, the persona complains in the 1st stanza; their communication is not so well
“For we are unable to chat
In the language we had”
FROM SUMMONS
1. Sunrise
Behold!
The sun has risen
And with it the sons of the land have risen too,
Forward they go
Well armed
Singing praises to the beauty of the sunrise
With the determination of long –term warriors,
Challenging the enemy,
With the nglish-swahili/courage” target=”_blank”>courage of a free mind,
And a vigor of a dear purpose
Sit and wait brethren
Wait and see what glory they
Bring at sunset
How they pay homage to their land
And their people!
HOLLOW HEADS
Hollow heads torture me with ignorance,
Blind eyes harass me with darkness
Deaf ears tire me with silence,
Dumb voices deafen me with gibberish,
Blank minds confuse me with emptiness
And above all,
There is power and command.
With write and ears and eyes,
I have speech and a strong mind
But I remain weak and powerless
They oppress me, they torture me
They fight me, they kill me
It’s a fight to bring me down to silence,
To darkness and gibberish, to ignorance
And through brainwashing, to emptiness.
All right my friends
It’s a battle and I’ll fight it
Ears and wits and eyes and speech
And a strong conscience
These are my weapons
And I will fight to the last cell
LOST BEAUTY
There are only white women around
Awful fakes of white females
Reflecting an awful mass of ugliness
And I want a lady
To mount the rostrum with
And declare to the world
“Black is beautiful?”
Yes,
I want a black beauty queen
With ebony things and huge hips
With skin sweating blackness
And a face dark at the night
And bare breasts bouncing
Vigor and energy
But my eyes, oh my eyes
They don’t see anything black,
Its only white skins and masks
Flashing past and slashing
Destroying my sight so
I can get what I want.
I cry and sing to them
The inbred tune of our people
I shout to them in the black tongue
But no black sister hears me.
I turn and weep upon myself
And then, only then I realize
I am not black either
From growing up with poetry
A FREEDOM SONG
Atieno washes dishes,
Atieno plucks the chicken,
Atieno gets up early,
Beds her sacks down in the kitchen,
Atieno eight years old
Atieno yo.
Since she is my sister’s child
Atieno needs no pay
While she works, my wife can sit
Sewing every sunny day
With her earnings I support
Atieno yo.
Atieno’s sly and jealous,
Bad example to the kids
Since she minds them, like a schoolgirl
Wants their dresses, shoes and beads
Atieno ten years old
Atieno yo.
Now my wife has gone to study
Atieno is less free
Don’t I feed her, school my own ones,
Pay the party, onion fee
All for progress? Aren’t you grateful,
Atieno yo.
Visitors need much attention;
Especially when I work nights,
That girl stays, too long at market
Who will teach her what is right?
Atieno rising fourteen
Atieno yo.
Atieno had a baby
So we know that she is bad
Fifty – fifty it may live
To repeat the life she had
Ending in past partum bleeding
Atieno yo.
Atieno’s soon replaced
Meat and sugar more than all
She ate in such a narrow life
Were lavished on her funeral
Atieno’s gone to glory
Atieno yo.
THE POOR MAN
The poor man knows not hour to eat with the rich man when they eat fish, he eats the head
Invite a poor man and he rushes in
Lucking his lips and upsetting the plates.
The poor man has no manners, he comes along
with the blood of lice under his nails.
The face of a poor man is lined
From hunger and thirst in his belly
Poverty is no state for any mortal man
It makes him a beast to be fed on grass.
Poverty is unjust. If it befalls a man
Though he is nobly burn, he has no power with God
THE SWEETEST THING
There is in this world something
That surpassed all other things in sweetness
It is sweeter than honey
It is sweeter than salt
It is sweeter than sugar
It is sweeter than all
Existing things
This thing is sleep
When you are conquered by sleep
Nothing can ever prevent you
Nothing can stop you from sleeping
When you are conquered by sleep
And numerous million arrive
Millions arrive disturb you
Millions will find you a sleep.
PSALMS 23 PART II
The state in my shepherd, I shall not want, it makes me
Lie down in a subsidized house
It leads me into political tranquility, it restores my
Faith in a lucrative future
It leads me into paths of loans and pensions for its
International reputation sake
Year even though I walk through the valley of the shadow
Of Kivulu I will fear no kondos
For the state in with me a bank account, in the presence of devaluation.
It fills my pocket with allowance, my salary overflows surely increments, and promotion shall fall me all the days of my life
And I shall dwell in seiner staff quarters for well.
LULLABY
Someone would like to have you for her child
But you are mine
Someone would like to place you one a camel blanket
But you are mine
I have you to near on a torn old mart
Someone would like to have you has her child
But you are mine.