By Shem Onderi It is dirty,Collecting filth of every kind.See how waste clings to metal, carried milesBefore it lets go.Mud cakes beneath the bus—some for months. Sometimes, the underside gathers a decomposing carcass,Dragging it for miles, through town,Into the bus park, trailing fragments,Scattering pieces into the yard,Oozing an unpleasant odor. Some of the rot becomes […]

By Shem Onderi He sleeps with the law,Wakes with arguments already drawn—Citations sharpened for the court.Even his walk to workIs measured in legal steps. In court, meanings are weighed and juggled,Oral submissions rise and fall,All spoken in honor of the bench.Files sit in careful order,Each claim anchored in jurisprudence. Time is scarce—No hour wasted before […]

By Shem Onderi City clock—who designed you?What idea shaped your face,your height,your place above our heads? Perhaps the city struggles with time,with watches,with remembering to look up. Or maybe it is the duty of city managersto remind us—time is passing,whether we notice or not. Whose time do you keep, anyway?Who profits as your hands circle […]

The nation is broken, disjointed on many fronts,With loose joints everywhere, some beyond repair.Before the fixers were identified,The nation pleaded for repair with the right spanners.And the right fixers. The task begins with knowing where to fix.Who broke it remains unknown;When it broke is undocumented—but the fixers have been found.Clockwise, the lady carries enough quotesTo […]

By Shem Onderi For him, the night is working hours,He harvests all he can,Every creature caught in the net—even the unwanted,All that the net can hold. Sometimes the net returns empty,The night cold, the shacks, the breezeWearing him down.The tide rises, tossing the boat,Sometimes the catch is heavy,Making it hard to pull back. The fisherman […]

By Shem Onderi A busy, open room,where everyone watches everyone else,suspicion moving quietlyfrom face to face.Even the teller is strict,measuring every transaction,because here, trust is counted in notes. The bank manager hovers over each teller—no errors allowed.In the queue, everyone is late,late to transact, late to breathe.Yet once served, no one is in a hurry.Inside […]

By Shem Onderi Too young to be an adult,Too tender to carry the weight of motherhood,A teen mother learns too earlyWhat only time should teach. She is discouraged,The government frowns,The church weeps,And the chief laments in the village square —Yet her heart remains unheard. A national concern,A silent tragedy,A teen mother cannot feed herself,Still clutching […]

By Wanjohi wa Makokha Above the bowed soul, the fly whisk hovers, threads trembling like the last quiver of a star before dawn. The shadow of the patriarch dissolves into the whispering air, his weight folded into the eloquence of silence, and every fiber becomes a conduit through which the cosmos exhales its memories. The […]

By Shem Onderi Nobody needs it.It reflects my inner self—my emotions, poorly.It exposes the part of me that rises beyond normal.My anger lasts only a short while,Too brief, yet it leaves great destruction. It boils beyond measure.I wish I knew where it resides within me,So I could extract it completely—or leave but a tender root,That […]

By Shem Onderi Everything here is done under pressure.Every step must go right, without mishap.Quick decisions—sharp, precise—the professional mind stays upright,never carrying in the worries of home. Here, everything must work.A life hangs by a thinning thread,and only the attendants know the way.The patient is purely in their hands. They sit, they stand, they pace,ready […]