Danger

A walk through the City

I walked through town to my stage today

The streets crowded with life;

With bright lights and flashing neon signs -

But it was the shadows that drew my eyes.

On the periphery of my vision,

Slinking almost out of sight

Unseen, almost, but all-seeing;

The creatures of the night...

 

I walked past the high-heeled, made-up sex dolls

Strutting their stuff down the street

There, outside the Sixeighty,  

Along Kenyatta’s avenue.

With a surreptitious smile, a challenge in her eyes

She calls after me as I pass;

“Can you handle this? Are you a man?”

She sneers, and sucks her teeth at me

And curses me as I walk by.

They line both sides of the street

Showing lots of what they’re selling - skin

All bouncing busts and fleshy thighs;

Wan smiles and hollow eyes.

I wonder, does she have a story?

How did life turn out for her this way?

But around me dark was gathering

And a dread swelled in my heart

And I was hurrying, never tarrying;

All around me was danger.

 

 

I walked past him, huddled in his corner,

There was defiance in his gaze.

He stared with eyes that glowed and smouldered

Like the cigarette between his fingers.

He stared, and muttered to himself

There, between Kenchic and Burgerdome

He glowered, and pulled closer his ragged blanket,

Glowered and glared with glowing eyes

Like a cigarette;

With nothing but smoke for a past

And only ashes for a future.

I wonder if he has a name,

A family, a story; how did he get this way?

But around me dark was gathering

And a dread swelled in my heart

And I was hurrying, never tarrying;

All around me was danger.

 

I saw the packs of street kids -

There between Ambassadeur

And the National Archives -

 Little boys half my age

Yet many years older than me;

Bottles glued to their faces,

Protruding like plastic snouts -

“Bro, una mbao nikule kakitu?” -

Or the young men who sit around,

Watching, seeing, waiting…

Patient despair etched in their faces

Despair born of the realization

That tomorrow is a curse,

Like today, only worse.

I wonder, how do these kids live?

Do these young men aspire,

Do they dream?

But around me dark was gathering

And a dread swelled in my heart

And I was hurrying, never tarrying;

All around me was danger.

 

I walked past the huddled figure

Foetal on a bench

Covered by the thinnest shawl

That ever passed for a blanket

Huddled in an alley by the bus station,

Between Afya Centre and  Tuskys.

Shivering, almost convulsing

In the crisp December air

Hidden behind a crusty cake of filth,

A wafer-thin blanket, and a City’s indifference.

I thought to give him my sweater -

It’s only a small gesture

Besides, I have plenty more;

Instead I pulled it closer around me

And walked hurriedly past -

For around me dark was gathering

And a dread swelled in my heart

And I was hurrying, never tarrying;

All around me was danger.

 

I hurried through town tonight

There was menace in the air

A thick cloud of malevolence

Followed me everywhere.

And I was afraid to look

But look, and see, I did

Forms formed in the shadow,

Forms the shadows hid.

I do not know these streets

And to them I am a stranger

Everywhere, empty suffering;

Everywhere, danger…

 

All around me dark was gathering

And a dread swelled in my heart

I was so afraid that this is life;

Horrified that this is real

So was hurrying, never tarrying;

All around me was the danger

That I might stop, and feel…