Kagayi Ngobi
I stood and saw you take the front seat of my memory.
You were on a train
Writing poetry
While I, last night,
Told a stranger all about you.
The eye of the lightbulb flickered
Into my heart, and in my mind,
With awkward electric springs,
Yesterday’s ecstatic laughter.
Memory has its hands
Sketching your expressions, threading
Pieces of your lips and eyes
Into the face of the sun
Tattooing your face to my retina.
But I look away,
My mind, a messy whirlwind.
So, yeah, last night I told a stranger all about this.
She just listened,
She laughed too,
Then said something about me minding her mascara
As she leaned for a kiss,
And my heart curved
To forget you, only to rescind
Your caresses into scars
Your laughter into screams.
Then her mouth turned dry and sour
Her hands felt like a badger’s
I – a fruit.
Like other times,
I lost this battle
Again.
You on a train
Writing poetry
And I still here,
Telling strangers about you.
*********************
Last Night I Told A Stranger All About You is one of the poems in the soon to be launched poetry collection, The Headline That Morning and Other Poems
The Headline That Morning and Other Poems is a poetry collection by myself, Peter Kagayi and published by Sooo Many Stories. There are 50 poems in the book with wide-ranging themes, from love and disillusionment to politics and to social commentary.
Alongside the book is a CD with 15 of the 50 poems in the book performed by me ft Hawa N Kimbugwe.
The book will be launched on June 2016 at the National Theatre and there will an event to talk about the marriage of music and poetry shortly after.
What others say about the book:
“Verse after verse, poem after poem, Peter Kagayi writes lyrically and with measured gusto. Interrogative, irreverent and perceptive, this is a new African voice that is as matured as it is refreshing.
His subject revolves around the history of communities, of human relations, the philosophy of being and the sociology of lack and corruption that plague the real and imagined communities of his poetry.”
Professor Remi Raji – Poet, Professor, Prophet In Camera. He is the author of six volumes of poetry including A harvest of Laughters, Lovesong for my Wasteland, Gather my Blood Rivers of Song and Sea of my Mind.
