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Best Poems Written by Gerald Kithinji

Below are the all-time best Gerald Kithinji poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Gerald Kithinji Poem

Children of the Valleys

And as the hills yonder 
Turned red from sunset rays
As darkness engulfed the valley
And the sweet sounds of birds
Rent the cool evening air

Our cows and sheep and goats 
Hurried down the footpath
As though they were late
To a gathering of clans
Or to one of their own

And we the happy herds' boys
Turned our ravenous thoughts
To bananas yams and milk
And all available munch-able stuff
To calm our restless tummies

And as the evening metamorphosed into night
And the stars of the sky reclaimed their might
We the famished children of the valleys
Approached the fireside with widening eyes
As the roughshod soldiers laid claim to all
And shot in the air to frighten us all.

And so we watched with pangs of hunger 
Training our wrath and rancor and dismay
To other sons and daughters of Africa
Who for reasons best known to them
Or known only to their heartless handlers
Proclaimed themselves ‘defenders of our freedom.’


Voila! Children of the valleys of Africa
And of the cities and slums of Africa
You who gather in the evening breeze
After torrid days in the fields and streets
Only to return to a darkening sky
Sans food sans wear sans light. Voila!

Details | Gerald Kithinji Poem

Purge Our Consciences

From my lowly bachelor’s house
Proudly christened ‘Embassy Fair’
I woke up to the chirping of birds
On the trees above and across the vale
And the riverine bushes in-between
I woke up to the crowing of cocks
And the mooing of cows
I woke up to the leaping of calves
And the bleating of anxious goats;
To the braying of the donkey
The barking of my brother’s dog
And to the mumbling of the sheep.

There was no time to brood
Or think negative thoughts
Or linger on yesterday’s deeds.
I opened up all my senses
And voluptuously drank of the new day.
As my feet stroked the dew
On my way to the reserve fields
My eyes fathomed Mt. Ithangune
The eastern fortress of Mt. Kenya
Itself a mere one thousand feet higher.
Then we were mountain warriors
And our locale elevated us accordingly 
Leaving no room for flippancy
Even when it was flipping cold.

Times were when our men grazed there
On the slopes of Kirima kia Ng’ombe
Times were when Omo elders made rain there
Little did we know then (as now?)
That the God of Rain had slumbered
And demanded pure white fattened rams
Delivered by pure white-haired men
Whose penance upon the mountain
Would atone the sins of the Meru clans
And make our mountain God weep
And let his tears soften our rich soils
To ward off barrenness once more
And banish famine from our midst;
And as our fast-flowing rivers swelled
So, too, our cattle and our granaries.

For although our God lived at the apex
Yet he allowed us to get this close
And so to commune with him
Without touching his garment
Craftily spread over the three peaks.
Krapf and Rebmann never knew this
They were mere trekkers, mere explorers
Of a continent pregnant with mystery
That their kinsmen sought to make a home,
A distant home away from home.

One time I HEARD THEM TEACH THAT Krapf
Was the first man to see Mt Kenya
To which I responded, ‘Really? Aren’t you kidding?’
So what kind of men were the mountain warriors-
Blind men? The Meru, the Kikuyu, the Embu,
The Wakamba, the Masai, the Samburu, the Borana-
Were they all blind men then? Stone blind-
All those Africans that had known it before Krapf?

Desecration followed desecration
As alien men sought to climb Mt Kenya
And alien men sought to expropriate
Not just a field but all our land.
From a handful of missionaries and clerks
To shiploads of coolies and soldiers
To throngs of settlers and administrators
To segregation, imposition and subjugation
Till the people- wary, weary and desperate
Rose from the caves, valleys and forests
From every blessed nook and cranny
Chanting MAU, MAU, MAU, MAU
(Mwingereza Aende Ulaya
Mwafrica Apate Uhuru- 
White Man Return to Europe
African man Attain Independence!)

Though a youngster and much afraid
I sang that, too, in my youthful heart
Forbidden, I still sang it, in my heart
For I had seen the sword on my mum’s throat
As they sought to extract a confession
I had seen the village burn down
And I had seen the limp body of a fighter
Paraded through the village paths
But that was over half a century ago
And although I had seen the aftermath
Of Kaya Bombo and Kaya Tiwi in Kwale
On my way here (but thought it a dream)
And the agony of the 1998 Al Qaeda attacks
I had not seen much else; nor will I ever see
The likes of Eldoret, Nakuru, or Naivasha
After the 2007 election- I ardently pray not
For this is not the white man in Africa
That we are up against, surely not here
Not this long after regaining our independence
No! Not here in my beloved, bounteous Kenya.

It is commercial and political greed
A vicious, ugly cross-breed beast perhaps
That is all there is, that is all there can be
And these we must banish from our hearts
For who can bear to see Kenyan blood
Flowing down River Tana or Athi or Nzoia
Or swelling the banks of Lake Victoria, Nakuru or Turkana?
Who can plead such a case before God
And come away with his soul intact?
Have the Kenyan people not chosen
Through a brand new constitution
Their route to freedom, justice and progress?
Have they not decreed their own destiny?
Let me hear it from you and you and you
Whose hand or sword or bullet or arrow
Was stained by the blood of woman, man or child
Let me hear it from you who schemed or aided
And you who lent your tongue or thought
Or simply sought refuge in silence and waited
For something, anything to happen to ‘them.’
Let me hear you say, ‘Enough, enough!
Purge our consciences O Mighty One!’

Details | Gerald Kithinji Poem

Dusk In the Mara

Alas! 'Tis the lionesses out to hunt 
And the Mara antelopes out of luck 
That trouble your vision, me friend. 
Come, let's quick to our tent, 
Lest the crouching queen, 
And the scheming king, 
Find us in the wind
Curious friend
Of the Mara
Come
Oh

Details | Gerald Kithinji Poem

Mother Africa

Reflections
Perchance refractions
On mirror of civilization
Unveiling deep furrows-
Nausea of despair!

Ugly shadows of innocence
Haphazard ruins
Harbingers to Africa.

Mother Africa
Unleash black juju
Denounce anaemic gods and
Sing blues to negritude

Dream with Senghor 
continental dreams
Dreams individual-
Like Nkrumah
A touristo blackano!
And African huts
Where come rains
To water our negritude
Come clouds
To hide our wrecks, rubble.

Robbed of freehold rights 
By mayor and corporation
At slum clearance!

Acclaimed sons and daughters
Of former freedom fighters
In our misery!

Mother Africa
Forget them
Forget a touristo blackano
Behind wrecks
Behind smutty, illicit stuff
Behind oblique natives!

Forget these loud symbols of welfare
Albeit feigned
Symbols of might
Albeit loaned
Symbols of unity
Albeit fictitious
Symbols of friendship abroad…
Forget these things!

They mask the essential you
Distorting your true image
The image truly befitting
Our motherland:
The world’s caustic kaleidoscope!

Details | Gerald Kithinji Poem

I Love Africa

I love Africa, my beautiful Africa
I can roam in the bushes
I can run up the mountains
Down the valleys
Across the plains
Or get lost in the forests
Or the caves
I can soak the sun
On the sand at the beach 
Or bake in the desert sun
Until I should find an oasis
I can stand on the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro 
And if that is too tall 
I can try the difficult Mt. Kenya
And touch the floating cloud
I can swim in the ocean or in the lake 
Or in the dam or pond or paddle
I can also swim in the Nile or the Congo 
Or the Niger or the Zambezi or the Limpopo
Or a thousand other rivers 
I can catch kamongo in Lake Victoria 
Or the bream on Lake Tanganyika or Malawi 
Or bait the tiger fish in Kariba or Cahora Bassa
I can mine diamonds in Congo or Chiadzwa 
Dig for gold in Ghana or Tanzania
Or just pick gems and cowry shells wherever I roam
From Cape to Cairo and from Timbuktu to Mombasa
Or just in my dreams.

Details | Gerald Kithinji Poem

Double Standards

When one makes viable peace 
Between erstwhile colonial whites 
And erstwhile colonized blacks 
To the advantage of the whites
We urge for a Nobel Peace Prize
Such was the case in South Africa. 

‘It is all for the greater good’
The activists will proclaim
The judges proudly pronounce
‘The triumph of good over evil’
‘The milk of human kindness!’

But when one constructs peace 
Between blacks and other blacks 
To the advantage of both parties
In an erstwhile colonized nation
They send him to The Hague.

He ‘transmutes’ into a tribal leader
With diabolical tribal militias
And a diabolical tribal agenda
For his diabolical tribe or clan
That must be nipped in the bud!

For unlike so-called civilized Europe
And the Middle East and America
Where small tribes are called nations
In Africa small nations are called tribes
Voila! The stigma that grinds Africa!

Albania, Andorra, Armenia, Lithuania
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Luxembourg
Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Macedonia, 
Moldova, Montenegro, San Marino 
Please bear with me for the list is long

Latvia, Monaco, Slovenia, Abkhazia, 
Nagorno-Karabakh, Moldavian Republic
Liechtenstein and other smaller territories
All are independent nations of The World
And each with less than five million people.

Africa strives to keep tens of small ‘nations’
Bundled together within colonial boundaries
Many larger than those cited here-before 
Under single cohesive modern Nations
Balancing erstwhile competing agenda

In the case of the Republic of Nigeria
Or the Democratic Republic of Congo
These run into hundreds of small ‘nations’
Or to tens of smaller or bigger ‘nations’ 
As in the case of Kenya or Mozambique

But who cares that Tanzania has seventy seven 
Or that Kenya has forty two distinct peoples
Who cares that Congo has over two hundred?
Yet this ought to be uppermost in the minds
Of those that proclaim themselves pundits

In the fields of human and peoples’ rights
And in the realm of crimes against humanity
For a distinct people crave a distinct destiny
And this runs counter to others’ expectations
And might rekindle simmering opposition

Now if two people manage to weld together
‘Nations’ hitherto hostile one to the other
And to end the animosities and violence
And forge lasting peace endorsed by all
Should the UN or ICC stand on their way? 

I hope never to see peacekeepers in Kenya
Never to see Kenyans turn against Kenyans
Is Kenya- by any stretch of imagination-a failed 
Or a failing or a rogue or a dysfunctional state? 
The answer is a resounding ‘No, sir! Not Kenya!’

Details | Gerald Kithinji Poem

The Palpitations of a Broken Heart

How my raw heart raved
At the news of your departure
For them that can read 
The sands of a forlorn heart
Will the rains ever come again
And hover my lover back to me?

I groped for the blind guide
Swore to fence his inner sight
To eternally end his thieving me
Of the only pearl
That my heart longs to keep:
That my eyes long to behold!

I cried on my mother’s lap
‘Let me be; I must have her
I must fly after her!’

Was all that forsoothing
No more than just a hoodwink-
A coquette’s meanly premium?

These torrid passions
Of a lonely heart
Have torn an unforgettable path
Thru’ the hows, whys and wherefores
Of a gallant search 
For something to treasure!

Were I a prince, a poet or even a pauper
I would lead a chaste life
I would attend to my calling
Forget all the wicked nightmares
And attune to a life of celibacy and negritude
I would forfeit the worldly harvest!
 
You who travel to her nooks and corners
Will you tell me what’s behind the horizon?
What clouds hide me from her skyline?
Is there another star under God’s heaven
That shines brighter in her heart1
Tell me- my vigilant sensibilities.

Details | Gerald Kithinji Poem

My Neighbor Birds

It all starts at around five thirty
And by six thirty the entire canopy 
Is awash with white birds flattering 
Or resting or just having bird fun

I approach just as dusk beckons
After a fascinating African sunset
And there they are happily unsettled
Seeking fun or to re-establish their lair

For the wide-canopied acacia tree 
Is visibly reeling from the weight 
Of hundreds of seemingly indefatigable
Singing, dancing or simply playful birds

I leave the place as darkness thickens
And wish them a pleasant slumber
And return to my solitary corner
For the long nocturnal journey

To tomorrow and all its chores
And I promise myself an early rise
To check on my neighbour birds
But find them gone, all of them

What brings them back to this tree
For strange as it might sound
There’s not a single nest there
And not a single nestling, either?

Details | Gerald Kithinji Poem

Eleven Pm Part One

Do you know what happened 
At 11 p.m Tuesday night
I guess you must have it
However much I protest-
But do you know

Of course you don’t:
The victory of ignorance
Come on! I will enlighten you

I took the bi-valve
Flung it against the tigris
And rescued the two
At the confluence

I danced to the Viennese waltz
On the throws of the dark cave
And Strauss retained
The uncommitted resources
Of the un-loved creature

Now… wait amo! Let’s see, 
No of course not! I didn’t do that!
Out damned spot! I will not have thee- out!

I actually hurried to Katanga
My pockets heavy with loot-
The mercenary stained with blood:
The duplicate is not found live nowadays
Antiquity has claimed the villain!
Confound you ‘buster’ crab
That preys culture sidelong
At mating time!
‘Wherefore art thou mine!’

How about that now?
Is it possible? I wonder…

Sorry, that, too, did not happen
For as you know the onion jackal-
Pray, not the union jack,
Traded himself in
Before the nightingale 
Could sing a lonely note
To warn him against prostitution

I laughed like never before
I danced like I never will
And softly sweetly swiftly 
Sang ‘Charlie is hurt…’

Not that I no paratrooper am
(and mark the word!)
but that I lack vocal cords
and can be fooled all the time
by that abandoned neo-colonial hope
of the return to my mother country

Well, that sounds obscure, doesn’t it?
But then that was 11p.m Tuesday
By 1 a.m Wednesday, all was different
For not only had the nightingale
Retired to straw bag
But the cultured vulture
Had learnt to parrot 
The earliest military phrase
In the hope of pardon
When dogma overtook the elusive yok

I didn’t stay for dinner
(I wouldn’t at 11 p.m!)
But I did go out for wine
To cure this eccentricity
That is all men’s wisdom…

Don’t call me wise, no!
I will curse you, don’t!
I want only to gather with the saints
And you with the heretics
So we can all dance on the volcano
With a view to resurrection!

Now- that’s coming to it:
To the underdog, I mean,
Actually that creature that sold itself
To the highest bidder- remember?
In the dark ages- well, eh, the dock wages?

I remember giving free legal advice
And praying that somehow somewhere
In the sweet by and by
We may congregate
And ‘sing blues to negritude…’
Yeah, negritude; I’ve said it already
Though you’ve forgotten
That Mother Africa poem, ah, ah, ha…
Anyway, never mind; I.. eh
I gave free legal-

Now SHUT UP! For heaven’s sake
You are repeating yourself
Very unprofessional job, this…
You should go hang weeds round your neck
And be damned elsewhere: not on our soil!

Details | Gerald Kithinji Poem

Thank You Mt Kenya

For milliards of tough years
You have stood in our midst
Unperturbed, indomitable
And you have enticed the rain
And it has showered our fields
Our ridges and verdant plains
And filled not only our rivers
But our streams and rivulets
And much else of our realm
For milliards of long years!

When the first rays of the sun
Gently slap your sleepy face
Urging you to part your garment
Of white and grey and sometimes
Darker cumulo-nimbus colours 
Do you ever shy away and turn
As though from a sight unloved
Or summon your three peaks
To hide you from the earliest
Touch of a brand new dawn? 

When I think of your numerous sacred grooves
When I dream of your twenty or so glacial tarns 
When I fathom your five thousand metre height
And this right on the path of the equatorial sun
I am deeply humbled and promptly reminded
That the God of my people and of our cousins
Dwells up there untroubled by the elements
I am reminded, too, of the elephant highways
Which traverse our ridges on the way north-east
To the warmer grasslands of Nyambene Hills


I dare not look up to you
Without plenty of gratitude
I dare not hide my shy face
Without plenty of ingratitude
For I know and all of us know
That you have been our dear
And most beloved benefactor
That has withheld not a thing
That has stood by the people
Beyond measure, beyond all

Thank you for your tears
Thank you for your prayers
Thank you for your ice and snow
Thank you for your rivers and rivulets
And thank you, too, for your love
For the men and women galore
All children of all races and hue 
Who inhabit for the time being
Limbs of your most splendid
And most bountiful slopes!