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Best Poems Written by Milton Manyass

Below are the all-time best Milton Manyass poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Milton Manyass Poem

Global Citizen

I watch myself before
This great mirror
Of the global village;

I am nolonger wearing
The blood-shot eyes of the moran-
The sun shines in my eyes,

And an enigmatic smile flames like 
A promising dawn
On the threshhold of dusk;

From this great face too,
Rises the dawn in
A halo of flames.

Details | Milton Manyass Poem

How We Feed the Vulgar Mouth of Capitalism

And here we are, on this field
Full of wealth and want...

Hawking love and loans like lollies,
Goodies of globalization entice the gullible ones,

Profits blossom [only] in well-made markets,
Global indoctrination indiscriminate and insurmountable,

Only the fit survive this global rat race 
When we feed the vulgar mouth of capitalism

Details | Milton Manyass Poem

The Light of Love

Do not tell me anymore of mythical mermaids lurking
In the fine gradient of the sea, eyes heavy with a snaring desire,
A monalisa smile framed on their faces or of

Sexy mermen and smiling salacious simpletons
To stereotype the smile mystery of the swahili of diani;
Their courtesy charms me like their taarab in the moonlight;

Their light-skinned women with lessos wrapped around
Their hips, flowery with petals like butterflies, carrying messages
Emblazoned in rich swahili proverbs and poetry, or in pitch-black buibui,

Silvery silk hijabs on their heads, the all encircled face radiant like sunlight,
Their disarming ubiquitous smile, proud seeming and confident
With their polite dialect even felt in the soft tread of their feet...

Swahili women do not just smile to strangers, they greet them too:
''Here we neither buy nor sell salamu, we give it for free!'' one elderly
Woman in msambweni tells me one day when I pass by, stone-faced,

A typical bara man demeanor with courtesy only reserved
For the familiar face. I feel the surge of culture shock creeping
Into my conscience, a creepy confusion like in a stormy sea;

A reflection of a sojourners new baptism. I bowed my crest-fallen face and said,
''Shikamoo mama'' she answers ''marahaba mwanangu.''  I was amused and
Warmed up by the sustained, sweet matrix  of her mouth.

Their henna art is spell-binding too. Breath-taking. A love of femininity,
Seem they have all the time in the world to spruce up, to be women:
Smart, sexy, sassy, their feline grace unlocking the manacles of man;

They know their place in this man world, an aura of a social panache,
A tapestry touch of a culture that soothes the soul, a kind of social philosophy-
A humble humanity born of the light of love with life

Like fish in their natural element.Their laughter lacerate the sea,
Make marks on the beach sands, build dreams in the fine gradient
Of the waves, hearts entrenched in the soul of the sea.

Details | Milton Manyass Poem

Solace To the Sun

Each day mother opens her cupped hands to sun's benediction,
Opens her spaces too, to the multi-choired rhythm of life and the wings
Of the world touches her like whispers of leaves
On dew-bathed trees.

Here's her land of scattered stars - the fragile glass of gemstones
Where diverse tongues whisper aches from dreams of yesteryears;
Here too, where laughter embrace the soft flesh of renaissance,
The logic of love brewed in honey and hemlock...

For mother Africa, still the eye-candy of capitalists
Propped along plenipotentiaries of power and privelege
Could only grunt commands to the wind, a perplexed mother
On grip of grief. How could we harmonize her without guilt?

Mother of mine, strong and rich, she seeks to follow
The humming rhythm of the hoe, loads of fresh fruits and cereal
She harvests, a yield from her field, squares of acres she owns
On this unceasing battleground of the undespairing masses.

She's kind and selfless like the spirit of the sun-god, and we're
The stream flowing through the veins of her burdens,
The pulsing spirit of her soul, we who attempt
To kill her sun with muscle power of unholy hands.

This is my voice, the sole sound of my teardrop - 
That today I become the dream on the path of hope to speak of
Light in the labyrinths of lust; to curve out songs on my palms.
Feel their rhythm bounce like a baby and then bounce back

Like an echo to the unsettled seat of harvested dreams.
May God bless our sun and the belly that grows green
In the rain so that we may arise as a race, cupping in our arms
Our dreams and desires like bundles of stars.

Details | Milton Manyass Poem

My House On a Social Pedestal

So this is my house still standing where others have fallen:
There is still the light of love inside the room, 
Peering through pinholes, our professor, for twenty- four
Years called it peace,love and unity, a philosophy of virtues,
While savouring his moments of speech on madaraka day.

He had a sense of humour, our man. He could make people laugh
Even when they had tears in their eyes and grief in their guts.
His words opiate the mind like religion. You could earn some
Perks too if you could knock doors of the godfathers
Who lived in the greater shadows of the house on the hill.

I had sheltered under this illusion for years, if only to
Sooth my soul in the glaring savannah of my arid life, reading
The landscapes of calloused hands and pallid faces.

When elnino came i could scurry to my home, standing on
Tin sheets and rafters, ants on the floor, the doors
Keep no snails away; my abode binds me like a bad debt.
My other brother is a sonko; his house, stone and slate, the strengths
Of my hands. Walls and floors that slide snails. Lacquered landscapes

And green gardens so wide that his children play tennis on the lawns.
Egrets have company, he has got a cow in the compoud. I gather he
Could wrap stolen fat in the canopy of trimmed grass too. My house holds history,  but Hope still latched on its door frame. Tomorrow I too, will rise in the rain, my shovel 
Speaks for me. I earn my pride and measure my prize in one brimful palm.

Details | Milton Manyass Poem

This Is My Solace

This is my solace:
In your warm breath
Calm my nerves with
The balm of your palm;

Uncover the veil
My goddess, sacred to the fall of day.
Shine forth-
Your smile radiant,

Your hair like a carpet of carnations
Adorning the veiled daylight;
Shed your tear before
My trembling eyelash!

Flames rekindled blazing
In our loins. Dawn
Shall find us awake
In an affectionate embrace.

Details | Milton Manyass Poem

Sing Me Your Childhood Dreams

She would undream her burdens, her life's 
Map of drudgery; all those years
She is hardened enough to hold tears;

Her hand never slackened by the
Fusty, hard stone of labour and love-hunger;
From the shelter of her face she unveils her sorrows:

Would you for fairness sake break
The yoke of servitude
That has denied me childhood?

Being orpharned at eight, you could empathize
The girl breaking her back in a sonko's home,
Prematurely taking older people's chores. 
She lucked parental care.

Each day she watches as Fallion's family walk together,
Father and daughter, mother and son, demonstrating
The inherent oedipal love. How she longs for that love!

Jolly little ones under her tender care taking strides
To the nearby uplands school; she escorts them
As they stride along. Work and want respects no age.

Oh root deeply entrenched in the soul of our land!
Sing me once again, my love, your childhood deams;
Come hold my hand; feel where the stream of
My pulse drain your sorrows. 

Come let us wind our woes 
in leaves of light. Sing me, 
Will you?
Your childhood dreams.

Details | Milton Manyass Poem

Love Will Follow You Home

So this question of love
Still lingers in her lips-

Do you still love me?Do you?

I raise my head, look straight
into her eyes to smother this
Blue page of her longing.

I tell her, upon your desires
There is still a door of opportunity-
The moonbeam in the moors exuding
A lingering scent of the past;

But memories like my mother's scent
Begin with you, as breath of dawn,
Words nurtured by blooms of hope;

Touch this hope like a petal
Lest it withers in your palms,

Then take me the whole distance home,
Perhaps I will follow you-
Love will follow you home.

Details | Milton Manyass Poem

A Plate of Dreams

Nature offers me plates of dreams
The aromatic fragrance teases my appetite
I take with much gusto and hope, perhaps
They are my present yardstick
To the depths of tomorrow!

But how much do I take, for in the sun like
A mountain of ice away the dreams're melt?