Forbidden Feast // No Time For Tears (Poetry by Ben Murigu)
FORBIDDEN FEAST
They sit silent
at the fireplace
two women
wives to the missing Chief Dodo
disappeared for eight days
after a trip to Falan Forest
to hunt antelopes.
One is light-skinned and plus-sized
the other dark and skinny
both are barefoot
and happy.
Bones from their bountiful feast
picked dry, slowly.
The last juicy chunks
held in their coarse, right palms
they’re both not watching
the dark star-less sky above
or the smouldering mess below
as they do most evenings.
They’re staring at the gate closed
reveling in the unusual silence
and listening intently
to their individual stomachs
full, bulgy...grumbling no more.
‘Come my son, sing us a song!’
yells one of them
the skinnier, younger wife
as she swiftly kicks
the large, steel dogs’ bowl
that now has no other task left
except to gather dust.
‘Please! Give me some of that meat first!’
he begs from a far
suddenly afraid that his nagging unexpected
might earn him a thorough spanking as expected.
‘Dog meat is taboo...drought or not!’
shrieks the other woman
the Sikai...the first of the two wives.
‘To compound our one-night transgression
by feeding the famished boy
even a piece his own dogs’
freshly-cooked flesh
is to, indeed, invite Jara’s wrath
as well as our husband’s fury!’
NO TIME FOR TEARS
They wanted me back
in the Universe
as a man
not worthless, penniless this time
but affluent and famous.
I said NO!
I wanted to be a cat this time
a black one
with green eyes
that lived in solitude
atop the trees of Mau Forest.
Why a cat, they wondered?
Men are always running
away from trouble
and towards problems, I said.
Men are born crying
live complaining
and die regretting.
That, my lords, is not a life
worth re-living
worth revisiting.
Why a cat, they wondered?
Men are always running
away from trouble
and towards problems, I said.
Men are born crying
live complaining
and die regretting.
That, my lords, is not a life
worth re-living
worth revisiting.
I want to be that cat
living free
with zero friends
and no foes, real or imaginary.
Leaping from one tree
to the next
happy and content
driven not by anger
disappointment, fear
but by sheer grace
and a satisfaction so real
and oh-so-abundant
and with absolutely no time
for tears.
About The Author
Ben Murigu is a versatile creative from Nairobi-Kenya who, while coaching Drama, has produced a mental-health-themed short film, Let It Go, authored an urban fiction novel, Toy Soldiers, and published works in Steel Jackdaw, Magique Publishing, Masticardores, Mystery Publishers, Positively Up, Cease & Caesura, Otherwise Engaged Journal, Literary Cocktail Magazine, Worthing Flash, Bright Flash Literary Review, Coachella Review, Lit eZine, A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Fairy Charter, 50 Give or Take, Dear Booze & Yours2Read.