Alexander K OPICHO
(ELDORET, KENYA;
[email protected])
Okot the son of Acholi, hailers of Ladwong
The Husband of Auma the daughter of Acholi
The son of Gulu, fountain of African songs of freedom
I know your laughter is true toast of poetry
You only laugh because your teeth is white
Neither mirth nor joy is the pedestal of your laughter,
Okot I know how your mother, taller than her husband
was ever cooking by use of her legs, where the legs took her
Is where she ate, leaving you with anger of hunger
as you herded animals; Animals of the Acholi tribe
That has long horns which cannot give any gain
Okot you only laughed to show the whiteness of your teeth
Okot, you herded the animals in faith that you will pay dowry
That one time your kinsman will have you pay dowry with the animals
The animals that scrofulously herded with a lugubrious look
that you may use in paying flesh eating dowry
For the Acholi girls which was a whooping one thousand shilling
and its kind worth is one hundred cows, or two hundred Lang’o cows
Okot how Nampy Pampy were you that
The long necks of acholi girls
The slender hips of the acholi girls
The sharp pointed *******
On their narrow busts
Made you accept
And goof foolishly
To pay such dear dowry?
They all made you desert your home when callow
Mostly unseasoned in your brains
Moving away from the beautiful
Land of Gulu going far to the land of money
In such of dowry for the Acholi girl
As you emotionally failed to disconnect
Yourself from the beautiful terrains of Gulu
To which you sang a poem of birth-place attachment
That; Hills of our home land, when shall I see you again?
Gulu, my home town, when shall I return to you?
Friends when shall we dance together again?
Mother, when shall I see you again?
Sister, my future wealth
When shall I again give you
a brotherly piece of advice?
Cecilia my beloved one when shall i
See you and the beautiful kere gap in your
Upper teeth row again?
Or is only a dream
That I am leaving Gulu land behind myself?
Okot son of Bitek you remorsefully sang this song
As you moved away on foot in regular hitchhike
To Kampala the land of wonders
Beyond your bush civilization
You misfortunate son of Zinjathropus
The civilization you were bound to drop before the Nile
To leave behind the Nile before you could sing
The beautiful songs of the Nile; that wonderful ode
The ode that you sang in praise of Nile;
Gently, gently, flow gently, River Nile
Move on, travel gently Victoria waters
Go and give life to the people of Egypt
As the birds at atura flew high beautifully
Diving into waters
To emerge with fish dangling on their peaks
And the birds sweetly sing that;
For us we have no worries
It is you travellers who are worried
We are in full contentment here
There are plenty of fish here
We have no use for money
Nile waters at atura are boundaries
For glory and suffering
For you the ones crossing it to Bugandaland
Be aware there is a lot of suffering
It is only the harsh world waiting for you there
Poor Okot son of Bitek peace to you among our ancestors;
For when you crossed the Nile into the land of banana
In the kingdom of Toro, Buganda and Bunyore
In their mighty city of Kampala at Namirembe
The poetic fountain in Makerere University
The germ of African burgeosie lumpenization.
When the young feudal land of Buganda
To crash a son of singh in the stampede of epilepsy
To Sent you into a poetic feat and berserk to bananasly sing,
Sing the nostalgic ballads of an estranged pumpkin
The true Acholi village pumpkin of Gulu,
Sing; sing your peasant ballads you Okot son of Bitek;
Bugandaland is the land of happiness
The land of great extremes
Sorrow; land of much wealth and dire poverty
Land of laughter and tears;
Land of good health and diseases
A land full of piety and stark evil;
A land of full loyalists and beautiful rebels
Full of witty ones and appalling nitwitted;
The land of the rich and the sgualorly beggars.
The hard hearted beggars
And that they only laugh the crying Laughter
The oxymoronic one of Okot the son Bitek
That they not only laughed because of mirthful laughter
But he did laugh to prove the whiteness of his teeth.