Monday, But Why ?

I am tired,
shrunken, chilled, and worn at the cuffs of my soul.
The night itself, a careless laundress,
folded me wrong and ironed in the creases of a bad mood.

My thoughts are heavy, they are a parade of strangers
wearing wet wool coats, stomping through the hallways of my mind.
And my intellect is bald, yes, but worse,
a barren, frozen tundra where not a single rebellious idea
has the audacity to sprout.

It is Monday.
the same old cracked vinyl of a gloomy chorus,
stuck, skipping, repeating the universal dullness.
My strength is a barometer at zero,
my motivation a phone on airplane mode.

This is the taste of it,
Monday, served on a cold porcelain plate.
Bitter at the edges, bland and beige in the middle,
a main course of immediate responsibilities.

But really,
why must Monday always show up like a guest who never takes the hint to leave?

@doddyokelo

Jowi Jamuomo

I went, though my heart dragged its feet through sorrow,
I went, because love called my name through the crowd.
They said, Agwambo is gone, but how can truth perish?
How can wind vanish from the lake that bore it?
There he lay, Agwambo Tinga Wuod Jaramogi,
his face still owns the calm defiance,
his rest too noble, too tender, to be called death.

O Maker of dawn, the hand that stirs the tide of Nam Lolwe,
can You not breathe once more into this still chest?
Can You not summon him as You do the sun at morning?
For some men are forged, not born,
tempered in the furnace of struggle and faith,
Raila was such a one, flame and storm in human form,
a god who walked barefoot among the dust of his people,
teaching them courage by the weight of his silence.

No, gods do not die, they turn into wind,
into whispers that rise when nations kneel.
Jakom sleeps now, but even his sleep commands,
for peace follows him like a loyal song.
And today at Nyayo, love overflowed like a river breaking its banks,

Jowi! Jowi! Jowi!
The lion sleeps,
but his roar has become our prayer.

@doddyokelo

Agwambo Tinga

Jowi! Jowi! Jowi!
Wuod Adonija,
Wuod Nyar Alego,
Son of the wind and will.
You were born in a time when voices were whispers,
and men feared their own tongues.
But you spoke, and the air changed.
You called out freedom by name,
and it answered, even from behind prison bars.

They locked you up for believing too much,
for seeing what others were afraid to imagine.
But dreams don’t serve time,
they grow wings.
You walked out of those cells carrying a country on your shoulders,
tired, scarred, but still sure of tomorrow.
And that is how Legends Begin.

You fought for a Kenya that listened to itself.
For a people who could finally speak in their mother tongues
without asking permission.
You taught us that democracy isn’t ink on a paper,
it’s breath-taken, held, then shared again.
You bled through the cracks of history
so that others could walk without bleeding.

Devolution, they call it policy now.
But we remember it was once your prayer,
your stubborn insistence that every village should matter.
Counties rose from that conviction like sunrise over the lake,
and yet, those who eat from your harvest
pretend they do not know the farmer.
Kenya, ever forgetful,
quick to mock its midwives once the child is born.

They said you shook hands with your enemy,
and they spat the word betrayal.
But peace is never popular, it is necessary.
You taught us that victory isn’t always in winning,
sometimes it’s in choosing not to destroy.
You swallowed pride to save a nation,
and still they called you weak.
But the wise know, restraint is a louder strength than revenge.

You stood in Parliament like a storm,
your words cutting through hypocrisy like glass in sunlight.
You were feared, adored, misunderstood,
and sometimes, all at once.
You turned politics into something alive,
something dangerous, something holy.
Even those who called you stubborn
secretly wished for your courage.

They say you loved power,
and maybe you did,
the way a surgeon loves his scalpel:
not for the cut, but for the healing it can bring.
You weren’t chasing a seat,
you were chasing justice across decades.
And when power refused to listen,
you spoke to the people instead.

Five elections, five heartbreaks.
Yet you never stopped showing up.
You smiled through rigged dawns and broken nights,
still believing in a country
that sometimes forgot how to believe in itself.
You didn’t lose, Jakom,
you only taught us how to endure disappointment with dignity.

They’ve called you names, hero, traitor, messiah, menace.
But your story has never fit into one sentence.
You are Kenya’s contradiction,
the man both loved and feared,
praised and punished,
remembered and erased,
yet always present in the nation’s breath.

And now, as history exhales your name,
we see what you’ve always been,
the mirror this country avoids,
the conscience it still needs.
You lived, you fought, you forgave.
You gave us more than leadership,
you gave us language for courage.

Jowi! Jowi! Jowi!
Wuod Nyar Alego.
The man who kept walking,
even when the road kept ending.

@doddyokelo

Let it Rain, Brother

Hey, broken man,
you don’t have to hold the sky tonight.
Let it fall. Let it rain through your chest.
Strength is not silence, it’s the courage to shatter
and still call yourself whole.
The world taught you to be iron,
but even iron rusts when it holds too much sorrow.
So cry, let your saltwater baptize the pain,
let softness be your rebellion.

You are not weak for weeping,
you are simply human enough to heal.
Tears don’t strip your masculinity, they cleanse it.
Let them fall, and when they do,
may they wash away every lie that said you shouldn’t feel.
Even lions cry, brother,
we just never stay long enough
to hear them mourn.

@doddyokelo

If You Could Feel Me

I reach for you where language dies,
where silence folds itself into the shape of your name.
You stand before me, near, but oceans apart, like a fading dream,
and I keep loving you through the slow eternity of your absence.
If only your heart could hear how mine prays for you,
you’d understand what devotion means,
to be consumed, to be undone,
the way I love you.

@doddyokelo

The Measure of You

I may want to say I love you,
But how does one measure love,
In syllables, or in the tremor of a soul that stumbles at your smile?
Your beauty disarms language, turns words into stardust,
And I, a poet, become a beggar before your glow.

I may want to confess how you make me feel whole,
Yet “whole” feels too small, too mortal,
For you mend things I never knew were broken.
You walk past, and even the wind forgets its direction,
Even time takes a pause, to stare.

I may want to spend all my hours with you,
But what story shall I tell when the universe listens in envy?
Shall I speak of how your laughter baptizes the air,
Or how your eyes hold constellations of dreams that the stars bow to?
Even metaphors kneel when you pass.

You, my dear, are not within the normal SI unit of beauty,
You are the measurement that broke the scale.
The scientists may try to name your glow,
But it is art, not arithmetic; melody, not reason.
You are the kind of beauty that poets chase and never catch.

@doddyokelo

Man Enough to Cry

I know, I’m a man, yes, the great pillar of might and muscle,
The one who never trembles, never falters, never feels.
Society’s favorite statue, polished, silent, hollow.
But save that sermon, really, keep your “men don’t cry” gospel.
I am human, not granite shaped for your comfort, I bleed too, I just hide it better.

Oh, how noble it must look, dying quietly inside,
Smiling wide with a cracked soul, calling it strength.
You call it “African masculinity,” I call it emotional suicide.
I can’t drink your bravery forever, it burns going down.
Sometimes I just want to exhale without the label “weak,” without the world mistaking honesty for failure.

Let me speak, even if my words leak salt and sorrow.
Don’t hand me depression and call it dignity.
If tears offend your tradition, good, let them flood it.
I’d rather drown honest than live pretending I’m steel.
After all, even lions cry, you just don’t stay long enough to hear it roar in pain.

@doddyokelo

The Black Gold

She is a Black woman, the black gold,
The first melody of the world,
She is the color of earth after rain, rich, breathing, alive,
Her melanin glows like warm bronze kissed by the sun’s worship,
Her scent drips caramel and wild honey,
Her hips roll like soft thunder beneath silk skies,
Each outline a remnant of creation’s finest hour.

Her body, chiseled by the patient hands of eternity,
Waist cinched like whispered secrets of dusk,
Thighs smooth as riverstones, strong yet tender,
Breasts rise with the grace of new mornings,
Her skin, liquid gold beneath the calm of daylight.

Her face, a portrait where galaxies pause,
Eyes deep enough to drown both sorrow and sin,
Lips ripe with the sweetness of mercy,
Cheeks brushed with sunrise and quiet flame,
And when she smiles, even angels forget their songs.

@doddyokelo

How It Feels To Be Home

I am afraid,of the dark that breathes and shifts,
It bends and folds around the corners of my mind,
Where unseen eyes wait in shadowed silence,
And whispers crawl like wind through broken glass.
The night becomes a mouth, open and waiting,
And I am its trembling sound, half-alive, half-lost,
Reaching out for the sound of your name,
To anchor me where the light once stayed.

I see them, those figures born of fear’s design,
They lean against the walls like memories uninvited,
Their outlines blur in the dim, uncertain air,
And I cannot tell if they move or merely breathe.
They haunt the corners of my sight like regret,
Soft, cruel, and patient in their waiting,
Till your voice, gentle as dawn, loosens the dark,
And the room remembers how to breathe again.

I hear them too, the voices that hiss and murmur,
They tell me of endings that never began,
Of love that rusts beneath the weight of time.
They are not real, I tell myself, they are smoke,
Yet they know the cracks in my courage by name,
They slip through the seams of my silence,
Till your presence returns, steady and golden,
And their cruel chorus falls to dust.

Without you, fear builds its kingdom in my chest,
A fortress of shadows and unanswered prayers,
But when you come, the darkness loses its teeth.
You are the dawn that rinses the night of its grief,
The calm after thunder, the stillness after rain.
You make the corners smooth again,
And I, once a ghost in my own house,
Find my pulse, steady and sure, in your light.

So come, my calm, my gentle resurrection,
Wrap your warmth around this frightened skin,
Hold me like a promise you mean to keep,
Till the dark forgets my name,
Till every whisper learns to fade,
Till the moon watches us without envy,
And the stars sing softly of peace.

Walk with me, down these hollow streets of thought,
Where my footsteps answer old fears,
Let your hand fit mine like sunlight fits morning,
Let our shadows melt into one.
For with you, the night forgets its hunger,
And even silence dares to dream again.

Come, fill this hollow where my heart once broke,
Plant your laughter in the cracks of my chest,
Let love grow where fear once built walls,
Let your light spill over my broken fields.
With you, every barren thing learns to bloom again,
The air tastes of spring, and I remember,
How it feels to be unafraid,
How it feels to be home.

So come, be my light, my refuge, my calm,
Walk with me until the dark forgets its way,
Hold me till the world grows quiet and kind.
For when you are here, the night stands still,
And even my ghosts bow in surrender,
For they, too, know your name means dawn.

@doddyokelo

Breathless

I feel her before she comes,
like dawn warming the edges of night.
Her nearness thrums through the silence,
a heartbeat the world listens to.
Even the wind slows to taste her name,
and I, I become a prayer, waiting to be answered.

Her eyes hold a language older than words,
pulling me into their calm storm.
Every glance writes poetry across my skin,
each smile softens the edges of my doubts.
Her touch is not flame, but light,
Light that teaches darkness how to love.

I remember the way her laughter wove through stillness,
how it stayed, gentle and endless,
like rain deciding to rest on petals.
The air bends around her presence,
and I swear my soul breathes in her arms,
finding its home where her warmth begins.

When she is near, time forgets to move.
My thoughts lose their walls, my heart, its guard.
There is nothing left but the cadence of breath,
the soft promise between our eyes,
and the tender madness of being known
without ever needing to speak.

If love could be touched, it would feel like her,
a slow bloom beneath the ribs,
a soft yearning that never asks to end.
She is the pause between my heartbeats,
the reason silence feels like music,
and longing feels like grace.

And when she leaves, she doesn’t really go.
Her warmth remains in the corners of my chest,
her voice stays folded in the folds of memory.
Even distance cannot dim her ,
for she lives not in sight, but in soul,
and my soul has never learned to let her go.

@doddyokelo