Curse songs of stone

there is no place you can stand your feet
on the loamy soil of the vast home district
without a view of the majesty of Mt. Elgon.
whether you are behind Kapsokwony kiosks
urinating pints of refuse after an illicit binge
or you are chewing sugar cane at Cheptais
you may be weeding acres of Kopsiro corn
or watering the herd on the banks of Nzoia
a child chasing birds from a sunflower farm
in Kaptama or kins of Chebyuk clans at war
all behold the Mountain and its stony tower
it is rumored that old curses lie under rocks
of the highest peak waiting for provocation.

it is on the lush slopes of this Mount of God
that new songs of affliction sear the nights.
the bull frogs of the malarial swamps croak
not to their reluctant mates but to the sky.
the swamps are now smelling of dead men
so strong is the smell that it kills sex mood
among entire clans of frogs across the land.
the bull cows low low like the herds of oxen
with no sense of mischief or even bravado
in their calls to the strangely silent heifers.
the roosters now crow only in the daylight
as songs of sedition take over village nights.

it all started with the arrival at old Kapkoto
of the state men of war and their GK guns.
the hunts for a rebel and his bloodish lords
has now sown seeds of blood across the land
and now the district sings new songs of agony
as mounds of farm grass give way to skeletons
some with smashed skulls others without theirs
and yet others with ribs missing here and there.
the wells bear an ill smell from deep rotting flesh.
wherever you lift your nostrils for air it is there:
the smell of death mixing with grass and dry soil.

the songs have no rhythm and reveal no rhymes
they rely more on mimicry in their communication.
steady staccato of AK47s chattering about death
resemble the melodies of these new village songs.
the crrrunch of bones crushing under army boots
bear an uncanny similarity to these new choruses.
this dance style too is a masterful piece of mimicry.
tens of thousands of male villagers hit dry ground
with their naked bodies and smash their genitalia
on coarse shrapnel of bullets from the operation
their tearless eyes remain riveted on Mount Elgon.
as they exclaim and scream the vernacular climax
oxygen mixed with sweat spreads across the land.

the womenfolk hide in the lantana bush nearby
not allowed in the midst of this new male dance
and attempt with ears only their love to identify.
mouths of children are stuffed with maize cobs
and their cowardly buttocks tied with sisal cords
that no noise whether oral or anal may escape
from them and give away the female hideaways.
this is the new native song and dance in fashion
given to the citizens of the afflicted Elgon lands
by sons of the soil and the fathers of the nation.
and as the poet sits now under a canopy of pain
finding the right description for this oral tradition
his eyes on distant Elgon murmur-murmuring curses of stone.