cybervandals urinating on kenyan history books

cybervandals urinating
on kenyan history books
from their lairs in the internet
urchins too young to remember
the terror of the early eighties
spend sleepless bug-eyed crazed nights
hounding the survivors of industrial area and kamiti

when some of them were drinking powdered milk
and rehearsing the sychophantic praise songs
of the nyayo dictatorship
some of us were eye-witnessing
our comrades coughing blood
as they expired from treatable diseases
in the dungeons of kamiti

today,when no one has to fear
and cower,
looking fretfully over their shoulders
for the menacing special branch goons
alcoholic luo pranksters in california
see in our collective incarceration narratives
a football to be kicked around
in their deranged, unhinged daily outpourings of hate online

we watch, grimacing
as they deny our very existence
trying to steal our names
and rob us of our experiences
because their own names are sullied
muddied with turgid boasts
of dating the daughters of american presidential wannabes
and sipping cognac with celebrity african-american entertainers

it is surreal and bizarre
to contemplate
the hourly, the daily yelps
of insecure drunks consumed by self-hatred
twisted by blind envy
and deformed by their own complexes
about accidents of birth and upbringing

in their self-loathing
they lash out
digging dead parents of people they hanker to be
molesting teenagers they have never met with their lies
raping women they will never see with their constant defamation


still we hold on to our memories:

we remember titus adungosi and how he died a needless death in kamiti
after years of negligence in naivasha
we remember unda kombe
the ex-airforce soldier who died when he should have lived
we remembered the nameless social prisoner
who died in our arms on the night of august sixteenth nineteen eighty four
as we were carrying him out in a lice ridden blanket
in ward number eight, cell block b, kamiti maximum
having coughed out his lungs in the shit splattered
overflowing toilet
that was shared by sixty prisoners in a space meant for fifteen

we remember the sad night of wednesday july ninth nineteen eighty five
when ochuka,okumu, mirasi, ogidi, njereman,ojode and other kaf prisoners
were hanged horribly in the midst of the nairobi women's conference

we remember the days we spent in the punishment cells
naked without blankets freezing on half rations
after being condemned by yet another prison based kangaroo court

we remember, how could we forget the day on july twelve eighty five
when the writer of these lines was dragged by sergeant mutua
yes the same brute that our online stalkers adopt as their heroes
dragged to the duty office where superintendent mbuthia
ordered fifteen goons to kick and punch, hit and slap
the writer of these lines
for his audacity at saying hi to mwandawiro mghanga
when they both waiting for the bi-weekly prison hair cut

today in the year two thousand and five
a jackass who was three years old with mucus running down his filthy face
dares to insult that memory, to take away that memory...

well, this small spontaneous, instant poem
is onyango oloo's simple way of informing him and his cyber ilk
that it was not for nothing we survived solitary confinement
in the punishment block
transcended maximum security walls
it is not for nothing that we lived when we could have died
as the nyayo house survivors said in their anthology
those of who were jailed by moi
we lived to tell our tale
even to you who mocked us then
even to you who were too young to know anything
even to you with whom we continue to grapple

we lived to tell

and one day, we will recite these poems as we see your remains
picked apart by jackals, hyenas, wolves and vultures...

we did survive imprisonment
we will shake off the daily yelps of deranged maniacs in cyberspace...