

ClareToEarth
Dreamer. Believer.Call it Naive, I call it Free
Clare Engenoi Smyth
Nabii
We are the prophets
Poets of this world
It’s not something that’s learnt
It’s a gift that is earned
By the broken and broke
Tell a joke, buy some smokes
Maybe even a whisky and coke
We are the storytellers of our history,
Soothsayers of Mystery,
We face the future with uncertainty
Live a present far from glittery
We capture the moments,
Snippets of life
No matter how much we doubt the truth
Behind the porcelain faces
We are the victims
That slip through the system
Beat down, Trodden, Still rising
We face our vulnerabilities
Accept our insecurities
Redefine our trials into survival
Become our own worst rivals
Trying to mend in gold
Through no fault of our own
I didn’t choose who to be born
But I chose to Live in the moments
Moments of happiness.
Moments that fail to last a lifetime.
Terra Nullius
Hushed tones and tiptoes
Its 9pm don’t make a sound
Be invisible – don’t be seen
Act like you don’t exist
After all, you’re here to learn the game
Tired of lurking in the backdrop
I want to stand on table tops
Trapped by bars they use to tame
When they don’t even know my name
Still a savage in a cage
But I’m trying to turn the page.
Midnight Thursday Night
‘Get out of my country N****r’
Is that to me? I guess it must be
Coz like a weight I’m surrounded by a sea of white skin
Some would rather divide
When I’m just trying to survive.
The Terra Nullius law
No man’s land
They forgot to mention Mansa Musa- King of Mali
First Library and University
We knew the rhythm of the sun, When they still thought the earth was flat.
When they were plagued with rats and famine, We were trading gold and fabrics.
Lets not forget our Queens, Candace, Nefertiti, Yaa Ashantewa set the stage for
Nkurumah, our brothers, Tom Mboya, killed like Dedan Kimathi,
Terrorist,
Muamar Gaddafi,
Terrorist,
Gold Dinnar could have set us free
But they’d rather have us blind
To the power we could have-if We all just realigned
They created all these tribes. And forced us to subscribe
Tax collection, make it easy,
Set up borders using rulers,
Wilhelm’s birthday…give him Kilimanjaro
Straight lines split families
Ancestor’s skulls in European museums.
Poke and prod us even when we’re dead
And that’s not even where it ends.
Terra Nullius
Terrorists turned a continent to scrambled eggs
Yet they still think they saved us.
Pebbles
I am Masai, tall strong warriors
Our pride was our cattle
Now we’re a tourist attraction
My grandfather sold my freedom-independence
A right to our land, air and sacred waters
I’ve watched my forest playground fenced and burned
The sound of chainsaws claiming my childhood
My cattle reduced to bones because our cool waters,
Nairobi
Is now suburb, slum, skyscraper, Sewage water
Walls upon walls that claim that my land, Is now your land
A free land for the wealthy
But my cows don’t make me rich anymore
So I sell my melanin and beads
To buy food, go to school
But what are riches if not my cattle
What is education if not of my land?
Surely my ancestors are raging
I am a slave, Bought by the system
Disposable labor
To use at your leisure
Just like a statue I’m molded from childhood
To fill any spaces they deem as important
They keep you in line with all their lies
Freedom is money so buy buy buy
We’re programmed to run in endless circuit
Defenseless against a lifeless army
Be careful not to think or they might lock you up
Be careful not to fight them for what they stole.
Footprints from Africa
The language of the earth is never dead
It’s easy to trace her misery
Footprints from Africa shape our history
From cradle to crescent we advanced
Marching from deserts to rain and back
Except we didn’t come back black
Man the coloniser- conqueror
Man from Africa
It’s the root of our spirituality
We all come from this commonality
Our African ancestry
Empires built on expansion
Migrations to assemble nations
Silk roads to trade skills
Acquiring our current state of culture
From the ancient state of exchanges
Allowing our race to thrive
The human race
When you look in the mirror what do you see
I’m just like you with hair and skin
I was taught to believe this beautiful lie
That the white man taught us how to thrive
He saved the heathens from demise
And now I see what he destroyed
And I won’t live this beautiful lie
I didn’t forget that this world Was built on the backs of blacks
Footprints from Africa shape my story
Slums & Skyscrapers
From the roads, to the timing, I come from a land of
Chaos.
Chaos built on the imposition of white laws, white money, white supremacy
Chaos created to divide, but we still have the bribe
so somehow, we Survive
Because I’m still alive, Beyond the system most corrupt
To be a mzungu- to wander aimlessly
Kuzunguka na kupotea
The mzungu; the whiteman
Lost amongst our Golden flowing savannahs
Unaccustomed to a life beyond caves, fences, square boxes, 10 degree summers, 16 hour work days
Unaware of OUR laws
Is it Primitive to live in peace with nature or Primitive to destroy her?
When I was a child, The Elephants were spoilt, They’d stir up the soil and eat up the maize
My grandad, unamused, shot up in the sky; And we’d watch them diffuse.
Only they never came back.
The world stopped making sense
When it was more important to build roads than it was to build homes
When my generation was the last to walk with rhinos
When game drives became bird watching, railways replaced lions
We never came close to being free, When our souls still connected to the trees
Are cut and trimmed and shipped away
And now we’re all a mess because we’re all displaced
To fill up empty spaces, They build up skyscrapers
In shadows of these boxes, Lies Mabati rooftops coated in
Orange stained cascading sunlight
Barefoot children running with textbooks, A dollar a day but still go to school
No handouts to make them believe the government will help them achieve
So they make up their own rules. And under the hot sun
Build their Empire from dust.
100 Days In Fairyville
Hush now, you’re suddenly on your own
Walking through the serpents den
Can’t help but tumble down.
Pink stone in hand she turns to me,
I am the extreme end of madness
With just enough sanity to keep me in line
Here in the silent orange streets
We all become a part of the darkness.
With all her pride she consumes
Feeding off what shines too brightly
Dimming stars that bow devoutly
And through her radiance creates
The dimmest trail to follow nightly
It’s just a game, he said to me. Why not take a gamble?
If you can put a face on. Who says that you’re not able?
Take if you can, don’t mind the destruction
We’re playing with chaos
Revel in seduction
The lowly hill calls out to me
Draped in a halo of blue
The shadows somehow soothing me,
My mind unanchored and weak
Singing my days into spirals of sadness
The magic fades to mystery.
Shadows cast from strangers in blazers
Orange haze in urban street light
She says go back to your bed
Don’t close your eyes, don’t slumber
She says go back to your head
It’s easy when you just surrender.
Potential in Madness
They wanna see crazy?
I’ll show them insane.
There’s a power in pain only the broken can claim.
A flame that drives a wave of strength.
A rage of fire that comes like a flood
To wash over the trance of hurt.
My father could build a house but not a home
A truth I only saw when I tried to build shelter
Only to find my roots broken,
My idea of home mistaken
The fight to survive ignited.
On the shores of this illusive paradise
Where I’ve watched dreams that mattered, shattered.
There’s a power in Why that we can use to Fly.
But that idealism reflects a sort of escapism
And I became wrapped in a warped utopian mess
Marked by the naivety of dreamers.
Cycles of moons came and passed for 9 years long
In and out of this waft of shit I stumbled
Monsters from my past, slashed their way into my life
Making a home in my present-
It would be nice to see life as a gift
But in a battle, you can only hope for victory
I’ll fight him, I’ll fight her, I’ll fight them
If I look back now, I’ll surely drown
The ship that ran aground cannot find
This chest of treasure that’s sunk
Among the rubble and the junk
My mother was an inspiration
But she aspired to appease the raven
And this was the genesis of my inception
To fall into a trap of her own creation
As the raven comes knocking at the door
With eyes of a demon that’s dreaming
I remember the stories of unmerciful disasters
That followed Poe to the streets of Baltimore
That saw him wander into his grave
Like a beat up little seagull, on a marble arch
Trynna find the ocean, looking everywhere
I’ll fight him, I’ll fight her, I’ll fight them.
If I look back now I’ll surely drown
The ship that ran aground cannot find
This chest of treasure that’s sunk
Among the rubble and the junk.
As I make my way to the shore I search
For what I lost in the wave,
The treasure resting on the ocean’s floor
There’s a power in pain only the broken can claim.
A flame that drives a wave of strength
A rage of fire that comes like a wave
To wash over the trance of hurt.
You wanna see it as crazy?
I see it as Wisdom that breaks through the Prison
That my ancestors were chained
That my brothers and sisters fall in too
A story that’s passive-a past that’s static
I’ll fight him, I’ll fight her, I’ll fight them.
If I look back now I’ll surely drown
The ship that ran aground cannot find
This chest of treasure that’s sunk
Among the rubble and the junk.
To fear the power of pain is to fear the
Potential in Madness.