Balaclava

By Frank Njugi

( Si unagitch, huku East hizi ni gangster geeks – Wakadinali
)

I
A friend from Warrap  teaches me about Nuggara,
the delight of wooden drums,                  
how his kin dance in times of grief,
as suffering is indoctrinated as putridness,
his people’s ethereality.


II
My own ethereality is when I walk into a childhood home
& it leaks of death,                                    
how an ancestry collapses
upon the cruelty of men who dwell in a cathedral of insobriety.


III
Tell me,            
how do we survive in places laden with echoes of destitution?


IV
In this city, we might hide under monkey caps,
& at twilight like a teasing bird
recidivism might call us back home…

Biography

Frank Njugi is a Kenyan self-taught Writer, Page Poet, Culture Journalist, and Critic. He has had his poetry published/forthcoming in platforms such as Down River Road KE, Brittle Paper, Akewi Magazine, 20.35 Africa, Shallow Tales Review, Konya Shamsrumi, Roi Feineant press, Olney magazine, Kalahari Review, African Writer magazine, The Standard Kenya Newspaper and others. He has also written on arts and African Literary culture for platforms such as Debunk Media, Culture Africa, Sinema Focus, Wakilisha Africa, The Moveee, and Africa in Dialogue.

A 2023 Pushcart Prize Nominee, Frank Njugi was named runners-up in the 2023 ILS - Fence Fellowship seminar and has previously been Longlisted for the Akachi Chukwuemeka prize for literature 2023 and won a 2023 SEVHAGE-KSR Hyginus Ekwuazi Poetry Prize as well. He was also a Sondeka Awards nominee in 2023. An Alumnus of the Nairobi Writing Academy, he currently serves as the Managing Editor for Salamander Ink Magazine, a Poetry Editor at Fiery Scribe Review, and a staff writer for African and Black media publication Afrocritik.