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POEM; YOU ARE LOST (by Isaac Mruma)

To you dada

It’s the days that matter

For we are unable to chat

In the language we had

When I look at you

And see my pay-slip

In your eyes

I feel empty

And sapped.

Your glance, sister

Is to me the measure

Of the heat of the dough

In my pocket.

Never are positions cool

To you I am now a tool

And all my wage is now the fare

I ride on your throbbing kisses

It is you I accuse

Because your love is lost

And you only touch me

With the tenderness that asks

Where any wallet is

It is you dada that my pen tears the pad

For I only see your love

Focused on my purse

With your passion

Chasing my bank account

Analysis of the poem

Poem: YOU ARE LOST

Poet: Isaac Mruma

Content

1. Title

The title of the poems is “YOU ARE LOST” it is nit direct but it’s indirect because it does talk about love that is lost in money.
This can be verified in the 5^th stanza with words saying “It is you I accuse because you love is lost”

2. Themes

(i) Hypocrisy

This can be clearly seen in the stanza 5 and stanza 6. The persona complains that,

“And you only touch me

With the tenderness that asks

Where my wallet is”

Also, in the sixth stanza, the persona complains,

“For I only see your love

Focused on my purse

With your passions

Chasing my bank account

(ii) Lust for money

The persona explains how much the woman she is writing to in the 5^th and 6^th stanza, the explanation show that,
the woman is providing love to the man in order to obtain money that he has; that means that, she has lust of money.

(iii) Awareness

This can be seen in most stanzas that the persona has noticed the trick the woman is playing on him for providing him with love and,
different good actions towards him so that she could get money.

(iv) Exploitation

The persona is being exploited by the one she loves. The 4^th stanza

“Never are positions cool

To you I am now a tool”

This means that, the passions are given to him so that he is used as a tool for providing money.

(v) Untrue love

The love existing between the persona and the woman is not true because, the persona complains in the 1^st stanza; their communication is not so well

“For we are unable to chat

In the language we had”

FROM SUMMONS

1. Sunrise

Behold!

The sun has risen

And with it the sons of the land have risen too,

Forward they go

Well armed

Singing praises to the beauty of the sunrise

With the determination of long –term warriors,

Challenging the enemy,

With the nglish-swahili/courage” target=”_blank”>courage of a free mind,

And a vigor of a dear purpose

Sit and wait brethren

Wait and see what glory they

Bring at sunset

How they pay homage to their land

And their people!

HOLLOW HEADS

Hollow heads torture me with ignorance,

Blind eyes harass me with darkness

Deaf ears tire me with silence,

Dumb voices deafen me with gibberish,

Blank minds confuse me with emptiness

And above all,

There is power and command.

With write and ears and eyes,

I have speech and a strong mind

But I remain weak and powerless

They oppress me, they torture me

They fight me, they kill me

It’s a fight to bring me down to silence,

To darkness and gibberish, to ignorance

And through brainwashing, to emptiness.

All right my friends

It’s a battle and I’ll fight it

Ears and wits and eyes and speech

And a strong conscience

These are my weapons

And I will fight to the last cell

LOST BEAUTY

There are only white women around

Awful fakes of white females

Reflecting an awful mass of ugliness

And I want a lady

To mount the rostrum with

And declare to the world

“Black is beautiful?”

Yes,

I want a black beauty queen

With ebony things and huge hips

With skin sweating blackness

And a face dark at the night

And bare breasts bouncing

Vigor and energy

But my eyes, oh my eyes

They don’t see anything black,

Its only white skins and masks

Flashing past and slashing

Destroying my sight so

I can get what I want.

I cry and sing to them

The inbred tune of our people

I shout to them in the black tongue

But no black sister hears me.

I turn and weep upon myself

And then, only then I realize

I am not black either

From growing up with poetry

A FREEDOM SONG

Atieno washes dishes,

Atieno plucks the chicken,

Atieno gets up early,

Beds her sacks down in the kitchen,

Atieno eight years old

Atieno yo.

Since she is my sister’s child

Atieno needs no pay

While she works, my wife can sit

Sewing every sunny day

With her earnings I support

Atieno yo.

Atieno’s sly and jealous,

Bad example to the kids

Since she minds them, like a schoolgirl

Wants their dresses, shoes and beads

Atieno ten years old

Atieno yo.

Now my wife has gone to study

Atieno is less free

Don’t I feed her, school my own ones,

Pay the party, onion fee

All for progress? Aren’t you grateful,

Atieno yo.

Visitors need much attention;

Especially when I work nights,

That girl stays, too long at market

Who will teach her what is right?

Atieno rising fourteen

Atieno yo.

Atieno had a baby

So we know that she is bad

Fifty – fifty it may live

To repeat the life she had

Ending in past partum bleeding

Atieno yo.

Atieno’s soon replaced

Meat and sugar more than all

She ate in such a narrow life

Were lavished on her funeral

Atieno’s gone to glory

Atieno yo.

THE POOR MAN

The poor man knows not hour to eat with the rich man when they eat fish, he eats the head

Invite a poor man and he rushes in

Lucking his lips and upsetting the plates.

The poor man has no manners, he comes along

with the blood of lice under his nails.

The face of a poor man is lined

From hunger and thirst in his belly

Poverty is no state for any mortal man

It makes him a beast to be fed on grass.

Poverty is unjust. If it befalls a man

Though he is nobly burn, he has no power with God

THE SWEETEST THING

There is in this world something

That surpassed all other things in sweetness

It is sweeter than honey

It is sweeter than salt

It is sweeter than sugar

It is sweeter than all

Existing things

This thing is sleep

When you are conquered by sleep

Nothing can ever prevent you

Nothing can stop you from sleeping

When you are conquered by sleep

And numerous million arrive

Millions arrive disturb you

Millions will find you a sleep.

PSALMS 23 PART II

The state in my shepherd, I shall not want, it makes me

Lie down in a subsidized house

It leads me into political tranquility, it restores my

Faith in a lucrative future

It leads me into paths of loans and pensions for its

International reputation sake

Year even though I walk through the valley of the shadow

Of Kivulu I will fear no kondos

For the state in with me a bank account, in the presence of devaluation.

It fills my pocket with allowance, my salary overflows surely increments, and promotion shall fall me all the days of my life

And I shall dwell in seiner staff quarters for well.

LULLABY

Someone would like to have you for her child

But you are mine

Someone would like to place you one a camel blanket

But you are mine

I have you to near on a torn old mart

Someone would like to have you has her child

But you are mine.

Form 4 English – READING LITERARY WORKS

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