The drunk geezer

The old man trots, traipses
Then stumbles on the pines
With a squash and a squeak
He wriggles his bag of bones in pain

Fast like a snail he wakes
Collects himself and staggers
He misses a sooty spider by inches
Which skulks back into its labyrinth

He ambles along the dusty road
Murmuring and grunting
Like an old Luhyia dame
Grinding maize on stone

He thinks not but Ingokho
The sweet meat of hens
And the wings, hoping to fly
With that he jumps feebly

Splash! into the gully!
That empties the faulty sewage
At Mr. Mukhwana’s compound
Rumored it cannot serve his ten wives

The old man gulps and splutters
And a trail of a thick smudge
Form on the side of his fleshy lips
He lays his head out of water

Into dreamland!

© GIDRAF MWANGI