Benjamin Nambu
/ GreyThoughts.Info“The drums are now awake
I’m forced to pause eating and listen
Inspiration has hit the rhythm
Fire will talk to our …
By Benjamin Nambu
My people hardly traveled. Those who did were few. And everyone knew them. Because they were usually the multilinguals in the village who brought news, songs and tales of other lands to our…
By Benjamin Nambu
The room heaves with my sighs
its walls browning from the stewing solitude
as I listen harder pass the noise outside
I hear the familiar footsteps of …
By Benjamin Nambu
Returning home on foot after work
through a shortcut behind houses
poorly planned
bumped into a lady…
By Benjamin Nambu
Fear, doubts, the long years and motions
morphed into a giant illusion
of an end that would never come
and of tides that would …
By Benjamin Nambu
No matter how bad things…
————
Our love, made of wax, dwindled the longer it lived
like an echo, i disappeared when ignored
your promises kept coming but never …
By Benjamin Nambu
“The drums are now awake
I’m forced to pause eating and listen
Inspiration has hit the rhythm
Fire will talk to our …
By Benjamin Nambu
My people hardly traveled. Those who did were few. And everyone knew them. Because they were usually the multilinguals in the village who brought news, songs and tales of other lands to our…
By Benjamin Nambu
The room heaves with my sighs
its walls browning from the stewing solitude
as I listen harder pass the noise outside
I hear the familiar footsteps of …
By Benjamin Nambu
Returning home on foot after work
through a shortcut behind houses
poorly planned
bumped into a lady…
By Benjamin Nambu
Fear, doubts, the long years and motions
morphed into a giant illusion
of an end that would never come
and of tides that would …
By Benjamin Nambu
No matter how bad things…
————
Our love, made of wax, dwindled the longer it lived
like an echo, i disappeared when ignored
your promises kept coming but never …
By Benjamin Nambu
It all started with village folktales. Of ghosts loitering in the silence of midnight, stalking a wandering stranger or a lone recalcitrant youth returning home…
By Benjamin Nambu
Have your loose lips
begun looting
your chances of success,
turning potential into…
By Benjamin Nambu
The ability to remain calm under pressure is a skill that takes time to develop.
For the first time in our lives that we decide to keep calm during tough …
By Benjamin Nambu
Happy Mothers' Day to all…
————
…know the fears
and hurts you hide
your deeds, like diamonds…
By Benjamin Nambu
As night falls with its eyesores
hawling memories of the day beyond the horizon
hordes of people return home
some to mess, and debts
murmuring in low tones…
By Benjamin Nambu
I turned to find mother crying. I did not understand why. But I always kept the incident in my heart, together with the storyline of the movie we were watching that…
By Benjamin Nambu
Sometimes on your writing career journey, you come to that point where you feel you have nothing to write about, and might never get something to write about …
By Benjamin Nambu
My weakness was that I couldn’t be discreet. Which was why when I fell in love with the cook, the affair was like an open secret. Was it love? I couldn’t tell what label to put on a mixture of lust, loneliness and …
By Benjamin Nambu
…sat on the floor, my back against the bed, staring through the open window at the palm fronds swaying in the strong …
By Benjamin Nambu
For me, red wine is symbolic of pleasant memories.
It was a windy Sunday afternoon in late December. I did not go to church that day. My habit whenever I didn’t have money for offertory. Or felt guilty of a secret…
By Benjamin Nambu
From the moment the cup is handed to one of them, they all know that the recipient is going to be the hitsong maker of that…
By Benjamin Nambu
Mother had traveled. And upon returning, she brought me a toy phone and a wrist watch. Gifts from …
By Benjamin Nambu
Her son had a challenge. Physically, he was alright. Mentally, he was unstable, couldn’t sit at one place and behaved more like a toddler for his …
By Benjamin Nambu
The last time I saw Uncle Maduk, he told me he knew he wasn’t going to survive the operation, and that by the time I am back for the next holidays, he might be no more.
He thanked me for constantly paying him visits, bringing him fruits despite the rumors that he was an evil man and deserved what happened to him.
“We are family.” I assured him.
“I am only 44 years and I wish I could live longer.” he lamented.
“Look at me. I know it is the women I have broken their hearts that are working behind the scenes to end my life.” he continued.
This was not the Uncle Maduk I had known. Where is the fire that used to be in his voice and posture, the name that used to be on every lip?
I couldn’t stare him in the face as he spoke. His children had abandoned him after what he did to their mother. And here he was, the once mighty Maduk, spread on a mat with flies all over him and left to rot like the carcass of a wild beast.
As I stood up to leave, I could not help but notice the strange sombre mood hanging over the empty house. The house had no lights, and as darkness was falling, I wondered if he had an emergency at night, who would call an ambulance.
His cough was fading as I trudged deep into the thicket surrounding his house on the outskirts of the village.
No wonder Grandpa Willie says that sticking to one woman was why he’s lived long and is looking young for his age.
I hurry home to pack and catch the evening train back to boarding school, saddened by the thought of returning next vacation to find Uncle Maduk turn into one of the names on a plaque in the village cemetery.
By Benjamin Nambu
It’s easy to sometimes think you’re superhuman.
But a mirror will reveal your protruding stomach,
hunched posture, and bushy beard that …
By Benjamin Nambu
The temptation to use a shortcut to a desired destination will always be there, like a seductive prompt, ticking like a clock, ticking your thoughts into confused contemplation. But like Rick Warren once said, there are no shortcuts to…
By Benjamin Nambu
… to what seems like my end
where patched hopes refuse to mend
barriers refuse to bend
the raging sea in my…
By Benjamin Nambu
In the shadows of every shade
An unseen plaque with the name
Of a thoughtful sower…
By Benjamin Nambu
… them speak evil behind your back
let them have the wrong impressions of you
let them plot and scheme
hoping to lure you into senseless …
By Benjamin Nambu
Single mom, with two children, from different fathers. From a distance, you might think she’s promiscuous, or deserved what she got, or wasn’t smart enough. Draw closer, hear her out. You’ll realize it could have been you, or any other person…
By Benjamin Nambu
…and every now and then a neck craned to look behind the little screen to see where the images filing past our eyes went. The images were so real and emitted joy into our hearts that it was hard to imagine who got all those witty people and wonderful places crammed into the box in front of…
By Benjamin Nambu
… they were suspicious. So, my going there was a gamble. Part of my reason for going there was to gain their …
By Benjamin Nambu
…are growing up, we have these grand illusions of what we wanna be, places we want to go and whom we want to marry. Many of these illusions are birthed and kept alive by movies we’ve watched, a favorite song, some picture in a newspaper, book or …
By Benjamin Nambu