Extracts From  'Our President Is Running Mad'
(Poem on our most adorable PEN Kenya President Philo Ikonya; dedicated to her and to all members of the arts and civil society)

Our president runs mad
It grieves me to say
She's cuckoo, ballistic bonkers,
Totally off her rocker,
Somebody stop her!

Our president doesn't know how to talk normal
She garbles out lines of poetry
You can't understand her text messages
You have to call her back and ask her what she means

Our president is prone to wander
To far off places all by herself
She will call you and mutter about where she is
And worse,
Ask you to join her! ...

I think our president's problem is that she is love struck
You see,
She loves someone so much, so badly,
His name is K
She burns with ardour.
Her body, spirit and soul
Is on fire for this K
K, the man who doesn't love her back, the way he should.
K neglects our president,
But even worse, his children
40 million they were (as per the last census)
And their numbers keep growing by the day
But K doesn't care about his children,
He just counts them and brags that they're many,
but doesn't feed them ...

K sometimes rejects her
And makes her wander to far off countries, embassies and friends
To seek help
To bring K back to his senses
To remind him to take care of his children.
She will call you and garble,
And ask you to join her.
It's okay that she wanders,
Nay,
It is important that she does,
Because K needs her
And more like her
To see truth and to speak it to power
And to force him to get real ...

But maybe,
Maybe if our president stays mad a little more,
Shouts in her garbled verse a little louder
Struts barefoot in her sack dresses a little longer
And sings into policemen's, politicians' and citizens' ears a little more,
A few more might be convinced
To run mad too.

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