Mohamed A. Eno is a Kenyan poet whose work was published in Warscapes Magazine. He is the author of the recently published poetry collection Corpses on the Menu: Blood, Bullets and Bones (Outskirts Press, Nov. 2012). His second collection, Guilt of Otherness: A Brief Personal Memoir in Poetry, is scheduled for publication in the first half of 2013.
With a PhD in Social Studies Education (St Clements University), MA TESOL (University of Sunderland), and IMBA (St Clements University – Lausanne), Mohamed Eno is Associate Professor of African Studies and Dean of St Clements University Somalia, as well as Senior Lecturer and Researcher in the English Department of ADNOC Technical Institute. He is the author of The Bantu Jareer Somalis: Unearthing Apartheid in the Horn of Africa (Adonis & Abbey, 2008), and has contributed various authored and co-authored works in academic publications. Dr. Eno is also on the Editorial Board of African Renaissance Journal and Journal of African Union Studies.
A thousand names
Here they dubbed
In high fashions
Over the years accrued
Up in lovely Samos
Around the Aegean Islands
Down to exquisite Andros
From entanglements
Superbly construed
With adaptations
They maintained
Across Ionian cultures
Astutely incorporated
As single unit of wonders
Agnatically elated
Through acculturations
Of ‘Isku dume, Isu dume’, melted
Into a ‘Molder of nations’*
Of Mediterranean genesis
I mean –
Out of a vast body
Of land, water
Into diverse directions
Nature
Separated peoples
Without falter –
Or disguise,
Informing the visitor
Neither he who was
The former
Nor the latter as
The inheritor
But all into a mélange
Of broader
Entities created in
Artistic molder
Of modernity richer.
*‘Isku dume, Isu dume, Molder of nations…’ is a new creative thought recently coined by Prof. Ali J. Ahmed, a Somali-American poet and Professor of Comparative Literature at Queens College, and the Graduate Center of City University of New York. This expansive socio-cultural philosophy calling upon the nations across the globe to unite into a one big ‘mold of nations’ appeared under the poem titled ‘The Clan, the Nation and the World’ in Ahmed’s latest poetry collection: When Donkeys Give Birth to Calves: Totems, Wars, Horizons, Diasporas. (2012:17).
Of Secret Admirers
Through a painted
Windowpane
The secret admirer gazed
The lane
As humanities hasted
To catch the train
Whilst his heart absorbed
The pain
Of having been meted
His desire in vain
Loud screams
From the sirens
Of security cars
In Ikaria’s streets
Held the onlookers
In an awful digress
Strenuous to express
With measly words
To one who fathoms
Not the blend in the bliss
That usurped the kiss
Marietta sent to confess
To an alien in distress
Of her love with bless.
For other contributions by Mohamed A. Eno, please follow the links below:
Poetry in this post: © Mohamed A. Eno
Published with the permission of Mohamed A. Eno