Mohamed A. Eno is a Kenyan poet whose work was published in Warscapes Magazine. His new poetry collection Corpses on the Menu: Blood, Bullets and Bones (Outskirts Press) is expected before the end of this year. His second collection Guilt of Otherness: A Brief Personal Memoir in Poetry is on schedule for publication next year.
With a PhD in Social Studies Education (St Clements University) and MA TESOL (University of Sunderland), he is Associate Professor of African Studies and Dean of St Clements University Somalia, as well as Senior Lecturer 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 several authored and co-authored chapters in academic books and journals. Dr. Eno is on the Editorial Board of Journal of African Union Studies.
Ages ago when
I encountered you
In my maiden travel
Across the oceans
Of Africa, Arabia,
Oceania as a youth
Your appearance
Ever since the same
I mean, even more
Ardent your look!
I recall the
Interlocution I had
With you in museums
Across nations and
Continents apart
As they exhibited
Spectacles of you
In theatres, glamorous
Stages under lights
Shimmering
Beautiful
Psychedelic
Hypnotic,
With gentle music
Romantic
Classic
Rhythmic.
In the boulevards
I gazed you
Reply to me
Utterlessly
In your
Opaque oblivion!
With its esteemed
Approbation, my
Wanting heart, unable
To express any feeling
In observance
Of my civility;
In every cafe
We encountered
In the exotic eating
Houses built hanging
In the air, over streets
Busy in the nights galore
As premonitions
Prematured my every
Attempt, in avoidance of
Undeserved reply, rude;
All the while suppressing
My eagerness of drawing
Your attention upon me.
In a short while
My jaunt home
To Africa is likely
But images of you
Astoundingly occupy
The aerodrome
So, with logic of the lore,
I made my query in canto:
May I know you?
Before I migrated
Into the medieval world
Of this majestic
Mediterranean marvel.
A Cultural Friday
To Fathi Bin Mohamed and
the North African fraternity
at ADNOC Technical Institute
Loyalty to one’s culture
Enshrines
The gospel of livelihood
Which
Embeds a bond intricate,
Rich, unbendable
In the annals of history
Fluorescent in one’s
Memory and mode of life.
Reading the few stanzas
About home, measured
Lyrically in a verse
So exquisite by one
Imagined as alien to
The contours of contemporary
Mediterranean cookery,
More so of
The cultures of Carthage,
Deeply captivated
The learned leader of the
ATI’s Language Department;
Bewildered but less bashed
Beyond the nuance of emotions,
Yet amazed, enthused into
The lavish of outer-space
Thoughts — query
And suspense
Gripped him
In amicable
Synchrony.
He seemed subdued,
Somehow seized between
The celestial spaces of
The surreal and
The wave of semantics
He sought soberly
To make sense of
The Kenyan poet’s
Pragmatism:
Quizzes into mores
Carthaginian, deeper yet
Into Punician environs,
About Elissa and Dido
In Virgil’s Aeneid;
Rare antiquities
Articulated in
Classical tones
Of melody, mantra
lovely, adorable!
A fortnight later
The erudite Arianaian’s
Visit puzzled the poet
In awesome delight
That upon receiving
A wrapped gift of
Unbearable warmth,
His silent message
Opened floodgates
Of praises vivid:
That passion may
Reign in eternity
Around the Aegean,
For what you made
To be a cultural Friday
Of Carthaginian cuisine;
Hence according you
The expression of
Our optimum gratitude.
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