Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Africa in Poetry Week

To My Friends in the Diaspora:

In our apathy-in tragic apathy,
We watched between mouthfulls of corn and peanuts
As demented women, mere bones, wasted away
Fried by the hot noontime sun
In the simmering sand dunes of the Sahel.

How could we have cared?
How could we have cared about distant events
In Faraway African wilderness?
We watched in our tragic melancholy
As child mothers of Virunga, and Shaba
were caught in the quagmire and swampy squalor
Of Disease and War.

Africa crumbles as her demented son AU,
Dines off Selasie's golden platters
Unconcened.
Aa...a! AU, Africa's son:
AU fetted in the spirit of Non-interference
As Virunga erupted in violence,
And Azania mourned her dead
Victims of Ayaki, perhaps a curse of her gems.
AU adjourned for dessert in the Founding Heroes Hall
As the Sahelean sand
Baked her destitute mothers and Children.
And the Atlantic glowed red with victimsof oil and gems
As AU supped in the full glare of his fallen heroes.

Where is our Africanness?
That Africa should crumble
As you and I in the Diaspora blog
In empyt words from the comfort
Of our alien hideouts;
Quick to change our Cable channels
to football or a Soapy Opera
Whenever a destitute child
Visits our comfort zones.

We saw them;
You and I saw them;
The world saw them,
But our Apathy had turned tragic.

Joseph Alila.

(Author: Thirteen Curses on Mother Africa (A poem), ISBN 978-14303-1592-6)
http://jaramogialila.blogspot.com

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Africa in Poetry Week

To My Friends in the Diaspora:

In our apathy-in tragic apathy,
We watched between mouthfulls of corn and peanuts
As demented women, mere bones, wasted away
Fried by the hot noontime sun
In the simmering sand dunes of the Sahel.
How could we have cared?
How could we have cared about distant events
In Faraway African wilderness?

We watch in our tragic melancholy
As child mothers of Virunga, and Shaba
are caught in the quagmire and swampy squalor
Of Disease and War.

Africa crumbles as her demented son AU,
Dines off Selasie's golden platters
Unconcened;

Aa...a! AU, Africa's son:
AU fettes in the spirit of Noninterferences
As Virunga erupted in violence,
And Azania mourned her dead
Victims of Ayaki, a curse of gems.

AU adjourned for dessert in the Founding Heroes Hall
As the Sahelean sand
baked her destitute mothers and Children.
And the Atlantic glows red with victimsof oil and gems
As AU supped in the full glare of its fallen heroes.

Where is our Africanness?
That Africa should crumble
As you and I in the Diaspora blog
In empyt words from the comfort
Of our alien hideouts;
Quick to change our Cable channels
to football or a Soapy Opera
Whenever a destitute child
Visits our comfort zones.

We saw them;
You and I saw them;
The world saw them,
But our Apathy had turned tragic.


Joseph Alila.
(Author: Thirteen Curses on Mother Africa (A poem), ISBN 978-14303-1592-6)
http://jaramogialila.blogspot.com

Thursday, April 12, 2007

SUNSET ON POLYGAMY


Fans,
Among the Luo, polygamy was not just the practice of one man living with many wives, but was practiced with a spiritual touch. A Luo man, once married could not have constructed a house or started a home in the absence of his wife (and male children) lest she be locked out of such a home.
A Luo man married to many wives couldn't have breaken the soil, seeded the soil, harvested his fields, given away his children in marriage, or at death burried in the absence of his First Wife (Mikayi). In any of these special times in a polygamists home, sex played a spiritual role, as opposed to leisure or procreation, at the center of which the first wife and the man were the stars.
A man who ignored the first wife would soon find himself living in perilous times. That was the situation in which Jim Okech, the hero in Joseph Alila's Sunset on Polygamy (1-42426684-5), found himself after his failure torealize that a First Wife who had reached menopose, and therefore moody, required extra attention because her spiritual role never ceased with the end of her procreative role.



To Order, Go to http://www.publishamerica.com/, or http://www.amazon.com/; http://www.bookfinder4u.com/ and other online outlets; also your borders or Barnes and Noble Bookstores will call it for you.

Thank you for visiting,


Joseph R. Alila

Monday, April 9, 2007

Alila's Thirteen Curses on Mother Africa

Fans,

"Thirteen Curses on Mother Africa" (978-143031592-6) Is Here

Let Afraca's drums vibrate
Let Ong'ombe play his big horn
In tune with the master drummers skillful hands
Let the Nyatiti release its sound
Because the songwriter has crafted new verses.
Let the gongs and cymbals sound;
Let the ochestra sing to the birth of Africa's new Artist;
Let them sing
For Alila's Thirteen Curses on Mother Africa
Sells Worldwide on www.Amazon.com

Joseph R Alila (Author: Sunset on Polygamy ISBN: 1424166845)

Lulu (www.lulu.com)
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=858545