To war mongers everywhere - Susan Nalugwa Kiguli

Tell us
Did you start a war
So our women
Could be sold to public shame?

Since you attended my funeral, I’ll also attend yours - Beverley Nambozo Nsengiyunva

Since you attended my funeral, I’ll also attend yours

I’ll arrive just before the coffin

Enters the church

And join the line of weepers.

At 84 - Sophie N. Bamwoyeraki

Your teeth have fled their nest. 

Dust rules over the Holy Book. 

Untouched buttons of your radio look on. 

My Husband's Tongue is Bitter (Song of Lawino - I) - Okot p' Bitek

Husband, now you despise me

Now you treat me with spite

find say I have inherited the stupidity of my aunt;

Purgatory - Lynn Mugisha

HB: “I suffer because I imagine the two of us, I suffer because that’s the most I can do.”

MG: “Suffering feels religious only if you do it right.”

Like making a church out of this body.

Placing this rib aside,

making an exorcism of all the reasons not to.

The Motoka - Theo Luzuka

You see that Benz sitting at the rich’s end ?

Ha! That motoka is motoka

It belongs to the Minister for Fairness

Who yesterday was loaded with a doctorate

At Makarere with whisky and I don’t know what

Plus I hear the literate thighs of an undergraduate.

 

Violent Love - Harriet Anena

We love violently

Cry and kiss at the same time

As our chests heave with want and hesitation

Evening - Stephen Lubega

Never has the death of a poet 

Been tolled by all the world,

God’s work on earth, though,

Has its universal funeral in the west, 

Recurrent grave of day’s mighty soul.

My Home - Mulumba Matia

This is my home Uganda.

This is the land for me.

This is the place where my heart is at rest.

This is the land for all that is the best.

Here I am alive and free.

Forget (Arua) Remember (Pakwac) - Gloria Kiconco

Forget how the rolling hills stopped rolling and began unfolding

into flatlands. You have left the badlands.

The Beloved - A.R. Cliff-Lubwa

Lapobo,

Tall but not too tall,

Short but not too short,

She is of medium size.

Nyeri - Beatrice Lamwaka

I almost became that man’s second wife

I twisted my underwear here and there

I hynoptised myself that he was the one

I always thought of him.

Cattle Egret - Okot p' Bitek

My children gather stars

Into their soft songs

And woo the young moon

With their white teeth.

I Died Alive - Harriet Anena

I died

But my heart still breathed

Social media love - Pamela Elizabeth Acaye

Babes, Please I beg, Let us not waste time on grammar!

The time between is too short to waste on long words,

The Conversation - Loidology

Come sit here dear,

Come tell me about that gloomy face you wear.

Because the melancholy i can no longer bear.

Let us put all things clear.

Lately you jeer every time i come near,

It seems it is me you fear.

The Eye of Poetry - Lilian A. Aujo

Poetry is the school I will never graduate from

because no matter how hard – I try

I will never tell it all – the secret way of its patterns

And how the same letters form different syllables to form different words,

And how they fall – in front or behind one another, and if re-arranged would create a whole different story...

I love you, my gentle one - Ralph Bitamazire

I love you, my gentle one;

My love is the fresh milk in the rubindi

Which you drank on the wedding day;

Come back home, Africa! - Awadifo Olga Kili

Come back home, Africa!
Mayibuye, grandma Africa!
Oh my Africa,I cherish the golden old days
Gifted with rays of glory and beauty of traditions
While decked with bronze, gold and ivory.

Teardrop - Samwiri Kisa Mukuru

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                                 I
                               feel
                              like a
                            teardrop