By Dikizo the Poet
This is a short but familiar story for you my audience
It’s a tale about a pair of Kenyan twins joined at the joints
Born on the eve of elections and raised between cycles
It’s a story about Violence & the Vote and Battle & the Ballot
Take for instance the booths that bled red in Kasipul,
With a hopeless IEBC that watched as chaos reigned,
Or gangs with machetes reigning terror across schools,
Polling stations turned hunting grounds to quiet or maim
This is a tale about a Banana Republic that picks and peels,
A nation where knuckles knock where votes should speak,
Where properties are torched, lives lost, and bribery seals,
Violence in the vote and battle in the ballot is their go-to trick
This is a cautionary tale about an unending cycle of violence,
A story about death of democracy and rise of authoritarian rule,
An obituary to winds of change and an ode to the reign of silence,
If ever the ballot bows to brawn and bullets, then we’re but tools
