There you go — knock yourselves out

Eritrea

Dave’s Bikini Hall of Justice

Song for Somone’s Dad

Well the bell on the hill
acts as a primitive tripwire
down below, guarding corners
sits an urban militia

Times are bad the money’s good
but there’s manic whirring bits
Vidi, Vici, Vendi
for the fuck of it

We’re going up over the mountain
going up over the mountain
the mountain today

I know this, I’ll tell you what
I will never look much farther
than the curve up ahead
or the rise off the highway

I honor you, you honor me
as we’re pacing off the ditch
gleaming, streaming, bleeding
for Columbia first

We’re going up over the mountain
Though the mountain gets a little higher

Some context from Ngugi’s bio:

While Ngugi was in Britain for the launch and promotion of Devil on the Cross, he learned about the Moi regime’s plot to eliminate him on his return, or as coded, give a red carpet welcome on arrival at Jomo Kenyatta Airport. This forced him into exile, first in Britain (1982 –1989), and then the U.S. after (1989-2002), during which time, the Moi dictatorship hounded him trying, unsuccessfully, to get him expelled from London and from other countries he visited. In 1986, at a conference in Harare, an assassination squad outside his hotel in Harare was thwarted by the Zimbwean security. His next Gikuyu novel, Matigari, was published in 1986. Thinking that the novel’s main character was a real living person, Dictator Moi issued an arrest warrant for his arrest but on learning that the character was fictional, he had the novel “arrested;” instead. Undercover police went to all the bookshops in the country and the Publishers warehouse and took the novel away. So, between 1986 and 1996, Matigari could not be sold in Kenyan bookshops. The dictatorship also had all Ngugi’s books removed from all educational institutions.