Cattle Rustlers Are Virgin Rustlers Poem by alexander opicho

CATTLE RUSTLERS ARE VIRGIN RUSTLERS
By
Alexander K Opicho
(Eldoret, Kenya; aopicho@yahoo.com)
Let me tell you dear
What you don’t know
Because of the lies
Which you always swallow
In time of truth to know
But falsehood you are given
For your duping, be aware soul brother
Cattle rustlers are only but only
Beautiful virgin rustlers.

The them fierce cattle rustlers
Armed to their dirtier teeth
With foul spirit and vicious will
With no heart for love nor humanity
On their shoulders hang deathly guns
Smuggled from Russia the land of weaponry
Down to Ethiopia land of beautiful Merilee virgins
In the northern frontier of Kenyan territory
Where hails the cattle rustlers
And indeed they are virgin rustlers.

Education they hate down to their farthing
Religion they hate with a dint of xenophobia
Farming they detest to menial labour label
Trees they plant not it is oblivion to gods
Environment and climate they are no near sages
Women folk they abuse with chauvinistic urge
But guns they love, Goats they love
Carmel they love, curviews they love
Weapons they buy, Bullets they buy
To rustle cattle as they rustle virgins

Listen to the voice of sorrow
Agony and despair, voice of melancholy
From one once a beautiful virgin
Born in the green town the city of Omurate
In the south of Ethiopia on the banks of river Oromo
The mouth of Lake Turkana the fountain of oil;
Rustlers came to our manyatta
In the early evening, armed with rifles
Vestiges of Italy the imperializer of Ethiopia
I smiled to them in my girlish folly
O! Cattle rustlers are virgin Rustlers.

Others rushed for father’s treasure herds of cattle
A lad, black and stout his legs elbowed
Rushed at me with a menacing stampede
Brandish the gun his vice overt
Terrified me into the rampaged herds
All of us; virgin girls and valuable cattle
A hundred Carmel and goats
Fat Sheep and high shrill shouts
Were in a maddening haze
Thronged out and driven to Kenya
Cattle rustled and virgins rustled
No, cattle rustlers are virgins rustlers.

Morning yet of blunders to share
Cattle shared in pits and pits
I was shared out to my abductor
The elbow legged lad my abductor
In merriment it was done with gun shots in the air
As we in our hearts we grieved brimful
Ululations greeted ever act of brutality
Cursed be their city Todanyang of Turkana
In which I was forced into a manyatta marriage
Raped and raped by my abductor
Full of black thoughts that I was his wife
Him a cattle rustler, only a virgin rustler.



Alexander K Opicho is a social researcher with Sanctuary Researchers ltd in Eldoret, Kenya he is also a lecturer in Research Methods in governance and Leadership