Shoes on a line, a poem by Thomas Rogers Muyunga Mukasa

Shoes on a line!

Hanging like a three-toed sloth,
suspended by shoe-laces is a pair of boots,
swinging as the wind blows, this and that way,
the pair of boots must have had help,
a child mocking authority , or a perhaps older,
must have hurled these hapless boots high up,
now the telephone wire sags under the weight,
meanwhile the black boots swing left and right,
the wind seems to run a haze on all objects,
some stand firm, but others are swept away,
hopefully the sky does not give up its contents,
a non-suspecting passer-under, the culprit,
not knowing of the hurtling pair of boots, earth-bound,
all this, in the narrow street called Balmy,
boasts of congested narrower apartments,
the apartments on one side, if one looked,
mirror those on the other,
they stand so close together,
windows stare straight at each other,
tenants on both sides converse easily,
 no need to raise voices,
salt, curry or any recipe is easily shared,
from a kitchen on one side to the other,
inhabitants here have a tailored haecceity.


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Who is behind this blog?

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Thomas Rogers Muyunga Mukasa (pen name: Tom Mukasa), currently lives in San Francisco, CA. There he is attached to the UCSF HIV division's Community Advisory Board as a volunteer reviewer. He has worked for over 15 years with the marginalized and people living with HIV/Aids/TB in Africa. He also spent most of his time training and following up 152 groups he helped organize into what he termed the 'anti-poverty' class. The 'anti-poverty' class is that class a step or two shy of middle-class. Three greatest moments he recalls were a child headed family able to successfully pay for the land and house their late parents had left behind. They were to be evicted but it did not happen. The children went on to complete high school. The second moment was of a mother living with HIV establishing a chicken poultry farm 8 miles outside of Kampala, Uganda. She saw all her four children complete university. The third was of a woman in her late 20's who havin
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