Peter Kagayi and his publisher, Nyana Kakoma, have both recently been the subjects of our #WriterWednesday feature. This weekend, inspire yourself with Peter's poetry. Peter's collection, The Headline That Morning, is available in print and audio from So Many Stories.
IN 2065
Nothing will have changed that much,
Except I will be over 70 years
The roads will be the same
The politics will be the same
Kampala will be the same
In 2065 nothing will have changed that much,
Except I will be over 70 years
And I will go to Mulago to cure my rheumatism
And the doctors will say there is no cure
And the boda- boda man at the stage
Will recommend to me a West-Nile witch doctor
And I will go to my grandson’s school like my grand-father did
And I will be turned away, for old age will be something forbidden.
The president will be the president we have today,
And in a wheel chair he will give the Nation Address
Only his son, then a field Marshall, will read it on his behalf
And he will talk on his behalf
And he will rule on his behalf
In 2065, nothing will have changed that much,
Except I will be over 70 years.
And Makerere will be on strike and Major- General ‘Something’
Will order open-fire on the students
Because their demand for fried beans
Will be a threat to the security of the State.
And U.R.A will be taxing the air we breathe,
The many times couples kiss,
The fart we excrete,
The words we speak
And the way we die
And will determine those who go to heaven
And those to hell
And tax their corpses differently
In 2065 nothing will have changed that much,
Except I will be over 70 years,
And teachers will be begging on the streets to feed their families
Their wives will sleep with tourists to make a decent living
The syllabus will be the same shadow of what colonialists left behind
With systems too archaic and too alien to offer anything essential
And the students will remain cabbages and potatoes
And the ratio of the jobless to the job-hopeful
Will remain nine to one
And like that life will move on,
And like that nothing will change.
In 2065 children of eight will be using contraceptives
Children of eight will be going to night clubs
In 2065 children will not be children
They will be eating fellow children for breakfast and for break at school
And they will not wash their hands and will offer you a hand-shake.
And we will be the people in that future
Built from a present that promises not much
Except ageing
We will be there hoping to die soon.