Author Archives: Duncan

I write what most people carry in silence. Author of From the African Left Hand Ink and Mine That I Love, with over 200 poems exploring pain, restraint, and the weight of feeling. My work has also appeared in anthologies like Shades of Pain. For me, writing isn’t escape—it’s translation.

The Gentleman in Pain

Daylight sees him not, he doesn’t let it
He wears his shadowed self like regret dressed in elegance
Like a suit, tailored as sharp as the man’s pain.
Don’t ask him, if he’s okay
For he carries things, yet doesn’t break
He walks in measured steps, slowly but steadily
It’s impossible to notice, how broken he truly is. 

The gentleman in pain,
His back is bruised and broken yet he doesn’t flinch
He says to himself, “To feel is to lose, I cannot lose.”

Reserved for the dark, the only place he calls home
I know because I saw
His mirror refuses him, it will not return his gaze
Even it will not show;
The canvas of pain from which his face was made.

His palm cupped under his chin
He knows, you can tell he does
That one day he will feel it all.
But he stands, dusts himself off and leaves. 

Hollow

Hollow
A quiet trade between absence and intensity
The things I can’t feel and those that come;
With double the vividness
This I told you, and this you accepted
And for a time I thought even numbness could recognize beauty.

You,
An echo of promises that broke before they were spoken
Yet I listened, as if silence was a word already kept.
The potential I saw turned out to be
Just an illusion
A trick of hope in low light.

I searched for the parts of me I lack in you
And for some time I thought I’d found them
A reflection dressed as meaning.
So I forgive myself, for the mistake was mine all along
For trying to fill a void, with something just as hollow.

I have faced my fears and battled my demons
I understand now,
That not every reach is an intent to hold
So I will go, guietly before the walls remember my name.

The Loveletter

The Loveletter
A debt unpaid, a weight without end,
Shadows lingering, where love once clung.
Each memory, a reminder of a fracture;
Each breath, a burden
Each moment, a relic carved in dust.

A grave without a name, tears unceasing.
Knowledge, the curse I bear;
Yet this feeling, foreign, and I know it not.
Is it the end, or a new beginning?

“I’m unbreakable,” the lie I told myself.
I search, I claw, I beg,
Again and again, I drown in my own sorrow
But solace will not come.

Under reason and pride;
My soul rots unseen, no light, no hope.
My heart, a sword
Its bearer is dead, but still it cuts;
deeper than the ocean.

The scars I bear, a reminder
That my demons wear my own face.
Me,
a vessel of pain wrapped in dreams
And the silence became my tomb.

Now I breathe, and I live
Forgetting to remember.
And what was written dissolves into dust;
unread, unwanted, unlived.


	


	





	

		
The Trip to Ohio
	


	
	

		

The Trip to Ohio
I’ve been taking trips that never leave my head,
But every day I wish I were miles away from here
To skip to the moments where our hands are touching
No place I know better than the skin that covers your body
And being here, in this place by myself, it kills me.





I know all the scars on and in your body
Memorized all the places where the skin is breaking
I know your insecurities and your fears
So, I try to tell myself, another trip around the sun
And I am not losing it.





Back to Ohio
A trip I take alone,
And I know you exist, but I can’t take it with you
Promise me, you will never leave my head





I sit and talk to myself,
With morning breath in my mouth
I turn in bed and feel the emptiness
And I don’t know what to do with myself
Because my full life is there with you

	


	





	

		
My Father
	


	
	

		






My Father.
I see how he looks at me,
The man I looked up to.
His gaze, a complex mix of pride and disdain,
A reflection of the boy he wishes to see in me.





Last night he said he was proud of me,
For being the boy he wanted, a replica to be.
But lest he forgets, I’m more, or less for that matter
A mirror to his flaws, a reflection divine.





He knows only what he wants to about me,
A lie to himself, a narrative to set him free.
Every time I think, “Daddy, if ever you asked,
Then you would know.”





In his eyes, I see a stranger’s stare,
A man who’s afraid to face the truth he can’t bear.
Every time he looks at me, he manages to see just the man I’m not





So it breaks me,
To know I have his hands, his heart
That his rage now burns inside of me
And that I am every bit the monster he is
But he cannot bear to see.





@duncankiplimo 

	


	





	

		
Beyond the Mirror’s Gaze.
	


	
	

		


Gone in time, slept in the tide
Lost in a haze with no memory
Forgotten, but not forgiven
Show me now, the way home.
I long for a glimpse of my former self
I look in the mirror and a stranger’s eyes stare back
A reflection of a soul in disarray.
I fear what I don’t know yet seek it
Drawn deeper into the darkness while seeking light
I see an allure yet I cannot reach
A mirage in the horizon beckoning me to chase
But how will I run, my feet are feeble with despair
And my heart a heavy burden weighed down by sorrow’s chains.










I sing the song of the lost, but my voice says “Redeemed at last”
My melody, one of hope and grace, now a hymn of lament
Time, a healer of all wounds, yet mine is fresher than ever
Pain, a scar that refuses to fade, a reminder of what won’t be made whole
There are demons in here, the end is nigh
The shadows are closing in, there is no escape
A darkness I cannot define, in this hell I can’t evade
I am here, find me if you can.





@duncankiplimo 

	


	







	

		
MAMA
	


	
	

		






Things you make me Feel
Late last night, I took a double shot
One to the things I need yet never get
And another to the things I see yet never touch.
And so I thought;
Of the things you make me feel
My heart feels and my soul knows
‘Tis my home, my place and haven.
So strange I feel, ache and desire all at once
What this might be, I know not
Too new to last and assess, yet too rare to break
So I sit and ponder
A bird, seeking air, home and a nest
In a rather arid cruel earth.
It troubles my mind and yet completes my heart
This woman built in perfect skin and body
It kills me to wait yet gives me life, the hope of meeting you again
Now I know why
With love comes death and more death
For I feel my life oozing out my bones
Craving certainty and reassurance yet never find.
Forgive me, if my heart stops beating
Because for you I’ve lived and for you I will die
So forget the words you need
And just tell the word you know and have
How this became, whether by eye, heart or ear I know not
But my breath for you I hold and for you I feel all this joy and pain
So my heart for you I rip out
Take, my dear
Do with it, as thou may.

	


	





	

		
The Apple Tree
	


	
	

		






The Apple Tree
When my mother, thinks well I rest in my bed
On Sunday night till monday morn
Oh, here I sit, in our favorite place
With tears hot and hurtful.
My mistletoe, my rightness.
If your hands, we’re still on me and your warm breath
Gently hissing against my cold neck
My shade, I wouldn’t look
Under this thorn tree.
Stretched out on the earth
Mourning the loss of a young boy
Who’s body I reside in
And the rain, and wind and sun all kill me in equal measure
The task I had, to love and to care
Even at that, I failed.
So I stray from this land
Off to be with myself where I am better
Off to there where there is no harm nor betrayal
Far away from my friends and relations.
Where this war between my head and my heart shall cease