A caring journalist, a powerful literary powerhouse, a great poet of Oklahoma James Coburn is a literary cadre, a prolific creative, a heroic writivist and a brave chronicler is a powerful collaborator and I have collaborated with him on one of my best poetry nuggets Metaphors of the Rainbow, I always say the poetic lion of Oklahoma (James Coburn) meets the versifying tiger of Ikwelo (Mbizo Chirasha).
Today, the great creative lion of Oklahoma comes to Africa as he writes about the cruel- brutal- gruesome- painful demise/killing of one Kenyan human rights activist Edwin Chiloba. It takes heroes and heroines to write about their peers. Iam nudged by literary spirit to continue writing about this great creative diplomat James Coburn but I feel these few words are not an impression or hypocrisy, they say the truth about the man I worked with and collaborated with for many years. ALUTA CONTINUA!!!(Mbizo Chirasha- African William Blake).
Requiem for Edwin Chiloba
Some whom he loved
banished him for years.
Do they think of him
now with tears?
Petals spread
before smashed to ground.
For hideous reason
his body was found.
Yes, his body was found
in a metal box, dumped like trash
on a Kenyan road
by a sick mind to implode.
He was born the son
of LGBTQ mirth.
He found a family
by fashioning earth.
I didn’t know him.
I hope his hope
will come true,
for human beings to
live and let live
with all to view
the life of innocence
he knew
that did no harm.
No need for anger
or snare of alarm.
News of your murder
exposes a great divide
on a planet imploding
in hateful pride.
Young boys grow to men
to be cast out alone
by indifference
tossing stone.
From wingless birds
pecking at air,
what does love have
to bare?
His love
met certain danger
by an exterior hiding
fangs inside out
years after his love was
forced to abandon
it’s desired fate.
The wind will come
and grass shall bend,
until violence makes
amend.
I didn’t know you
and yet your story, I did.
Your voice meant something despite fear.
Your rainbow colors
arch far and near.
There’s a conversation
in my head about cruelty
toward the dead.
But when I search,
official words bring
nothing new,
while waiting for justice
to come in view.
Chiloba, love had found
beauty in you.
“Father forgive them, for
they know not what
they do.’
On January 6, 2023, police found the rising Kenyan fashion designer and LGBT activist, Edwin Chiloba, 25, smothered to death. His body was discovered in a metal box that was dumped on a Kenyan road.
Five people were arrested including Jackton Odhiambo, his alleged lover. Chiloba has been described as kind by his friends and tributes describe him as an “iconic fashion designer.”
Quantum love
Tonight the moon lies
down to find you,
Lies down beside you,
for you are dead.
Your gleaming armor
melted in the sun
behind your shades,
polarized against glare.
The sun was penetrating
until you went away
dissolving within neutrinos
to the edge before collapse.
Morning glories miss you,
but the bees still pollinate
your old garden.
There was a parrot you set free
in a forest of Nepal.
She sang songs for you once
your songs.
She still knows the tune.
Mockingbirds, too, know your song
Spreading it among butterfly cocoons.
Winter Sonata Rises
Arabella left silently,
taking heed of her soul.
Drawn were her curtains of Irish lace.
Her footsteps vanished without a trace
beyond her New Orleans iron gate
where she met Jake
in bittersweet fate.
His words were too late.
“All my words and expressions are not enough
to release winter’s chill.
Only your warmth.”
Arabella could no more.
Under the branches of a great live oak,
summer wishes and winter dreams once
passed between them.
In bottles of wine, Jake’s attention grew dim;
no lack of attention to his bottles of gin.
A mantle of oak turned to stone
in a heart, in a home.
Feelings were stripped bare to the bone,
foreshadowing despair,
Jake’s eyes searched beyond the bay window.
Beneath the mantle’s consuming flame,
letters of lost love curled to gray;
released from yearning, released from day.
From above chimney top,
embers of seasons past
drifted down, where landscape expelled
a darkened stain.
Ash fell gently down Jake’s window pane,
where he once searched for words,
avoiding shame.
He had foregone his last sip of wine,
reaching for a love divine.
Inside the home, Jake had etched in stone,
“What is outside myself?”
he whispered, alone.
Morning came.
A patch of green spread upon ash,
sprinkled with rain
Amid great live oaks, wildflowers rose
in April air, swaying in the wind so fair.
The marvel of his heart, he dismissed too soon,
for the love of earth
brought blossoms in June.
A caring journalist, a powerful literary powerhouse, a great poet of Oklahoma James Coburn is a literary cadre, a prolific creative, a heroic writivist and a brave chronicler is a powerful collaborator and I have collaborated with him on one of my best poetry nuggets Metaphors of the Rainbow, I always say the poetic lion of Oklahoma (James Coburn) meets the versifying tiger of Ikwelo (Mbizo Chirasha).
Today, the great creative lion of Oklahoma comes to Africa as he writes about the cruel- brutal- gruesome- painful demise/killing of one Kenyan poet, human rights activist Edwin Chiloba. It takes heroes and heroines to write about their peers. Iam nudged by literary spirit to continue writing about this great creative diplomat James Coburn but I feel these few words are not an impression or hypocrisy, they say the truth about the man I worked with and collaborated with for many years. ALUTA CONTINUA!!!(Mbizo Chirasha- African William Blake).
Requiem for Edwin Chiloba
Some whom he loved
banished him for years.
Do they think of him
now with tears?
Petals spread
before smashed to ground.
For hideous reason
his body was found.
Yes, his body was found
in a metal box, dumped like trash
on a Kenyan road
by a sick mind to implode.
He was born the son
of LGBTQ mirth.
He found a family
by fashioning earth.
I didn’t know him.
I hope his hope
will come true,
for human beings to
live and let live
with all to view
the life of innocence
he knew
that did no harm.
No need for anger
or snare of alarm.
News of your murder
exposes a great divide
on a planet imploding
in hateful pride.
Young boys grow to men
to be cast out alone
by indifference
tossing stone.
From wingless birds
pecking at air,
what does love have
to bare?
His love
met certain danger
by an exterior hiding
fangs inside out
years after his love was
forced to abandon
it’s desired fate.
The wind will come
and grass shall bend,
until violence makes
amend.
I didn’t know you
and yet your story, I did.
Your voice meant something despite fear.
Your rainbow colors
arch far and near.
There’s a conversation
in my head about cruelty
toward the dead.
But when I search,
official words bring
nothing new,
while waiting for justice
to come in view.
Chiloba, love had found
beauty in you.
“Father forgive them, for
they know not what
they do.’
On January 6, 2023, police found the rising Kenyan fashion designer and LGBT activist, Edwin Chiloba, 25, smothered to death. His body was discovered in a metal box that was dumped on a Kenyan road.
Five people were arrested including Jackton Odhiambo, his alleged lover. Chiloba has been described as kind by his friends and tributes describe him as an “iconic fashion designer.”
Quantum love
Tonight the moon lies
down to find you,
Lies down beside you,
for you are dead.
Your gleaming armor
melted in the sun
behind your shades,
polarized against glare.
The sun was penetrating
until you went away
dissolving within neutrinos
to the edge before collapse.
Morning glories miss you,
but the bees still pollinate
your old garden.
There was a parrot you set free
in a forest of Nepal.
She sang songs for you once
your songs.
She still knows the tune.
Mockingbirds, too, know your song
Spreading it among butterfly cocoons.
Winter Sonata Rises
Arabella left silently,
taking heed of her soul.
Drawn were her curtains of Irish lace.
Her footsteps vanished without a trace
beyond her New Orleans iron gate
where she met Jake
in bittersweet fate.
His words were too late.
“All my words and expressions are not enough
to release winter’s chill.
Only your warmth.”
Arabella could no more.
Under the branches of a great live oak,
summer wishes and winter dreams once
passed between them.
In bottles of wine, Jake’s attention grew dim;
no lack of attention to his bottles of gin.
A mantle of oak turned to stone
in a heart, in a home.
Feelings were stripped bare to the bone,
foreshadowing despair,
Jake’s eyes searched beyond the bay window.
Beneath the mantle’s consuming flame,
letters of lost love curled to gray;
released from yearning, released from day.
From above chimney top,
embers of seasons past
drifted down, where landscape expelled
a darkened stain.
Ash fell gently down Jake’s window pane,
where he once searched for words,
avoiding shame.
He had foregone his last sip of wine,
reaching for a love divine.
Inside the home, Jake had etched in stone,
“What is outside myself?”
he whispered, alone.
Morning came.
A patch of green spread upon ash,
sprinkled with rain
Amid great live oaks, wildflowers rose
in April air, swaying in the wind so fair.
The marvel of his heart, he dismissed too soon,
for the love of earth
brought blossoms in June.
A passion for capturing the plight of the homeless in New York City, Boston, and Oklahoma, turned to a passion for capturing news on paper for James Coburn during his nearly 35-year career at The Edmond Sun. The newspaper was shuttered in 2020 during the C0VID pandemic.
Coburn remains a regular contributor to Oklahoma’s Nursing Times having written more than 2,000 profiles about the nursing industry since 1999.
He is a 2013 inductee to the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame. Coburn began as a photojournalist in 1986 and he worked many beats, from features to crime, and government reporter. He covered issues as diverse as the Oklahoma City bombing, the Edmond postal massacre, race relations, Alzheimer’s disease, local charities, prisoners on death row, nursing homes investigations and alcohol and other drug abuse.
Coburn has won more than 40 of first place awards from the Associated Press and Society of Professional Journalists and helped The Edmond Sun win many Sequoyah awards in the OPA Better Newspaper Contest. He is a two-time winner of the Associated Press Sweepstakes Award. In 2009, he won his second American Cancer Society’s High Plains Media Award for news reporting.
Coburn is also a poet. His poem “Oklahoma Lynching” was chosen in 2012 to be included in an anthology of poetry entitled “Elegant Rage” celebrating the 100th birthday of Woody Guthrie. In 2016, ten of Coburn’s poems against terrorism and to save the Sunderbans (wetlands) were published in “Onnyodhara” (The Alternative Way) Eid-special issue festival edition in association with “Anushilon” (The Culture & Literature Society) the National Literary Organization of Bangladesh.
He served as a resident poet at NonDoc.com. In 2022, Coburn was one of the judges for the Qazini Competition of Short Stories in Nairobi. The same year, he judged the New Man Poetry Contest in Nigeria. Coburn’s poetry has appeared in many anthologies including Dragon Poetry Review and the 2021 international anthology, Poetry for Ukraine, published by The Poet.
Coburn was a 2014 finalist for the Oklahoma Book Award for Words of Rain. This book was the focus of study by the Poetry Guild of Kenya. In 2018 he was featured three times in Tuck – an international online magazine for human rights and the environment. His poems are also included in the journal Brave Voices poetry journal, Mbizo Chirasha, editor. Brave Voices Poetry journal (international journal for political poetry and creative resistance based in Zimbabwe).
His most recent book, Metaphors of the Rainbow, is a poetic collaboration with Chirasha dealing with human rights. In 2019 Coburn was one of international judges for the Inaugural Freedom Voices Poetry Writing Prize awarded to poets from Nigeria and Zimbabwe.
In 2021, he read his poem Silenced Cries as part of the University of Central Oklahoma’s commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa, Okla. massacre of more than 300 black innocents who lived in the Greenwood district of the city.
A passion for capturing the plight of the homeless in New York City, Boston, and Oklahoma, turned to a passion for capturing news on paper for James Coburn during his nearly 35-year career at The Edmond Sun. The newspaper was shuttered in 2020 during the C0VID pandemic.
Coburn remains a regular contributor to Oklahoma’s Nursing Times having written more than 2,000 profiles about the nursing industry since 1999.
He is a 2013 inductee to the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame. Coburn began as a photojournalist in 1986 and he worked many beats, from features to crime, and government reporter. He covered issues as diverse as the Oklahoma City bombing, the Edmond postal massacre, race relations, Alzheimer’s disease, local charities, prisoners on death row, nursing homes investigations and alcohol and other drug abuse.
Coburn has won more than 40 of first place awards from the Associated Press and Society of Professional Journalists and helped The Edmond Sun win many Sequoyah awards in the OPA Better Newspaper Contest. He is a two-time winner of the Associated Press Sweepstakes Award. In 2009, he won his second American Cancer Society’s High Plains Media Award for news reporting.
Coburn is also a poet. His poem “Oklahoma Lynching” was chosen in 2012 to be included in an anthology of poetry entitled “Elegant Rage” celebrating the 100th birthday of Woody Guthrie. In 2016, ten of Coburn’s poems against terrorism and to save the Sunderbans (wetlands) were published in “Onnyodhara” (The Alternative Way) Eid-special issue festival edition in association with “Anushilon” (The Culture & Literature Society) the National Literary Organization of Bangladesh.
He served as a resident poet at NonDoc.com. In 2022, Coburn was one of the judges for the Qazini Competition of Short Stories in Nairobi. The same year, he judged the New Man Poetry Contest in Nigeria. Coburn’s poetry has appeared in many anthologies including Dragon Poetry Review and the 2021 international anthology, Poetry for Ukraine, published by The Poet.
Coburn was a 2014 finalist for the Oklahoma Book Award for Words of Rain. This book was the focus of study by the Poetry Guild of Kenya. In 2018 he was featured three times in Tuck – an international online magazine for human rights and the environment. His poems are also included in the journal Brave Voices poetry journal, Mbizo Chirasha, editor. Brave Voices Poetry journal (international journal for political poetry and creative resistance based in Zimbabwe).
His most recent book, Metaphors of the Rainbow, is a poetic collaboration with Chirasha dealing with human rights. In 2019 Coburn was one of international judges for the Inaugural Freedom Voices Poetry Writing Prize awarded to poets from Nigeria and Zimbabwe.
In 2021, he read his poem Silenced Cries as part of the University of Central Oklahoma’s commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa, Okla. massacre of more than 300 black innocents who lived in the Greenwood district of the city.
Mbizo Chirasha (African WilliamBlake) 