the great little things

I
shine the torch
on great
little things
that offer
sublime lessons
if you
care
to
look!

have you ever noticed
that those tiny stars
are bigger
than
the sun?

When things don't make sense

Sometimes you wonder. You wonder at life at your little pretensions and you ask yourself in some maudlin despair if it were in any way possible to just fade away. You know, not breathe nor have to anticipate waking up the next morning then you gasp at the sheer cowardice of such a thought because you know you are hurting and confused. You are hurting because you wonder at the futility of it all. You made an attempt to reach for the moon and all you got was some pie in your face! What does it feel to eat lime grapes when they are at their sourest?

That is how you feel. Underneath it all, there is despairing question, will you ever get it right? What do they really want? What really will serve? What? You might as well ask the moon. After all they said it was dead place right? You have walked the gang plank as it were and there is a silent scream dead in your throat! Your throat is tight and dry from the desperate longing to cry and the horror of feeling you just might be able to do that.

But if you open your mouth and scream, will you be able to stop? You walk the street and you are tempted to step in front of a speeding car, one thump, one sharp pain, a red mist, silence and it will all be over. Then shame like slime crawled all over you and your turn over in the bed as you feel the slime of your saliva, it smells awful and you cannot swallow it and you rush to the bathroom and you cannot pee either. The owl laughs at you and you shiver from the dread of going to sleep.

Lord! It is going to be dawn soon, for me or for whom? You do not want to be different when you open your eyes and pinch yourself awake. One more morning settles like stone upon you! Why? It escapes gingerly from you, hope tries very hard to open the door and you hold on very tightly to your pain.

Some day child this will pass away. Hmm, they got you there. These humans, they got you by the short hairs. Sold you a pig in a poke when they whispered sweet nonsense about the possibility of happiness here on terra firma! What were you thinking of anyway, believing them?

There is nothing at the maggot heap except more maggots. All the crabs that made it to the top lost their names and limbs! You need to mention your name to yourself a thousand times a day just so you could remember what it signifies. Yes sir! You walked, like some soldier just let out of the war. Yes the war of life.

You did not ask for heroes. You do a body count of your dead dreams lying close to you like some tired whore! Why in heaven are you always attracted to pain. It seats so easy on you. No one has ever taken seriously whether you have needs.

When things don't make sense and you feel as bad as this, then help is nearest to you my friend. We won't always get what we want but love is laways waiting to be close to you.

Africa Story telling..lost art?

In the old days in Africa, we taught ourselves values through stories. We had quite a lot of stories. We used all the methods we could then. Some stories were songs that spoke of the heroic battles of our heroes. We had heroes that everyone in the community could identify with. We had stories of animals through which we told our children the virtues of life like honesty, honour, loyalty and courage.
Animals represented different things and concepts. For instance from my part of the world, we had stories of tortoise being shown as wily, cunning, sometimes hilarious but always with an underlying lesson for us. It was natural every evening after the day's work to sit by the fireplace, or under a big tree and hear of the escapades of the tortoise. However in all these stories of the tortoise, a thread of a code of ethics was woven for us. It was usual at the end of each story for the story teller to ask us the listening children, what was the lesson of the story.
In the broader sense at the government level, we had festivals, that were used to teach the leaders the essence of honour and integrity. Such festivals were usually some kind of masque in which erring leaders were lampooned in songs, drama and such devices that sent the message home. It was understood that the actors of any masque could not be punished. The victim who felt very bad at being lampooned would naturally keep to his farm for a few days and weeks depending on the severity of the satire. He returned to the larger community after a time hoping everyone had forgiven or forgotten that misdemeanor. You however notice that in his anxiety not to have the same experience the following year, he would amend his ways.
Society was friendly, knew its place and governance was at most times benevolent and inclusive. Story telling had its uses and was a simple form of entertainment as well as instrument of instruction. Sadly however, the story is radically different today in my part of the world. The only viable story telling we can tell each other these days are of poverty, disease,(some really strange ones our forefathers never heard of) and of our insensitivity to each other.
In those golden yesteryears, a thief could not find succor in any place unless he changed his ways. His family disowned him. His community would reject him and no matter how wealthy he became, he was never given a chieftaincy title. The community will watch him in derision if he even attempted to contribute to the common wealth of the people.
Today, there is no more story telling. There is no more sitting by the big tree to watch the moon, sing to the moon or tell stories of the escapades of the tortoise. There are no more moonlit games or wrestling or folksongs or beauty pageants in which we show off our African hairdos. What we have now is the television that has made apes out of the dignified African, the fashion that has stripped us naked and left us naked. The thieves get chieftaincy titles now and sometimes decide the course of a people that was once proud and self sustaining.
We can still go back to the story telling days. We can still use stories to change our concepts to something noble and uplifting. We may not be able to physically sit by the big tree, but we can still tell stories about honour and integrity for these stories are as timeless as the virtues they preach. It is the essence of real civilization. Do we still have good story tellers?

The wail from our ancestors

The ancestor is
in the Market square
he told us stories
of the happiness in heaven
We tell him
we don't need
the sacrifices of
goats and chalk
the ancestor in
the masquerade garb
laments our denial
from the ways
of our forefathers.
We tell him
we don't need
the long walk
To the stream
Pots balanced neatly
On corn-rows of beauty
The 'jigida' beads of
Our waists
We changed for the
Belts in our skirts
Our simple graceful walk
We exchanged for
Tortured struts of haste
The ancestor wonders
At the noise of our fears
Why we barricade our hopes
In ten foot walls from
The wails of our brothers
We tell him
The hunters have changed
The bows and arrows
To guns and bombs
We chased the darkness
And fears by
Pinching the walls of our fortresses
The ancestor wonders
Why there is hate in
Our midst knowing us as
Brothers of a clime
The ancestor cautions
That our haste
To taste unripe fruit
Wets the ancestral floor
With the blood of our kin
We tell him
When we changed the beds
From the raffia at home
We changed our souls
To the foul stench of unknown
We tell him
We have taken
The full potion of doubtful
Civilization, drunk full draught
The potent broth of it
Now we stagger round
Looking for help
From the ancestors
In the empty market square!

Love: Simple and profound

Imagine the first bursts of Light as it streamed through creation on a fiat and life in its varied meaning took on form, substance and colour. Life as we have come to know it pulsated through the creation and what came to be known as mankind lay rested at the extreme as a fluffy germ of life pulsing with promise but quiet. Imagine the streams of love that washed all over creation, the thousands of millions of the hues of the Light energizing and reactivating all that carried life, a promise of it and the fulfillment of such a promise. Consciousness was and still is a latent possibility. Eternity was born and immortality became a possibility for all that carried life. The conformation of that happened.. Love in all its roseate majesty is!
Love, a state of being. Love is. Could you describe it? Could you hold it? Could you give it form and rationale? Like a rose it tantalizes you and demands unceasingly as it shows you how to give unceasingly. Do you dare understand the many strands and colours? Could you serve? We tend to think of the attributes of it as the weak submissive one that says yes to every single request! The ones that came by love through the by way of religion insult its intelligence that the Almighty must propitiate them before they can deign to serve 'their creator'. At their peril, they forget that Love's first daughter was/is Eternity! She can wait.
When a tiny creature slips forth into our creation called forth by our longing to achieve immortality, our love is simple and profound at the same time. We watch in wonder as we watch the tiny fingers, the tiny features, helpless and we assume trusting us that we shall do right by it? We are ready and willing at the time to bring ourself to do everything to ensure that the child has everything it needs. Our love is simple and profound! A sense of gratitude to whatever faith we profess makes us humble and joyful. This is a gift, a treasure! All our hopes becomes embedded in the child. We look into the future, as the child becomes the crystal ball through which we can spy the future. Life has a meaning.
We look into the eyes of the child, and we suddenly make pledges to be all we can be for the child. It is the first time we say to ourselves through our spirit that 'yes we can!' Raise a child, give the child all we can. Do you remember as you promised? We all did. Then we also made some silent assumptions that the child will be a source of joy to us, a source of pride. We looked forward to sunset of colours of achievement. The green of service, the brown of study, the pulsing red of valour and courage, the purple hues of nobility and integrity. We did. We had said Yes to all these.
But wait, did we forget something? Was the child really truly and completely ours to do as we willed? Could we own a human spirit truly and completely? How come the child suddenly has a different opinion? Wherefore this rebellion we now espy in the child? Something ineffably his has broken forth! We reluctantly give it a name. Free will. What a come down from the heights of deciding for the child. We had decided the food, school, clothes and all that. Had given the right inoculations and protection for safety, in fact assured ourselves of own immortality by lending the child our name! How did we plan on taking the name back anyway?
Love is simple and profound as we painfully step aside, offer service that may be rejected. Love is simple and eternal as we anxiously watch as the former child now an adult takes its faltering steps in picking his own compass, putting aside our own carefully prepared compass that we had handed over. Love helps us understand when we watch for the first heartbreak and toss on the bed as we listen to the heart rending sobs in the night! We could not have an antidote for that. The heart needs to grow too just like the body grew.
Love helps us to offer the supper scarce enough when the child calls to say, he has lost his job again! Love teaches to make the most painful step to ask a child who stopped growing that he must leave the nest even when you know he must spend the night under the bridge! You agonize, you know he has become too big to fit into your heart, but you make room all the same! You do all these and much more, because you see, those light years ago when you left the light beach as a germ and came into matter, PERFECT LOVE, gave you same opportunities and has been just as anxious for your safe return!

One day at a time

The crock crowed
on our mats we turned
from sleepy dreams we rose
baskets on our heads
dawn paths we followed

As we walked
the sun prodded the earth
with first tiny gold fingers
lighting up the day

Father’s cutlass flashed
a path from the untamed green
another thud of his hoe
mounds shape the landscape
in steps we follow
hands dipped in the mounds
left seeds in its warmth

The bite of the sun
mid stride in the sky
father’s glistening spine
stops the slide of sweat
we munch between the rest
last season’s harvest of sweat

The winds cools our cheeks
the sun goes home to bed
we make our way home and sing
happy from today’s sweat

The fireflies by the fire
the sun’s mistress silvers
our rosy cheeks with silver
even as mother’s tales
by moonlight
lights the path to a peaceful slumber.
 

MEMORIES

I am pleased to remember,

those nights I loved you,

I am scared to count,

the costs of loving you,

How shall I remember?

your first sunny smile

your first faltering step

When you called me Mama?

I am quick to remember,

your first day at school,

your first lessons of love,

How can I not remember?

your first wet kiss

when I kissed your toes

as you stubbed it at life?

I am happy to remember,

when lessons by candle light

we tried to make the grade

as you learned to sharpen

your wit and intellect,

How can I not remember?

as we planned and hoped

that the gold will come

entwined in a joint dream.

I am pained to remember

when you had naught

to remember your need

to make as good a nest as me

you took flight and left

to make nest for another

Now gray and old

from light slumber

I watch the sun golden

In what I’m beholden

now I remember and wonder

as your seed takes steps

from one toothed smile

of sunny wonder

fresh springs of blossoms

a single wet sloppy kiss

an exchange of another age

the word moves to another

‘Granma’ for ‘Mama’.

There's a saying

from my side of the street

a woman must not

come married with

two left legs

the essence of

her dowry

must be the increase

in the fortunes

of her husband.

Since we married

he has built

more houses

bought more cars

his farm is bigger

in celebration of

his increased fortunes

he has brought in

another wife

I wish I had

two left legs!

The call came

one lazy afternoon,

as I roasted corn

and mother made food

the word rang out

witch!

we ran and I heard

the screams of mother

dust in my eyes and ears

stones hitting her flesh

my bloodied fear

as she panted her innocence

mingled with stunned denial

the silent march to the grave

In darkened corners

mother’s ghost still whimpers

and my hate is still fresh

my vengeance assured

to those who gave

the shout

that closed my future

THE LOGIC OF FAITH

Faith is a derivative of conviction and the conditions of conviction are based firmly on your experience. If no one has ever given you a slap, you would be hard put to accept that it could be painful. Do we thus wait until we have experienced the Almighty before we accept His existence or do we look through his creation and in experiencing the laws he has embedded in them do we then have faith?
How do you hold faith when you go to work, smile desperately at the boss and hope he will not call you round to his office, adjust his tie as your Adam's apple suddenly lodges itself on the wrong side of your throat and you stare at him waiting for him to spill the beans! Then he simply asks you if you have submitted the weekly report. Then you were on the edge of your faith thinking he was a nice guy.
How do you hold faith when you are afraid to answer the phone as you know the caller at the end of the line is your account officer and your bills have been due for more than the required grace period? You are sitting at the edge of your faith my friend when you lose count of the number of job applications you have filled and as your choices diminish your preferences take a dive into slime and you would apply for any job!
You are done fighting, you are done beefing about the egg heads who sold out your tomorrow even before you planned for today. Man! You are done! Pretty nigh extinguished in fact! You are done, see? Because you just counted the pennies in your pocket and it is only enough to buy death! Really? Don't go over the edge of your faith.
Sounds trite, but as boring as it is to read, there is always reason enough to wake up and smile. Move away from the edge of your faith, feel the steady beat of your heart, the next beat might be the change you need. God knows it is true! After all you are actually reading this! Imagine!

LOVE: THE ESSENCE OF LIFE

Love is the essence of life. It is where all life begins, and the foundation for every dignifying emotion man has been capable of expressing. Where love is missing, there is no life. Creation itself rotates on the axis of love. The love of the Creator is the beginning of creation. Our being here therefore is the answer of the creator to our request to explore the full potentials of the human spirit.
It is the essence of creation and the rationale for our individual incarnations! Love in its eternal essence gives the most treasured gift that man has, Hope. An acceptance of the love of the Creator, helps us to understand His Laws and we make attempt to adapt ourselves to these laws. In a dim human way, we attempt to return this love. When we do not have the essence of love, we become very critical and intolerant. However, we tend to translate this love in too much of a human way, in our concept of how we are to express it. We know of the love of our parents and sometimes take that for granted or give it expectations that are self serving. We love a child and expect the child to be an extension of our dreams and so we feel disappointed when the child expresses innately its own identification of self.
Can love be critical and tough? Yes it can, it actually must, if it tends to fulfill its primary responsibility of bringing out the best in the object of love. The rub is, we must be clear when we are critical, what we are being critical of. The ability to be objective is actually the first spring of love. To see in its totality, a person, or situation and in the process of that assessment, carry the ability to be helpful for the benefit of the person, object or situation. It is therefore sometimes essential to understand that love can be tough. This is however based on the principle that even a blind person should be able to 'see' the love in the correction you offer a loved one.
There is the confusion to see love as constantly self sacrificing, weak and submissive. If we sincerely look at the essence of human spirit, we will agree that it is wrong to expect a human spirit to be submissive for he is not made that way. His lack of self exertion thus is a consequence of indolence, indulgence and an inability to make use of his given free will. He has chosen to take the soft option. A vibrant love, is clear sighted about the limitations of the recipient of his love but will want to see and seek opportunities to offer serving love as distinct from self serving administration of selfish considerations!
At a sublime level therefore is the love of the Creator, who has set in motion opportunities for each human spirit to arrive at the peak of his possibilities, and abilities. He has instituted into creation thus, certain laws that is not in any way religious nor does it advocate a religion. These laws by their very essence defines for man the essence of what we mean by freedom and offers man the gateway to supreme personal happiness and attainment. It enforces compliance irrespective of our understanding of these laws. We live in creation, are in it but not of it as we all sense that there is much more than we can see, hear, sense and touch.
These laws are anchored in the Love of the Creator. They offer to man the keys to a life that can be happy. It invites us to be self critical, exert ourselves and offers both an explanation and a way to those things in creation we are puzzled about. It offers through the laws of reciprocity, that maturing fruits started from seed level and could be different from one seed to the other according to the specie of the act.
Man lives his life at three levels. He plants the consequences of his life on these levels. His words are immediate and therefore active, just as his actions can be seen by all. However a more potent aspect of his life is his thoughts and because of the nature of their ability to be cloaked if it so wishes, we sow thought forms that might take eons to fructify! We however take relief in the knowledge that in understanding of the quirks of human nature, the Creator in love anchored this law so we might learn and grow. That is love too.
In the laws of the Creator, no man is condemned except by himself when he fails to understand the beauty and concept of love. Thus simply put, love is the essence of life. The very many trails we face, in our personal lives and jointly as a community or as a nation are opportunities offered to be better than our yesterdays. The growth to arrive at the apex of our existence as truly human spiritual!

PROMISES

A promise is a promise

To love your tender eyes

Even when pain racks

A promise is a promise

To bring home the glory

From life’s painful sweat

A promise is a promise

To walk the plank

Of life’s stormy seas

A promise is a promise

To grab a goal of light

And weave sheens of fate

A promise is a promise

To walk in gardens pure

Of roseate hues of love

A promise is a promise

To guide this tiny fingers

To the altar of light

A promise is a promise

May your name stick

Like lilies to you

May the promise of light

Find within your might

Rich soil of roses

May you swing in

The name given

For child,

A promise is a promise indeed.

Fable of my widow.

I married a widow,

Ere she opened a window,

So I can play a fiddle,

To the song I can paddle,

As full troth of my shingle.

She brought to my table

Lots of roses, silk and sable,

And on sultry silky saddle,

I cradled her with fables

Of things I am able.

Two score and Ten

We are still able,

To tell tales of fables

Of things I’ve been able

To bring to the table

And she has more sables

I married a widow

And life opened a window

Of what I am able.

CAN WE REALLY TALK ABOUT THIS?

Communication in its simple terms is the process by which people exchange information or express their thoughts and feelings. It is thus really a two way process of information exchange. This exchange can be verbal, active, impassive or non-verbal. We communicate constantly. It is part of our everyday life. From us to the receiver. We have a constant two way exchange. Now we want to look not just at this means of communication, we also are considering the role of youths in using these communications strategies to effect behavioral change. That sounds like quite a mouthful! The youth today unlike the youth of yesterday has come quite under a lot of pressures. He is bombarded at every turn with a variety of information format that he needs to be careful, on thetypes of information he can trust.

What determines the behavior of a person, his beliefs and drives his ambitions and dreams?

There are basically the environment, culture, society and to some level religion.

Value systems prevalent in the society also concern youth as they are also affected by all we have mentioned. Parents are the first socializing agents for a child until his consciousness is awakened to a level that he can process other forms of information format. So the parent is the first communication contact. The success or otherwise of that experience tend to color the negotiating and discerning ability of the child.

The African parent is as loving as any parent in any part of the world but as earlier said, the parent is a consequence of his society, his values and concepts.

There is however one factor he finds himself tongue -tied to talk about and it is the sexuality of the teenager. We were fed on a diet of innuendoes, rumors, and veiled hints! It excited our curiosity and brought us to experimental levels of our sexuality. Now sexuality education is being advocated and I ask if we are not a bit behind in coming to that recognition. I feel we got our act together a bit tardily!

Can we really talk about this? That is the first question that hits us when our child asks us questions that demands our definitions of sexuality Should we really? How come the child today is not satisfied with the same vague answers we were given when we were their age? We are left high and dry and sometimes frustrated by all the questions which seem endless. How come our culture is not coming to our aid when we are faced with these questions? Help! Children were supposed to be seen not heard.

So while we hedged and hawed and told the stories of the bees and the stork, they went to search for the information they needed from other factors of communication available to them.

Apart from the immediate family circle the youth contends with other communication factors to process information. These factors are:

The Print media, which sometimes are sources of information for youth and can have negative influences in their presentation of issues and goals. This negative influences could be in the promotion of a slim model as the ideal figure, confusing a growing child into striving to be just that type of person.

Electronic Media comprises the radio and television. Though the radio depends on the imagination of the listener to carry its more subtle messages across, television though is the more glamorous sister with an immediacy and believability that can influence the mores and concepts of a youth

The Internet today is a veritable minefield of information and carries the awesome potential of widening the horizon of the youth to heights or depths beyond his own imagination. The intelligent parent must thus educate himself on the need to be internet educated if he wants to guide the child.

Interpersonal channels like your mother, sister, pastor, friends, teachers or even youth centers carry some intimacy and engender some level of trust but may not necessarily be the best channel for accurate and precise information! Youth talk more freely amongst themselves but are also veritable containers of misinformation, myths and inaccurate information sometimes.

Since communication is the cornerstone of a healthy relationship, it is important to appreciate its importance as a means of behavioral change. The internet has widened the horizon of our young persons but has terrified the average parent into hurriedly seeking some level of understanding of the internet. For a discerning and concerned parent the internet has been a two edged sword offering a widening of the child's horizon but also the risk of enhancing negative tendencies.

The African parent has found that he must step up his knowledge and horizon if he wishes to be relevant and useful to the growth of his child and enhance the quality of the continuity of his line. We welcomed the internet with tentative smiles and watched in anxious fascination the enchantment of our children.

It is time to talk. We can really talk about it. We must talk about it. It is no longer okay to grunt and warn of dire consequences, when they ask questions. Can we really talk about this? We must.

IS LIFE A ROUTINE?

It is a routine really when you wake up each day. It is a routine when you walk into your office. It is a routine, the fact of breathing in and out. It is a routine just being yourself. The trick is how to look forward to doing these routine things with some level of excitement. Close your eyes and see between your closed eyes the colours of your hopes. You will notice the way it ebbs and flows with each second your thoughts shape the dream. Your dreams thank goodness for most of the time are not routine. Take a walk in the woods, the gardens, or just watch the ebb of humanity as they flow past you. Each face is a story, each walk a dance of dreams and hopes and you ask yourself so many questions not from idle curiosity but from gratitude that you can feel. It is also at some level a type of sameness, the everyday hunger in its varied forms. The hunger to feel the love of another human soul beating as closely as yours, and in tandem with your dreams.
It really does not feel like it is routine to come into the room and see the happy smile of a child in welcome. It feels all tingly and warm when you have agonized about the rightness of a decision and you find someone agrees with you. Essentially thus, routine or sameness or boredom is a choice. We can look into creation and pick from it the essentials we need to fashion our own compass. That is living and life thus cannot be a routine as to be boring.
There are some basic things we have taken for granted and expect as given. We take as given, that we should open our eyes each day to the glory of a creation we have spent millennia trying to understand. Maybe we should stop the yawn mid-way and take a slow look around. We are in the world not part of it but we are in it for a purpose I imagine or else what would be the essence of dreams? Somehow the essentials we need to make life worth living are always available.
Just imagine if the air got bored just being there for us? Just imagine if the seas just got bored being host to all the marine life forms in it. Imagine if the mountains just got almighty tired of us and moved off! Just imagine if all of creation just got bored with us in it as the moaning and groaning lot we are at the moment and closed shop as it were?
Life offers the constant motion to move, change the fabric we do not care for and weave any design we wish. Life is definitely not boring for it is constantly creating and recreating opportunities for us. Close your eyes, feel on the windows on your heart, the softness of the morning dew like a silky petal bringing the soft kiss of a shy sun on your sleep caressed soul with the promise that yesterday is history. Here comes today, pregnant and anxious to deliver to you all you wish.
If you had but a second to reflect, you will really not see anything as a routine not even the grind of a global recession! Now you definitely would not! Life cannot be a routine but a constant celebration to weave the brightest sheen you possibly can, after all creation sent the sun, the rain, the snow, and all its other creatures to let you know the Creator has you in mind!
When you consider all these, you will be hard put to say life is a routine. Life is the most exciting journey we ever embarked upon and sometimes the destination or bus stop could become fuzzy but it really is exciting being able to say, I am a member of the great Creation Story.

Imagine

In a room full of laughter
your soul is quiet

In a cold dank cell
the heat of your longing
keeps you sweating

The starry skies
the soft call of doves
brings you close to tears

Butterflies flit the air
buttercups in your hair
you should be laughing

The thump of your heart
as you sit by the hearth
and the embers glow golden

How lonely the stars feel
how desperately I miss you
how long I sat in the dark
your hand to touch in the dark
one soul to beat as mine
Imagine…
If really you could
Just imagine.

When you know...

If it needs propping,
if it limps,
it needs defending,
If it needs support,
If it needs enforcement,
It is not the truth.

If it needs a vote,
If it needs a voice,
If it needs soldiers,
If it needs bolsters,
It is not the truth.

If it is relative,
If it is combative,
If it is discriminative,
If it is aggressive
It is not the truth.

If it stands freely,
If it serves truly,
If it stands impersonal,
If it stands eternally,
Then it is the truth.
The truth is life,
The truth is light,
The truth furthers
The truth strengthens

Seek the truth,
So you can truly be free.

Bury Me in a Prado Jeep

In his teens
greed for wealth
he went into contest
with his peers from other side of the street.

The need to have a ride
whether earned or not
so he whispered his longing
to the representative of the oracle
tell the stars
I want a Prado Jeep

Bring to the grove,
the innocence of
the blood of one untried
and soon the wealth is yours
croaked the old wizard

He stole a twin
with the promise of candied sweets
and offered the wizard
the strangled cry of the twin;
the agonized torture of a mother
the fearful haunting
the beheaded grimace of innocence
as silent witness
tore his sleep to pieces

from the tiny watching eyes
he had buried four feet standing by the stream
to the stern looks of justice
in the dock at last
he revises his need
to obtain without sweat
the luxury of death


as the hammer fell on his life
a whispered longing escaped
his parched cracked lips
one more last request
bury me in a Prado jeep!

He was buried him in a Prado grave
six feet standing upright
next to the tiny staring eyes
by the stream
of his warped dreams!

Waiting for GODOT

You really have taken your time haven’t you? I am sure I haven’t seen much of you this year!

Well, first I had to see some of my friends you know

and settle the question.

What question? Oh you mean you were one of them?

Of who? We are peaceful people, went to see my chairman. He really is a good negotiator, we agreed finally on the prize for his release?

What? You mean he is a party to…

Keep your voice down. Will you?

Now let us look at our Project. The boys have shown the stuff they are made of. I bet a lot of you have wide smiles when we brought the eggs out. Beautiful deadly eggs that we wanted you to hatch if you dared. Well your brother blinked and so we are now negotiating together, you should be smiling

I thought you guys had accepted the amnesty deal

Well, you don’t look a gift horse in the mouth do you? You think what they offer will keep the boys peaceful? It is only a matter of time. Where are they going to be getting the pittance they want to pay us from? I wish horses could really fly

I am not talking about a horse but a car, an expensive one. Wished my father had not left the police force!

Have you seen Richard?

Yeah, I heard they promoted him for stopping the eggs getting to port

Well, he is out of a job now. The chairman..

That you kidnapped?

Honestly, we are having a problem convincing the boys we need the peace.

Excuse me, but we don’t have a welfare state do we? I think it was pretty decent the amount that was voted to help them reha..

What is it now?

Richard makes an average of one hundred and fifty thousand a day

He could be dead in another twenty four hours, he is lucky we are not going to prosecute him

It is the season of peace and love.

Really? How did you manage to bring all these arms into the country?

Curiosity killed the cat.

You fellows don’t know the fine points of good public relations!

This is a good month. Creation renews itself and wears a new garb. Shall we wash our dirty clothes once and for all and take a look at a new dawn for the Peace Project Let us take these cowboys of creation to the laundry and have real wash. We all want a new country we wish to be proud of, but I wonder if we are prepared to lift a finger to help in the wash. Those who wish to attain the cold purity of the mountain heights, must be able to make the strenuous climb. How many of us really and truly give our supposed leaders a close second look? In my days, you don’t get a chieftaincy title just because your bank balance is hefty! It has gotten so bad that wives are seriously thinking of giving their husbands chieftaincy titles so he can look the other way when they fraudulently convert house -keeping cash for those endless headgears! We make such a moan about the level of corruption in the country but really do we believe this? Bribery to us is an automatic reflex action or thought! You know if there was any bidding going for this country and it was only one person left, he will offer a bribe to get it! Until he realizes no one is interested except himself!

Our very honourable thieves in all tiers of government may not be happy with the president. One civil servant in righteous anger told me that he is upsetting the apple cart! No matter how big your backside, it gets disgraced with a small fart! That is how he put it! The men in black are still doing business as usual because there is just no other way? The Eleventh commandment is ‘Thou shalt not get caught’? These kings who must have a fleet of cars for their bloated desires and egos will almost sell everything of the kingdom to fatten their bank accounts! Honour should not be for sale! It should be earned! When custodians of integrity dole and sell our collective dignity, on which wall shall we nail our theses?

Story telling: a lost African art

In the old days in Africa, we taught ourselves values through stories. We had quite a lot of stories. We used all the methods we could then. Some stories were songs that spoke of the heroic battles of our heroes. We had heroes that everyone in the community could identify with. We had stories of animals through which we told our children the virtues of life like honesty, honour, loyalty and courage. Animals represented different things and concepts. For instance from my part of the world, we had stories of tortoise being shown as wily, cunning, sometimes hilarious but always with an underlying lesson for us. It was natural every evening after the day's work to sit by the fireplace, or under a big tree and hear of the escapades of the tortoise. However in all these stories of the tortoise, a thread of a code of ethics was woven for us. It was usual at the end of each story for the story teller to ask us the listening children, what was the lesson of the story.

In the broader sense at the government level, we had festivals, that were used to teach the leaders the essence of honour and integrity. Such festivals were usually some kind of masque in which erring leaders were lampooned in songs, drama and such devices that sent the message home. It was understood that the actors of any masque could not be punished. The victim who felt very bad at being lampooned would naturally keep to his farm for a few days and weeks depending on the severity of the satire. He returned to the larger community after a time hoping everyone had forgiven or forgotten that misdemeanor. You however notice that in his anxiety not to have the same experience the following year, he would amend his ways.

Society was friendly, knew its place and governance was at most times benevolent and inclusive. Story telling had its uses and was a simple form of entertainment as well as instrument of instruction. Sadly however, the story is radically different today in my part of the world. The only viable story telling we can tell each other these days are of poverty, disease,(some really strange ones our forefathers never heard of) and of our insensitivity to each other. In those golden yesteryears, a thief could not find succor in any place unless he changed his ways. His family disowned him. His community would reject him and no matter how wealthy he became, he was never given a chieftaincy title. The community will watch him in derision if he even attempted to contribute to the common wealth of the people.

Today, there is no more story telling. There is no more sitting by the big tree to watch the moon, sing to the moon or tell stories of the escapades of the tortoise. There are no more moonlit games or wrestling or folksongs or beauty pageants in which we show off our African hairdos. What we have now is the television that has made apes out of the dignified African, the fashion that has stripped us naked and left us naked. The thieves get chieftaincy titles now and sometimes decided the course of a people that was once proud and self sustaining.

We can still go back to the story telling days. We can still use stories to change our concepts to something noble and uplifting. We may not be able to physically sit by the big tree, but we can still tell stories about honour and integrity for these stories are as timeless as the virtues they preach. It is the essence of real civilization. Do we still have good story tellers?

Death

i saw him across the room

we exchanged glances once in a while

he threw me a smile then a wink

he would escort someone to the door and shoo them out

there was a fellow next to him who seemed to hover all the time

I wondered as I tried to get a connection with the old guy upstairs

then he came over

he looked nice

he wore this and that

in a mild voice he said

don't mind all the noise people say about me

I am nice really

a good escort it is my twin that causes all the uproar

he walked away I asked after his twin

He turned and smiles

I am death this is my twin –fear

Accidents in Creation

Accidents by their very meaning imply something unplanned for. A vacuum existing without reason, form, or rationale. A lack of the understanding of the immutable laws of creation lends itself to the quite illogical conclusion that there can be accidents in creation.
We understand accident as an unplanned mishap, that may result in injury, damage or something unpleasant. Scientist say creation was the result of a big bang, an accident, but we know deeply that our coming to Earth cannot just be by accident! In truth, things do not just happen. Life did not just come about unplanned, but as a result of development and grace.
When we say we met someone by accident, or shrug and say it was a chance happening it is simply because we lack the knowledge of understanding one of the basic laws of creation, The laws in absolute accordance with the will of the creator to ensure Justice, love and Mercy.
These laws ensure that there can be no accidents in creation, and probably underlines the reason for the stricture of Christ when he said ‘if ye are slapped on one cheek… in essence, turn the other for we may not know the history of the slap or from where it had originated. But the love of the Lord makes it possible for us to right pass wrongs when the seeds of this wrong have ripened and we are perforce made to partake of it.
This law of sowing and reaping is so finely worked that a wrong may never go unaccounted for with the same token our good seeds come to us for it to be redeemed as well. So when situations sometimes occur that look somewhat arbitrary, it is so because we lacked the knowledge to understand the beginning of the apparent chance meeting or happening. These so called chance meetings or accidents are loving opportunities from the Almighty Father to redeem threads of our weaving.


Every opportunity is made available by the creator for us to make progress so we can return to paradise to experience our deep longing to be conscious in the closest proximity of the Light..If we understand that seeds we sow have different times of maturing, as creation teaches us through our agricultural activities, we may thus recognize that the maturing our acts of spiritual sowing will mature at different times and for some maybe several incarnations before the fruit is ripened.
The nature of our activity from the moment of our sowing to when the fruit ripens determines if the harvesting might simply be pleasant or unpleasant.It may be having someone over-run your goods, or you walk into an office and you happen to be the one that can be employed for that dream job you never thought you could get or even miss boarding a plane that later crashes with no survivor. It was not really an accident or chance. It is in accordance with the law and underlined when Christ declared in absolute terms that not one law will go unfulfilled.

THE POLITICS OF THE SPHINX

I am thinking of going back to school. No, it is to learn some old Egyptian script. I think it is the only way I will understand the new language of the politician. Suddenly we need a new dictionary to understand simple greetings. This year will be recorded in creation as the most bewildering and interesting the history of our street. It is the year in which what you say does not have to be believed even if you act it out because we have boxed ourselves into a corner. The psychiatrist will watch us with quite a lot of interest. We badly want to accept that what our leaders tell us is gospel, but then have you ever heard of honor amongst thieves?

But why are you sighing?

I am sighing because you are such a dreamer and I wish I have a way to ask you to accept the inevitable

You mean I do not have a choice about the present situation in my street?

You could always emigrate; there is not much difference from one thief to another, not really

Hey! Trying to kill yourself or something why did you take off like that?

I find it amusing and strange, even alarming that we have collectively decided on selective hearing…

My grandmother used to say if you know someone is a liar wait until you catch him out in the lie then…..

Wow!

I did not say you had to yell!

So what do I do with these new set of thieves?

A friend of mine gave a yowl of pain when I said that. I understood him. He was a member of the last rat pack in my street and ate himself obese! These days, his neck is beginning to look the worse for wear! Why do we really find it so hard to learn what service is truly meant to be? Have you ever seen them after they have been elected into office? First, they spend precious time fighting each other to accept the legality or illegality of the election. The ‘elected’ official is so wrapped up in ensuring his pot of mess that he converts the street treasury to his personal treasury. Then comes the new words, new promises

Then there is the political collateral damage.

You mean political appointees?

I mean political victims.

If you ever smiled at any of the old thieves..

But they are thieves! You had no business smiling at them!

Seems you all are together, this is the only street where there are no living heroes until they are dead and not likely to challenge your claims!

Stick with the point

I really think you should go back to school. You know the whole frigging lot and learn first the true meaning of the word service

To who? Now I distinctly remember that you did not vote for me. I will have you know that I am a duly elected member of this street!

Your case is still in court

But I won

Your opponent did not think so, international observers said…

Oh, the international observers only wanted to be considered for a contract my opponent promised them..
Ostrich!

What?

I said you did not tell me you had changed your name?

What?

Shouldn’t you return to the courtroom, I think I see the judge coming in?

What?

The Bailiff's visit

It rained the day the bailiff came
the clouds huddled together
his knock was muffled
by the rumbles of thunder
and the cries of the children

With the moon in his eyes.
he stared at the children
with hunger in their bellies
in a croak he announced
‘Summons to a divorce’
Something stuck in his throat
her hand in the pot
heart in her eyes, she shook her head
as the sun wailed with her
it rained the day the bailiff came

The soup smelled of her burnt hopes
the children ate from the
shards of pain left behind.
they made dreams out of tears
fed from the sweat of her brows
she became frayed with nerves
but defied the day the bailiff came

A score and ten years later
the silver streaked her hair
the children made garlands
from dreams they held
buoyed by the fire of her spirit

Now a smile of peace
her heart mended
by the rain that soaked
away her pain
left behind, the day the bailiff came

Peace

He who cannot walk away
From his anger,
Cannot in trust,
Approach the peace of Love.

Those who betray us,
Those who revile us,
Those who hate us,
Show through their ugliness,
The awesome beauty,
Of Light’s compassion,
As they mirror to us,
What we must never be.