BMK II JMK (Part two)

Sometimes memories sneak out of my eyes and roll down my cheeks – Anonymous

Dad, I know you see her and I know that you approve. I still wish you were here to see her in her full splendour. I now know how you felt when you met mum. True; mum was you’re your childhood sweetheart but this one makes me want her to have been my childhood sweetheart. I know you understand exactly how that works. I still wish that you had been around to see what she has made of the clay that you left.

It’s been 17 years since you left and seven since I wrote you but that doesn’t mean that you have not been in my every waking thought. Your girls are doing just fine by the way; I know you always need an update.

Kache is now “Aunty B”. “Tibwi” to some but we all know what wellington means when he says it. That’s not his real name but you know which grandson I am talking about. Did I mention that you are granddad twice over? Been that long huh? Well you are- old man.

Kache as I was saying is now a guiding light shedding and shredding us all with little nuggets of wisdom like you have never seen. You would be proud of your first born for all the light that she sheds on all our paths.  She does it gracefully with an iron fist in a velvet glove demeanour.

Mathew is up there with you bumping to soul and smiling that wolfish smile that we sorely miss down here. I have a feeling that you wish he was here with us and not nagging you about the car engines and transmissions that you taught him. Well tell him he is an uncle now and he should be teaching these younglings some dance moves down here.

Sidi has never lost her way and continues to be the rock that you left her. She has ceded no ground in her faith nor in the family on whose rock you built this family. She remains our Peter on whom Christ raised his church and on whom you raised us in the way. I am still amazed at how steadfast she has always been.

Speaking of Peter, Matilda married a chap by that name. It’s funny how I always thought that your baby girl for the longest time (Six years was it?) would end up with a guy so like you in so many regards. He is above all the most reliable guy I know, in everything. It’s uncanny how much I look up to my kid sisters’ husband. Sometimes when he calls her name I can hear that whistle you used in the way he calls her name.

She is called Xhosie now; not the “everything” that you called her. I guess they are everything to each other her music and her. She named her son “Wira” I guess because at the time music before him was everything to her; that’s the “Wellington” I referred to earlier. He is named after you. He has your chubby cheeks (Something I wouldn’t dare say to your face since he also has your stern countenance and temperament)

Miriam is everything that I thought you envisioned. Woe is the man who comes asking for her hand; he will part with a pretty penny in dowry I will make sure it is not “Kahunda”. She has blossomed into a noteworthy young woman. She has so much to live for and has achieved so much in such a short time I fear she might yet eclipse us all in her accomplishments. You see her I am sure your heart leaps every time she tackles anything with the fervour that could only have come from you and mom.

The apple of your eye, Janet, continues to astound me and your first grandson “JJ” (Also named after you!) with her sweetness. You had a knack for names, didn’t you? Haluwa showers that boy with so much love and affection I fear for the boy. But you knew she would be the glue that holds us all together with love and consideration even when we are all losing our heads. She reminds us every day that we are a family and that we must stick together. She might be the youngest but she comports herself with the maturity and wisdom of the sages of India.

Your beloved Agnes I do not think mere words can do justice. As I write this tears are streaming down my eyes thinking about how strong she has had to be to not only steer her girls into ladies but me into a man that you would be proud of (The jury is still out on the latter but I know the former is true).  Dad, your life partner that you left behind has never wavered from the task of raising your progeny, she has been our collective true north. I have never needed any map except her intuition to get me where I needed to get.

She has done the utmost to ensure that we all get where life wanted us to get to. I cannot fathom asking her for more than she has done and I cannot begin to imagine what I would have done without her guiding light leading me to harbour every time I was close to running aground. Sometimes I think that she has a seventh sense because we all know mothers have a sixth sense but she has an extra one because of all the times she has come to my rescue just in the nick of time. I also know she has done this for all your children.

JMK She really is one in a million and I know that I am biased but there is no way women like the one you picked are a dime a dozen. I could not be prouder to have been borne by her and I only hope that I can be an iota of the man that you were and are because I know that even up there you are still setting standards. I only hope that I can get high enough to reach them before I join you. Say a big ‘Word Up!” to MKK  for me will you ?” Love always BMK.

I choose…

Not until or unless we realize that we as a people are both the marble and the sculptor we implode. We shall forever live under the yoke of negative ethnicity, despondency, despair and failure. In the place of a beacon of social, economic and political progression envisaged by others before us who shed blood sweat and tears to attain. We shall leave ruins. You and I are the custodians of the future of our progeny not our leaders whom we deserve since we the people gave them that mandate-(Both in government and out of it.)

We the people are the custodians of our own fate and that of our progeny. We the people are the only ones who can decide if this country burns or if it prospers. It will always be we the people who are judged by history for it is we who are the shepherds of the future of our offspring. We can opt to be sheep and wallow in the blame game and scream about where the buck stops or we can bend ourselves pick up the buck and run with it.

I am evolutionarily superior to sheep. I refuse to be herded to my death as I watch. I am neither helpless nor hapless. I have a choice to simply shut out the cacophony of a political class hell bent on dragging us all down the path to self-destruction. I have a choice to shout down the beldam of spurious leaders, naysayers, bottom feeders and inciters whose only objective is to drown out the already soundless screams of innocent blood needlessly spilt. I have the choice to banish to oblivion the whispers of ignominious scoundrels who would like vultures want to tear down my country for the sole intent of picking at its carrion for their own dubious ends. I have a choice to question everything that I know will only end in distracting the society that I cherish to the point of destruction.

I choose to avoid listening to the ceaseless litany of problems and opt to look within for solutions instead. I choose life over death, wealth of knowledge and ideas to mediocrity and ignorance. I choose enterprise over apathy. I choose right over wrong. I choose to stand steadfast against all manner of injustice real or perceived including those I would inflict on myself. I choose to mull over what my neighbors says first and not to respond fast without musing over the impact of my response. I choose realize that the problem is not always the hurdle but the problem is the way I perceive the problem. What do you choose?

Epic Fail.

Your government has failed you. That is the plain and obvious truth. Jubilee, CORD, AMANI, TIP et al. They sit in their plush offices and abuse the power that you handed to them. They are deaf to the will of the people; they pass laws that strip away your rights and your dignity. They laugh as they use their influence to amass personal wealth, uncaring as they crush the average mwananchi in the process. The system is broken.

Your leaders have failed you. The chasm that separates us from the leadership is always widening, whilst you and I wax lyrical; hurling abuse at each other on twitter. They snigger and hunker down further into the recess of their next elaborate scheme to rob you blind before they come asking for your permission to do so again for another five years. The system seems irreparable.

Your champions have failed you. For every fearless person that challenges the system is swallowed into the quicksand of the mire of corruption. We have seen them rise and fall. We have watched and cried as our heroes turn human. Swallowed by the deftness and efficacy of the system to sour the purest of intentions to bend or break the few sprouts of hope that emerges. The system smothers.

You have failed you. You have failed to hold your leaders and your government accountable to you. It is your taxes that they pay themselves with. You are the collateral they use to drive us all collectively into larger debt. You have become sheep; enslaved and shepherded by tribe and dogma. You misuse the only power that you have to haul yourself from the precipice of bondage. Your own wool used to obscure the path before you. The system is just a tool. We are broken, but not beyond redemption.

Sugar, spice and everything in between……….

Cigarette smoke swirled above the crowd like a collective halo. The dank smell of a cheap cigar wafted through the mixed aroma of bar fare, cologne drenched sweat, booze and the occasional heady but slightly fecal “weed-breadth”. The thought of attempting to grab a drink subconsciously brought on the theme of “Mission Impossible”. Parched throat, dry lips and a pocketful of crumpled notes prevailed. The fact that there did not seem to be a single waiter in sight helped too. Things were not looking up this Friday evening.

The light drizzle outside and the July sting in the air did nothing to indicate a lifting in fortunes south of the waistline either. Nothing for it but to wade through the sea of humanity ahead to the oasis of boozy fervor behind the bar counter. The place was packed to the rafters, all limbs and faces rapt in the moment and yet I became aware of a deep loneliness welling up. In that eclectic and electric atmosphere it was almost palpable- the loneliness I mean.

The first elbow that rammed mercilessly into my ribcage reminded me of the rules of engagement in such places. I retracted my own elbows around my scraggly frame took a deep breath and made the final push to the Promised Land. Just then the crowd parted in front of me. I instinctively stopped my foot mid-air and mid-step just in time to avoid bumping into a poor chap doubled over getting sick. I side stepped him and thought to myself he must have swung by a “Wines and spirits “for some cheap shots. It was barely two weekends after pay day and not yet eight for heaven’s sake!

The commotion I heard behind me told me the resident bouncers had swung into action. Bouncers, like cops, only show up after the event, why don’t they ever show up before the fists or puke starts flying? It was too drab a night to muse on such philosophical indulgences. It seemed a good a time as any to start getting cooked; the place was warm enough for it anyway. This was not really my scene. I prefer quite little places where the women are older the booze cheap and cold like the women. Forget all the talk about over achieving and independence, cynicism will get you laid!

I was meeting a friend from work who swore on everything that was holy that he had the “perfect hook up” for me. I had balked at the term hook up and that alone should have dissuaded me. However it is bad form to not let a rookie salesperson “Close” you from time to time and Kim was a hell of a salesman! Still I missed my local where I did not have to dodge somebody else’s dinner or the ricochet from what was supposed to be a well-aimed beer bottle.

Just as I got the bar tenders’ attention my pocket buzzed lightly. I ignored it long enough to make my order. I crushed the earpiece to my ear shouting just one word repeatedly “BAR! BAR! BAR!” The tap on my shoulder came before my drink. Kim was towering behind me a huge smile and an armload of women in tow. They must have been in their early twenties and I felt like a lonely, dirty old man. That was quickly replaced by panic as the image of my immediate future flashed before my eyes.

By my reckoning there were at least three mojito guzzlers, vodka and lime and or a gin and tonic somewhere there too! Visions of screeches of “Shots! Shots! Shots!” came at me as I patted my pocket of crumpled notes for assurance. None was forthcoming. Only two of those notes had three zeroes. Thank God for plastic! I thought as my drink and change were thrust in my face. Kim motioned for me to follow him and the crowd parted before him as he led us to some booths at the back of the club.

As I tried to make out the real aesthetic value behind the heavily made up faces, Kim introduced me as his boss (now my goose was well and surely cooked).He then barked out and pointed out at lightning speed a range of weirdly absurd first names that I promptly forgot. The first round came just as I began to fiddle with my phone. I was looking for a way out without seeming like the broke asshole that I was contemplating on becoming in a few minutes. Unsurprisingly; four mojitos, a white Russian and gin and tonic. I felt bad about leaving Kim holding the bag but I knew how this scene was going to unfold. Like I said earlier things were not looking up.

I had gone through these motions before and was not looking forward to it. The first part was already well under way, drinks followed by polite banter; feigned interest in what I did for a living. Kim would try to slur shop through his drunken haze in an attempt to impress the ladies. He would probably throw in some embellishments on his role at the company for good measure. Then inevitably when we had the good sense to ask for the bill Kim and I would huddle, he would haggle and I would pay.

We would proceed to another stupidly expensive sports bar where they would play the news at nine, ten and probably eleven. The same would happen there, another huddle and haggle over the bill, while the ladies were powdering their noses. Then maybe some dancing before the girls drew straws on whom would end up with whom. Like I said I had been around the block and there was no Pulitzer award winning story to be told here. Halfway through my thoughts though I sized up my rather bleak options and prospects.

Go home to my prized Godfather DVD box set, pirated movies and half-drank bottle of jack. Maybe call one of my friends with benefits, spend a small fortune on cab fare and drinks and wake up with a stocking next to my stubble or Dive head along into the immediate future and hopefully Kim came through on the perfect hook up. (That I use the term albeit in my head should tell volumes about my state of mind)

I felt the shroud of loneliness envelope me tighter and beaming from ear to ear turned and drawled in my deepest baritone ”Hi!” . I tried gamely to go through the awkward generational gap impeded small talk. The high pitched acronyms I noted to Google later. In the midst of this bedlam I asked myself where all the good girls had gone.
“Home to their boyfriends…” I dismissed my stubbornly sober subconscious, ordered another drink and imagined that all the girls around were made of sugar, spice and everything nice not the flurry of bills, bills, bills and pending paternity suits before me. YOLO!

Bard Attitude

A sensation, a manifestation of capitulation to temptation,
Eventual culmination in an ethereal explosion crescendo’s exclamation,
Satisfaction in the gradual exhalation of pent up frustration; elation
Indoctrination in the subtle arts of anatomical juxtapositions
A vocation that evokes the nuances of a fruitful vacation
The result of successful murmured, whispered endearing elocution
The completion of induction into the realm of seduction
Man is the location and woman is the destination,
Did you understand the explanation or would you prefer a demonstration?

The Wet One Resurfaces…..

The Wet One Resurfaces…...

The Wet One Resurfaces…..

So the year of the snake has got off to a pretty slithery start. Once more I find myself on a slippery path to certain turmoil. I thought the ghosts of past dalliances could not possibly bite so early in the year. How wrong I was to make such an assumption. And oh what a tangled web we weave while we are at it.

Just a couple of hours after the New Year I bumped into “The wet one!” Of all the gin joints in the entire world she had to be at the very last one I hit that night. As a rule I always fly solo on new years eve , not because I am on the prowl or anything but more to evaluate the year past over a couple of cold ones . Then promptly get myself into new trouble as soon as possible once midnight has come and gone.

I figure that if I get the dating jinx out of the way early enough , the rest of the year should go pretty smoothly save a couple of tears and insults here and there. Nothing could have prepared me for this bombshell though. And what a bombshell it was! She had blossomed as beautifully as I had never imagined and she had the same effect on me as the first time we met. No preliminaries zero to hard in all of two seconds.

For a second or two (OK for what seemed like an interminably long time) I was shell shocked; floundering for an appropriate form of greeting. None was forthcoming and I simply leaned in for the hug gracefully averting my vexed countenance whilst giving myself away southward at the same time. As I wrested my flustered self away from her awkwardly I managed a half heartedly upbeat mumble “How have you been? You look great!”

“I can tell.” She beamed back with the same evil twinkle that I knew in her eyes even as she broke out in the same old infectious giggles. The glib retort I was about to deliver never left my lips. Confused, tongue-tied and breaking into a thin film of sweat I attempted to gain quick composure and failed miserably. In my head I was blaming the copious amounts of white caps I had consumed but I had the sinking sensation that I was deluding myself.

You see the reason for my discomfiture was quite simple. The wet one is one of those conundrums of dating. We never really broke up. She just up and vanished one day like a silent fart in the wind. Cell phone off, empty apartment, AWOL at work, not even her friends knew where she had gone or refused to let on I assumed at the time. Her folks I had never met nor had we ever spoken of for that matter. It was like she went into witness protection or something. Eventually I stopped waiting for the phone to ring and moved on.

Then, boom! Out of the blue there she was like an erotic nightmare I was groggily trying to expunge from memory. I excused myself and went in search of a cold frothy beverage to calm my nerves and cool myself down. As I leaned over the counter frantically trying to get some service she stood next to me a let out a cat whistle that ad the barman scrambling to where I stood . At that exact instant I knew that my goose was basted, cooked, and garnished.

Drink firmly in hand I was led away like a lamb to slaughter though Dutch courage seemed to diffuse from the bottle to my veins as she strode a little jiggly (in all the right places I might add) but resolutely toward the dance floor. As she began to sashay rhythmically to the beat I thought to myself “Abandon hope all Ye who venture here!” I kept time and pace gamely, keeping mum all the while, sipping slowly, drinking in her voluptuous form, keeping distance knowing all the time that this posturing was an effort in futility and that she knew it too.

Eventually I relented and leaned in close, feeling her breath on my neck, her bosom heaving against my puny chest, smothering me with her warmth and musky smell mingled with sweat and the promise of what was to come. I had an inkling of what a moth feels like as they plummet to their fiery grave: helpless. All thoughts of escape had by this time vanished and I was content just saying there in her embrace long buried emotions stirring, relentlessly surging to the surface; refuting banishment, manifesting their bittersweet selves nonetheless.

Drink still in hand but forgotten I reached with my spare hand to familiarize myself with the contours I had come to know so well. Gently but firmly my hand was removed from the small of her back and pushed further up. “I’m sorry” she whispered “Let go of me.” Once again she disappeared into the crowd like an apparition. My entire being shouted at me to go in hot pursuit but my legs were firmly rooted to the spot.

Emotionally drained, I sank into the nearest empty seat ignoring the drunken slurred protests of previous occupancy. None the wiser but feeling like I was in the vortex of an emotional “super storm Sandy” I left. I got into a cab and went home. Bereft of all sensory capacity I curled under my duvet, intoxicated by both the booze and the smell of her haunting, lingering in my nostrils. I drifted off to a dreamless sleep. I wondered before I succumbed gratefully to the blackness engulfing me what other horrors the year of the snake had in store for me. 363 days to go. This will be one long snake………..

Introspection

Introspection.

Introspection

It is that time of the year again when introspection forces me to crawl out of my shell and wax lyrical. So here I go again! A word to the wise though before my regurgitate clouds your senses. This is not an ode to the past year, rather a testament to surviving the last 365 days which have been the most recent bane of my otherwise nondescript existence.

My compulsion to expound on the past year is more from compunction than anything else really. It was full of life, smothered by death, characterized by despair and hope, fraught with disappointment and marked by resolve, it was the year of redemption and salvation with a smattering of resolve.

2012 was the journey of self-discovery and the year that some things came full circle, the year when bridges were rebuilt and when some new ones were razed to the ground, the year of tomfoolery and unwitting wisdom.

2012 went by in a blur but at some moments seemed to stand still;it was the year of emergence and submergence of emotions hitherto unbeknownst to me. It was like setting off on a journey that has no destination. It was the year that I began to understand the meaning of the word “purpose”. The year of irony.

2012 was the year when I first understood how fast 365 days could go by with a reasonable amount of meaning despite the flurry of inundated “nothings” comings forth as measurable quantifiable infinites. It was the year of self-discovery, yes; it was also the year that I lost myself in me. For the first time I understood what I was all about. It was the year I found out what I am meant to do with the rest of my life.

That might sound precocious or arrogant to some but 2012 taught me many things. 2012 taught me first that a bad beginning is the making of a fairy tale and that they (fairy tales) do not exist all in the same breadth. It taught me that there is no such thing as destiny. You make of what you are given; you eke out of the dregs of reality your own Nirvana.

2012 was my very own Gethsemane. 2012 was the length and simultaneously the width. It was everything and it was nothing. It was infinite in scope and scary wonderment of the inextricable that has lain bare yet unseen right before my eyes. Revelation of concealment unhidden unless re-evaluated and skinned to its bare essence.

2012 was the ultimate rambling, I did not write as much as I would have liked yet I did. Not on paper but I discovered that the fecundity of my mind was not limited and never has been but that I have always caged it, out of fear or pure ignorance I am yet to decipher. 2012 was the year that I unleashed myself on me. I tried myself, tested myself and found myself wanting, waiting.

2012 led me to believe that the definition of me is indefinable. I also discovered that I am a little bit of a mental hemophiliac, I don’t want 2012 back, I want it all gone. 2012 made me realize that clocks are not meant to keep time,you keep time, chronometers will simply tell you what time it is. A grand allusion to the illusion of the passage of time. The only true measure of time is laughter.

Everything else is inconsequential and blocked out subliminally, death, loss, distress, rejection, angst, they are all kept under wraps and never define a period but a moment, laughter is the true test of time. God bless me 2012 was a year of unbridled laughter, from the moment I woke up on some days to the portent of the following day on others.

2012 saw me tethered, tittering and tottering over the cusp of the precipice into oblivion and in other instances I clawed myself from the edge hand hold by finger hold to haul myself to the brink of self actualization and back to oblivion. 2012 was the year of the indecipherable most intricate cipher that unraveled right before my eyes. It was the year of simplicity.

And yet as 2013 begins I find that a lot of the lessons that I learnt in 2012 were as a result of the meaning of the original message lost in translation ergo 2013 shall be my year of acute perception, focus and ultimately redemption. In 2013 I wish for laughter, always laughter above all else.

Somniloquy

Somniloquy.