Big Feet

Feet as wild as yours
Could sweep the streets in aisles
They should be shod like a horse
Or tamed with emery files

At Least, Not More Than ...

I suffered the captain of the B Black Stars this morning, on Joy FM’s sports news, coolly declare that they would beat the B Super Eagles by ‘at least not more than 3 goals.’

Now, if you would permit me to go and make breakfast (by frying the egg that ought to be on his face) while you flounder at decoding his most-confusing cipher, I’m sure your high logic would gather my pain.

I’ve heard too many people deploy words, but especially phrases, that they don’t understand. I hear many say ‘at least’ when they clearly mean ‘at most’. But, ‘at least, not more than 3 goals’ is surely a medal-winning gaffe.

‘At least’ being a floor, and ‘at most’ a ceiling, I do not think the B Black Stars really intend to play in that match. What they seek to do is simply impossible for footballers ... or even politicians.

Untitled

He's sleeping in the office
That wavering woman of his
Has done her thing again
He's running from the pain

Three

All triangles
Have three sharp angles
It's thrilling to be paired
But three can only hurt

Flagrant Attraction

Beauty lies in the art of exposure – of body, mind and soul!

I locked up late from work last night, and kindly :-) offered to take a colleague most of the way home. Now the homeward wind doesn’t waft me through the other parts of the City of Accra like Adabraka and Dansoman, to lap up the preferred female nether-wear. But, at Madina-Adenta, the miniskirts frolic-flock out to make the mouth of the night crawler water. Straight-cut, figure-hugging, cellulite-serving, A-line-ish, fluttering-flower-petal, booty-banquet, you get the whole, bare-stripped idea.

There must be some charm-conjuring interplay among the drooling darkness, the wily wan light and the beguiling almost-clothing. The miniskirt, you see, is brazenly based on wild imagination. What’s not there is much more than what is (both physically and mentally). Cowardly critics and weak-willed moralists see a slimy basilisk poised to strike, instead of a drop-dead-gorgeous demoiselle. Think unsubtle art, otherwise you see garment, rump and stumps, instead of hills and valleys; rivers and waterfalls; soft-lined highways to lovely lands.

Zain Zugzwangs MTN

While all Accraians are mulling mass migration to the ‘new experience’, the old guard is asleep – still MainTaiNing its unexplained inadequacies which cost us all time and money. And while the newcomers are zigZAggINg from Cape Three Points to the Paga Pond with innovative introduction, systematic seduction and electrifying entertainment, we see no responsive movement or MoTioN from the telecoms dodos. If they were looking hard, they would know about the more than 0.26 million Accraians who have already pre-registered to access the ‘new experience’.

The Ghost Carvers in the City of Accra

Fancy furniture, stone sculpture, frilly flower pots, crosswise-woven, kente cloth and fermenting flowers line up on the rough shoulders of the streets to the suburbs of the City of Accra, as Accraian artisans make a living on their skilful(?) creations (hopefully they all go to bed at night, and do not do dark deeds at night to up their ‘income’). The weavers on the loom, wicker workers, furniture makers and dilettante florists are up at daybreak creating art, beauty and business. And the carvings! Odum giraffes, Mahogany gazelles and Sapele rhinos range and illustrate the busy streets. What you will never see is a work in progress. You’ll see them polishing but never creating, carving; but they swear they did it themselves.

Minima Black

Forgive my shifting mind, but my best friend says my original template has more (he calls it) mystique than the others. So, to please him (yes, I listen) I'm back.

Blogophobia

Fellow bloggers, permit me to speak on behalf of as many of you as are like minded. I heard a man diss our craft on BBC on Tuesday, November 18, 2008. He called us untalented amateurs who should leave blogging for professional journalists to do. He keeps a blog himself, ergo, clearly in his elitist mind, he is supremely talented and qualified to blog.

When I blog, I want to write about simple, silly things. I want to create light reads. I did (and do) not set out to write serious stuff. If serious stuff results, it does so by accident. Serious heavy-lid topics are for others (boring people). The world has so many of them, and we’re still where we are – nowhere!

The snotty, poor-competing blogophobe does not live in Burma, China or Zimbabwe. His journalism is not censored; his life unthreatened. In many countries, the only news comes through blogging. It is the only window to lifestyle, culture, humanity. So must we wait for journalists who cannot write because the State hounds them, when ordinary people can still tell a story?

He said literary pieces on farting dogs get more reading on the internet than the serious stuff. I say so be it! Unless he has 101 farting Dalmatians in his living room, it is grand, grand news, and he’s being a hoity-toity hypocrite. The world takes itself too seriously anyway!

The Shadow Walkers

Whizzing homeward late after work, I happened on a man, who was no spring chicken, wandering in the wooded shadows with a kitten of a girl. Their bodies brushed over and over against each other, and uttered loose language. When my headlights groped their grovelling guilt, they seemed to shilly-shally, and then they came a yard or two apart, but they kept on waltzing with uneasy gait; he, with a stalking saunter, and she, beside him, with summary steps. The uneasiness betrayed that they knew they shouldn’t be there – a psychedelic fact which surely doubled their thrill. As the brightness slunk away, they quickened their steps again, and were soon lost to my rear-view mirror.

Three Decimal Places

My common measure of love is the barriers I’m easily willing to breach for a person, no matter what. I think of all the people that I love or that this society tells me that I love (sometimes giving me no choice) – family, friends, Lil Girl. Then, I look in the past. What has everyone asked of me? And how has everyone bruised me? By my reaction in each case, I know how much I love each of them to three decimal places.

Football - A View from Ghana

The ball rasps the net and drops in little bounces till it comes to rest on the cushion of grass behind the goalpost. The striker had cradled it in his broad chest, let it drift downwards, and booted it on-the-volley, twelve inches above the turf. The winger had deftly dummied it past himself, and torn after it down the flank. It had been a speedy counterattack, and he had only needed to skirt one tired lunge before floating it into the penalty box. It had started as a goal kick. The goalkeeper had launched the ball straight down the middle of the pitch, and seen the ball travel to number 10. Number 10 had feinted this way and half-turned that way, sweeping the entire opposing midfield out of his way. Then, he had lobbed the ball over a couple of legs to his team mate on the wing.

Football is rather like real life. No, football is real life dramatised in a grassy arena. You have to play the game; throw in hard tackles; ride the tackles of others; deal with censure and yellow cards; be buoyed by the cadence-cries of the fans cheering you on; throw the ball back in, when it goes out of play; rely on your team mates (be they family, friends or workmates). And football replays all life’s real problems in ninety minutes. It figures that we hate a goalless game.

Day One at Office Retreat

Day one
At office retreat
Having fun
With slogan repeat

The Simple Life

I'm making it simple
Nothing is half as bad
As it looked last night
I had no need to worry

The Shrew

Sharp tongue
Shallow heart
Carps long
Gallows tart

DIY or DI-Costly

I haven’t applied myself to DIY in anything. It has been labour-lightening to pay workmen to fix fractures, while pursuing more mental and sensual interests. So journeymen have always had their say and way with me. I tried a new mechanic yesterday, and found, to my horror, that my existing ‘expert’ was killing Maxine (my car). Allowing for the possibility that the new man was badmouthing the old in order to acquire the Maxine retainer, I discovered that Maxine was running hairy low on all essential liquids but petrol. And Maxine was serviced only a couple of weeks ago! Further, a constant, queer quivering was the outcome of a-dime-a-dozen replacement parts purchased ‘brand new’ by Old Mechanic with my nostril-hair-tweezed savings.

I’ve suffered too much to trust wholly in them, but I still have too little time for Maxine and the other things I call my own. I keep a few books strewn in dark, un-dusted nooks at home. One of them treats automobiles. I’m going to devour it whole this weekend, and make sure that no Accra mechanic takes Maxine for a ride, with or without me in her. My verdict on the new mechanic – he solved Maxine’s strange shivering, and created another one which simply wasn’t there in the morning. A rattling sound is singing sickly songs under the bonnet even on very smooth roads. I’ve changed my mind. I’ll start reading up on DIY even before the weekend comes! When basic auto repair, carpentry and plumbing are required, I'm going to fix it by DIM. Now, that’s said, oh for the time to fulfil this one-thousandth wish!

Post-Obama Epiphany

I’m not the only one to realise this swelling response. But while some gushed and gurgled in red-and-ready waterfalls, my epiphany evolved and sauntered from Normal Life to Hibernation to Mental Ovulation. And, here I am!

The answer is direct and unvarnished at the end of the experience. I am who I am; I must be! And I must breathe down the neck of my dream(s) – the thing(s) that make me jaunty and lightsome. The dreams that will make me happiest, in proud pursuit, are the ones with which I drove dull care away as a tender child.

Itching Palm

I can hardly wait
to caress, at my gate
tonight, the moment that's played
on my mind for days, and then always delayed!

Yes, We Can!

Martin Luther King Jr:
I have a dream.
Barack Hussein Obama:
I am the Dream!

My Writing Tools

My writing tool is mental – my merry-go-round mind. It must be playful and skittish, with wery wittle worry, for me to succeed at wasabi writing … if I ever write well. When I cannot check the influx and interplay of real life, then I cannot use my mental writing tool.

My writing device is emotional. A split bag of complex tangles to share. I find that extreme experience gives me adjectival fodder. The calm, soft centre is a writer’s block for me. I must love or loathe something to write wonderful things about it.

My writing world is spatial. I can write anything anytime anywhere. But my selective writing milieu is home, with nobody else within a millivolt mile, and the TV droning on somewhere. The best writing time for me is late at night, after 2 or more stress-free hours and no need to rise up at early-elf morning.

My writing instrument is physical. It is a pen, a pencil and a notebook. The same pen, pencil and notebook for a while, in order for my creative juices to condescend to flow on-the-quick-ask. It is not a keratin keyboard – no, that’s work, not art.

Hag Agape!

Wizened, still-young-ish woman! Something tells that her personal life has been far from austere. But she ranks monstrous beneath the grace of the about-to-be-named musical instrument. She’s sitting at a high-noon banking hall with her legs yawning wide, under her long skirt, like a concertina.

Burnt

Once you get burnt
A part of you is charred
And everywhere you go
You leave a trace of ashes.