Woman on the highway
Peeing down her thighway
While her man keeps watch
For the cops or Sasquatch
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Heavy Curtains, Pigs with Lipstick
In my Superior room, at dulcet dusk, Lil Girl glided round the heavy drapery onto the snug balcony for a breathtaking view of ivory-and-amber-lit, wooded, residential Kumasi. And I surveyed the sublime sights of her flowing roundnesses. I lent my ken, for a second, to the TV, for what McCain-busting move that god, Obama, was up to. Between pigs and a whole lot of laughable lipstick, I heard Lil Girl say, “Baby, I can’t find my way back in.” For a trice, I didn’t know what she meant. Then I saw hands on the carpet; lovely, shortened hair; a mischievous grin. Lil Girl had found her way back in by crawling on all fours under the portiere. On TV, the old man who first brought in the pigs with the lipstick was trying to pull down the curtains on his deliberate misinterpretation of the god’s wisecrack. He won't find his way back in.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Everybody's Love Triangle
Many years ago, I read Peter Abrahams’s ‘Mine Boy’. Even then, its rich ménage of themes came to life for me, but what really struck a chord was the racial bigotry that ran through everyday life, from the paper pass, to a simple drink of beer. And the sadness in the novel leapt out and gripped my heart in a vice for many long days.
Last weekend, I read Mine Boy again, and savoured, once more, its clean and colourful characters: Xuma, Leah, Elisa, Maisy, Daddy, The Red One, The Fox, that sonofabitch, J. P. Williamsom et al. But, in the simple plot, this time, my now-older mind fixated on the theme of love, and of wishes and reality.
Powerfully-built Xuma loved the dainty Eliza. She loved the trappings of the white man’s world. She wanted a gentleman (like the doctor); a man who could read. Who would have clever-clever conversation with her in the night, and not just the raw, physical thrust of simple love. So, although Eliza loved Xuma back, and became his woman for a short while, she left him like a twilight thief. And she was never seen again.
Maisy was not quite a finished work of art, but she had warm laughter in her eyes and a lot of sugar in her heart. She loved Xuma, and he liked her. She made him happy, and, with her, he saw his worldly woes fly away. But he felt he loved her not.
In the end, Eliza stole away. Xuma was going to jail for co-leading a strike at the deathtrap which was also called a mine (a thing a black man had no donkey’s right to do). Before turning himself in, Xuma fled to Maisy, and beseeched her to wait for him. Maisy said she would, and we are all sure that she could and would.
Somewhere in that triangle, I learnt a lot about love, and what it really means. It means being at ease, being at peace, and having free fun with whoever is the one it happens with. That is love!
Postscript: Thank you, Peter Abrahams. This was too special to edit. It had to be read raw!
Last weekend, I read Mine Boy again, and savoured, once more, its clean and colourful characters: Xuma, Leah, Elisa, Maisy, Daddy, The Red One, The Fox, that sonofabitch, J. P. Williamsom et al. But, in the simple plot, this time, my now-older mind fixated on the theme of love, and of wishes and reality.
Powerfully-built Xuma loved the dainty Eliza. She loved the trappings of the white man’s world. She wanted a gentleman (like the doctor); a man who could read. Who would have clever-clever conversation with her in the night, and not just the raw, physical thrust of simple love. So, although Eliza loved Xuma back, and became his woman for a short while, she left him like a twilight thief. And she was never seen again.
Maisy was not quite a finished work of art, but she had warm laughter in her eyes and a lot of sugar in her heart. She loved Xuma, and he liked her. She made him happy, and, with her, he saw his worldly woes fly away. But he felt he loved her not.
In the end, Eliza stole away. Xuma was going to jail for co-leading a strike at the deathtrap which was also called a mine (a thing a black man had no donkey’s right to do). Before turning himself in, Xuma fled to Maisy, and beseeched her to wait for him. Maisy said she would, and we are all sure that she could and would.
Somewhere in that triangle, I learnt a lot about love, and what it really means. It means being at ease, being at peace, and having free fun with whoever is the one it happens with. That is love!
Postscript: Thank you, Peter Abrahams. This was too special to edit. It had to be read raw!
School Rules
Too often, as a rule
They who've been to school
Act arrogantly like a King
But don't understand a thing!
They who've been to school
Act arrogantly like a King
But don't understand a thing!
Friday, October 3, 2008
Conference
It is icily intriguing to see plots poles-apart come forth, while the truly important issues are ignored. It is easy to identify who is shielding or protecting what immiscible interests. With sundry make-or-break motions afoot, I caught a mini glimpse of how political campaigns should feel like near the general elections.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
The Pips Come Next
I was panning out for the circus from the driving window as one does in another town, and I saw a woman shuffling her heavy feet on the squalid sidewalk. I discovered that what I mistook for tics in her face was a habitual case of bellicose chewing. Her hands come up, and I see she’s gnawing at an orange. I’m thinking that something is struggling for egress, because she puckers her lips into the spout that goes before a squirt. She folds her lips long again, ruminating for her life! Some liquids spews out, and I know the pips come next. As my peripheral vision whizzes on, she ejects the seeds one by one! Right on the street!
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