Man’s Best Friend

A frustrated, frenetic farmer failed to fob off his faithful farm dog from fawning over him. Looking for some time alone, he bit the startled mongrel.

In a far-flung country, a man, febrile from being freshly set upon by a mutt, seized its hinds, and closed his human teeth right back in its cur-coat in a rabid rage of revenge.

And some say the Sapiens and the Canines are best friends.

La Bianca TomaNto Paste

Somebody’s selling tasty tomatoes on TV with a cool calypso chant. Imagine my prize surprise, when I really listened to the blurb lyrics. I took it for gleeful granted that Ghana had ‘imagoed’ from the invented “N” in “maNtches” (that’s [a box of] “matches”) and “tomaNtoes” (well, you know what it is). But there it was in the delightful ditty: La Bianca TomaNto Paste.

I was granting genius to the songwriter-salesman for nosing the notional “N” into “TomaNto” to mimic the other “N” in “BiaNca”, but I reversed my reverence when a vellum-voice, at the end, said “Tomato” without the nagging “N”. So what happened? Somebody's mealy-mouthed about a mistake they didn't want to spend money editing. Or?

Painting for Obama in the City of Accra

The City Auths are lathering a lick of weak whitewash on the cracked kerbs and scarcely-sacred street furniture, one week to the cherub-heralded Coming of Obama. Why don’t they as well glaze some pasteurizing pastel over the sun-scorched faces of the street vendors and beggars too?

Browning the Home Team

My street neighbour was soaring to a grand house in a more genteel geography, and wanted a titled tenant for her old cabin. I revealed my best friend’s stress for a new address, and she said she would be in touch. But I saw her take sides with the ‘Away’ team, and put in an Indian couple instead.

Moods Withstood

I do not like this life of moods
It feels like I'm in jail
Or walking alone in dark woods
Unable to exhale

Urinary

A halting hombre in a rancid-butter-yellow shirt arrested me on the deserted stairwell of a comely courthouse, and blithely asked for the “Urinary”. I don’t know why I didn’t collapse in topsy-turvy titters! I think he remotely meant ‘Urinal’. Or per-frigging-haps, he misjudged the muted building for an urethra-healing hospital!

Bananas in Pajamas

A queer, questionable name for a children’s cartoon series. Many baby-dove diversions, like adorable nursery rhymes and clean ‘cable’ cartoons, conceal cunning, clandestine, adult themes, which only show their unfaithful face and crazy colours upon dwindled innocence. My favourite poet – William Blake – was a master at the stainless strain of this craft. Imagine my heart of horror when it suddenly settled on my mind, in the shower – my thinking place – this morning. I thought back to Bananas in Pajamas and the scandalous sense it makes to me right now.