Am A Fish..

'am a Fish

I was told ' am meant for dying

But today, 'am living

And kicking

'Cos am a Fish

Not meant for eating

'am meant for swimming.

In Joburg....11/03/08

It was a B & B
The bed so white and big
Fold the four sides and you'd have a casket
I roll around and drown in pillows
My mind trying to stay afloat
As I question the events of today
In what direction am I?
To the essence or the senseless?
Something tells me I am playing with fire and could fall asleep while at it
Or maybe I am drinking more than I need to get home.
Though as I speak, the sky is the limit
But as I reach for the sky, I feel my feet is off the ground
Suddenly I feel lonely
Not because i lack friends
But because the burden of my glory is solely mine to bear
And wouldn't want to make it another's since I am never sure if it is real or otherwise

I am not good at knowing what is good for me
But I sure know what is wrong for me
So often times,I end up wrong
The checkmate of all times
will be to wake one day to realise that I have lived a life of lies
When honesty is the greatest quest.
My values- the end product of a life's work.

In Madrid...07/03/08

It will be a long flight tonight
Thoughts are bound to fight my sleep
Perhaps I will stay awake
And get lost in the wonders of the open skies
Perhaps I will fall asleep and dream of you
Eleven hours is not enough to be with you
The night will be long gone by the time I am awake
But you will always be there.

Life Of Many Colours

Life is of many colours
When mixed it becomes the colour of complexity
But also simplicity, 'depends on the view.
But We have to live above these mountains
Somewhere we could have a better view

Everyone is everyone
So where is me?
Me is in you.
I am something because you feel something.
We always want to touch the sky
But I am closer to you than the stars.
Touch me
And together we will touch the sky.

I know you don't feel me
But check this:
If all we gain today is
All we lose tomorrow
Then life is borrowed
None has all, but
We have all

As for you who won't work
Do you prefer to be a victim or
A victor?
As for you who turns your sleep to slumber
Do you prefer begging to blessings?
For what You give is what You Worth.

As for you who is a slave to your own fear for failure
You will stop at nothing to have anything
Please watch my head as you look ahead
Do your "Anything"
But don't make your joys my pain
For as you walk,
Your footprints keep the record
It will follow you
Even beyond your grave.

The Moral Of The Story

Last Night, I heard that voice again
It is all too familiar.

I woke up in the morning and touch my legs
But I feel metals
when I clap I hear clings
My brain is torn into compartments like some partitioned hard disks
i-this, e-that.
What am i becoming?

"Boy, You can't eat your cake and have it".

she was looking all pretty and elegantly clad
She smells of lilies
I could give anything for her smile,
But then,
she smiled
And she Had the worst set of teeth

"Oh yes, you can't eat your cake and have it"

I woke up
I took in some sit ups, had a few push-ups
I felt larger than life
I could give anything to stay large
But then I looked in the mirror
And I am still small

"Yes, you can't eat your cake and have it"

As he looked out of the window of
His 5th floor home,
He saw the stars and the moon
Wow! They must be beautiful up-close!"
"I wish i can touch the sky"
He could give anything to touch the stars
Then,
He jumped up.
But he was going down.

"Sure, you can't eat your cake and have it".

More Fun,...Less Guns.

If you want it
Come and get it
You can call it
My thought,
For your fight
You can call it
My fight
Shoot me, if you hate it
But today am dropping my gun
For a better fun

I am tired of threats
I can't tell the clouds from the smoke no more
I can't tell the smell of my mama's meat from burnt flesh
I am dropping my gun
For a better fun

Today again,
Three have been killed in Gaza
Four in Iran
Too many in Darfur.
Missiles of pain dropping from the sky like rain
Instead of a hat, I wear a helmet
Wishing I had eyes behind my head
But.
Today.
I am dropping my gun for a better fun.

One Man's Freedom, Another Man's Bondage...In Reference To Wole Soyinka's Quote

Quoting Wole Soyinka : “the condition of slave is the denial of freedom of action, of freedom of choice. Bondage, be it the body or of the human will”.

But I take this a notch further. When freedom have been over stretched beyond the limit of its elasticity, as to the point where the human knows no will, then a new kind of slavery will be born, a self-automated kind of slavery. Only this time, it is much worse, for it hides under the comfortable wings of self-complacency, where it feeds from the debris of abject illusion. The entanglement becomes more complex without an obvious warning sign, and soon, like cancer, there will be a need for chemotherapy. It will affect the taste buds and take away distinction. Then the utmost value of freedom which is the voluntary ability to choose a thing from the other will be lost, leaving freedom less valuable than dung.

This is the escalation that result from having more than what one needs and not knowing what to do with the excess. In our exclamation for our rights as humans, let us not forget that when we become addicted to the want for freedom, we could easily forget that freedom in itself could be addictive. Like every addiction, it co-exists symbiotically with its host, sucking away, in a deteriorating manner, all the juice that makes it worthy of all dedication while paradoxically making the host crave for more, surely at the detriment of others, but more dangerously at the expense of its doomed host.

Therefore it is important to recognize the two-edged functionality of freedom, and then it will be easier to admit that freedom comes with a twin brother- Responsibility! The responsibility embedded in the ability to constantly re-assess the frontiers of one's free will in relation to others, for one man's freedom could spontaneously be another man's bondage if not controlled. In so doing, we will keep our excessiveness within a self-defined measurement whose parameters depend a lot on an honest consideration for the human right of those who continue to be slaves in the vineyards cultivated by our own cravings for freedom. Only then shall we be worthy of our numerous blatant manifestations and ominous declarations towards human right violations.

There are many born unfortunate and many more born clutching silver spoons, there are those who boast of inherited wealth in the highest vaults while some have nothing but dry lands with water a million miles under the earth’s crust – far beyond their reach and that of their children. The earth is converging in the name of globalization, moreover, thank God for technology; now, the world of information infiltrates our privacy – even the most private moments of abundant banquets – we are often faced with contrasting scenarios that could drive one to forcefully throw out all the stomach contents through the mouth. We cannot continue to play the ignoramus. Of what use is our millions stashed away in strong-rooms when somewhere, not as far as a money transfer, a child of 24 months is dying – simply out of malnutrition – and the nearest doctor is a village away and has up to 60, 000 patients to attend to? I will encourage us not to look at this question as mere rhetoric, but to keep roaming around it for a justifiable answer; perhaps we could find answers that could conveniently exempt us from the guilt of criminals condemned for life with hard labour! I strongly doubt - and I stand to be corrected !

Postscript

Even our pets – the cats, dogs, rabbits and pony – have pet rights, that is, their rights to be treated as pets by humans. A peep into the reality of grocery stores suggests that pet rights are not less equal than human rights – often times I have caught myself half-way pulling out a dog’s tin food while shopping for my usual can-beef. As a bona fide citizen, we are expected to regard pet rights as a subsidiary of our human rights, right?

I will end this article by saying that there are millions of people all over the world – alive at this moment – whose rights as humans cannot stand the weight of one-hundredth of those attributed to our midget pets. How on earth can we boast of being humans?