ESSAYS ON
LEADERSHIP FRONTIERS OF AFRICAN LITERATURE
By
Alexander   k   Opicho




Alexander K Opicho
(Eldoret, Kenya; aopicho@yahoo.com)

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents                                                                                                                Page
TABAN MAKITIYONG RENEKET LO LIYONG AND PREFECTURE OF AFRICAN LITERATURE 4
THE CURRENT EAST AFRICA IS NOT A LITERARY DESERT 27
AFRICAN WRITERS HAVE CULTURAL RIGHTS TO FORMULATE AND CREATE ENGLISH WORDS 31
LIKE PUSHKIN, AFRICAN WRITERS MUST CREATE THEIR OWN PROFFESSION OF LITERATURE 35
THERE IS POWER IN THE NAME ‘ALEXANDER’ 40
KENYAN COURTS AND PARLIAMENT ARE BETRAYERS OF HUMANE GOVERNANCE 47
AFRO-CHRISTIAN RESPONSE TO RADICAL LITERATURE IS GOOD AND SWAGGERISH 50
YUNUS’S SOCIAL BANKING IS A GOOD BENCHCMARK FOR THIRD WORLD ENTREPRENEURS 54
HEROISM IS NOT GREATNESS BUT HUMILITY IN SERVICE TO HUMANITY 57
KENYAN STUDENTS; YOUR MOBILE INTERNET CULTURE IS ANTI- ACADEMICS 61
WHAT IS THE MAGIC IN THE WORD ‘DRINKARD’ OF AMOS TUTUOLA 63
SOCIETIES IN AFRICA HAVE TO MENTOR BUT NOT CONDEMN THE LIKES OF JULIUS MALEMA 66
AMERICA WILL NOT WIN THE WAR ON GLOBAL TERRORISM 69
AFRICA CAN OVERCOME A MENACE OF **** IN EVERY 30 MINUTES 71
COMPARATIVE ROLES OF AFRICAN-BRAZILIAN LITERATURE IN THE POLITICS OF RACIAL AND GENDER DEMOCRACY 76
NEO-COLONIALISM IS NOT THE MAIN VICE TO THE GAMBIAN POLITICS 85
RELATIVE MEDIA OBJECTIVITY IS ACHIEVEABLE IN AFRICA AGAINST POWER CULTURE AND TYRANNIES OF TASTE 89
READING CULTURE IS GOOD FOR BOTH THE POOR AND THE RICH 96
VIOLENT DEATH IS THE BANE OF AFRICAN WRITERS AND ARTISTS 100
AFRICAN WRITTERS AND ARTISTS MUST ASPIRE BEYOND A NOBEL PRIZE 104
WHAT ARE CULTURAL RIGHTS OF AFRICAN ENGLISH SPEAKERS? 109
WHY IMPRISONMENT OF WRITERS CONTRIBUTED MOST TO AFRICAN LITERATURE 113
DORIS LESSING: A FEMINIST, POET, NOVELIST, WHITE-AFRICANIST AND NOBELITE UN-TIMELY PASSES ON 121
Amilcar Cabral: Beacon of revolutionary literature and social democracy 127
How the State of Israel is brutally dealing with African refugees 131
Historical glimpses of language dilemma in Afro-Arabic literature 146
THIS YEAR 2013; IS THE YEAR OF GREAT DEATHS 153
AFRICAN LITERATURE WITHOUT POETRY IS LIKE LOVE WITHOUT VAGINAL *** 156



















PROLOGOMENA
BARRACK OBAMA READS MOBY ****
Barrack Obama is reading Moby ****
American president is reading Moby ****
Ja-kogello is reading Moby ****
Ja-siaya is reading Moby ****
Ja-merica is reading Moby ****
Jadello is reading Moby ****
Ja-buonji is reading Moby ****
His lovely Oeuvre of Melville Herman
And what are you reading?

Barrack Obama is reading Moby ****
Because untimely death took his father
Barrack Obama is reading Moby ****
Because untimely death took his mother
Barrack Obama is reading Moby ****
Because untimely death to his brother
Barrack Obama is reading Moby ****
Because untimely death took the grannies
His lovely Oeuvre of Melville Herman  
And what are you reading?

Barrack Obama is reading Moby ****
Baba Michelle is reading Moby ****
Baba Sasha is reading Moby ****
Baba Malia is reading Moby ****
Baba nya-dhin is reading Moby ****
Sarah’s sire is reading Moby ****
Ja-sharia is reading Moby ****
The ****** is reading Moby ****
His lovely Oeuvre of Melville Herman
And what are you reading?

Barrack Obama is reading Moby ****
Because here ekes audacity of hope
Barrack Obama is reading Moby ****
Because here ekes dreams of fathers
Barrack Obama is reading Moby ****
Because here ekes yes we can
Barrack Obama is reading Moby ****
Because here ekes American dream
His lovely Oeuvre of Melville Herman
And what are you readings?

Barrack Obama is reading Moby ****
Because American president is like whale hunting
Barrack Obama is reading Moby ****
Because Obama is a money making animal
Barrack Obama is reading Moby ****
Because hunting Osama is whale riding
Barrack Obama is reading Moby ****
Because hunting Gaddaffi is whale riding
Barrack Obama is reading Moby ****
Because coming to Kenya is whale riding
Barrack Obama is reading Moby ****
Because Guantanamo prison is a bay of whales
Barrack Obama is reading Moby ****
Because Snowden is a Russian whale
Because launching drones is whale riding
His lovely Oeuvre of Melville Herman
And what are you reading, Moby ****?














CHAPTER ONE
TABAN MAKITIYONG RENEKET LO LIYONG AND PREFECTURE OF AFRICAN LITERATURE

I am writing this article from Kenya on this day of 23 September 2013 when the Al shabab, an Arabo-Islamic arm of the global terrorist group the Al gaeda have lynched siege on the shopping mall in Nairobi known as the West Gate where an average of forty people have been killed and a hundreds are held hostage. The media is full of horrendous and terrifying images. They have made me to hate this day. I hate terrorism, I hate American foreign policy on Arabs, I hate philosophy behind formation of the state of Israel and I equally hate religious fundamentalism. Also on this date, all the media and public talks in Kenya are full of intellectual and literary tearing of one Kenyan by another plus a retort in the equal measure as a result of the ripples in the African literature pool whose epicenter is the Professor Taban Lo Liyong .He is an epicenter because he had initially decried literary mediocrity among the African scholars and University professors, Wherein under the same juncture he also quipped that Kenya’s doyen of literature Ngugi wa Thiong’o never deserved a Nobel prize. Liyong’s stand has provoked intellectual reasons and offalities to fly like fireworks in the East African literary atmosphere among which the most glittering is Chris Wanjala’s contrasting position that; who made Liyong the prefect and ombudsman of African literature? This calls for answers. Both good answers and controversial responses. Digging deeper into the flesh of literature as often displayed by Lo Liyong.
Liyong is not a fresher in the realm of literary witticism. He is a seasoned hand .Especially when contributions of Liyong to east African literary journal during his student days in the fifties of the last century during which he declared east Africa a literary desert. In addition to his fantastic titles; Another ****** Dead and The Un-even Rips of Frantz Fanon, Professor Taban Lo Liyong also humorously called Amos Tutuola the son of Zinjathropus, what a farcical literary joke? I also want to appreciate this Liyong’s artfulness of language in this capacity and identify him in a literary sense as Taban Matiyong Lo   Liyong the son of Eshu. He is an ideological and literature descended of the great West African Eshu. Eshu the god of trouble which was dramatized by Obutunde Ijimere in the imprisonment of Obadala and also recounted by Achebe in the classical essays; Morning Yet of Creation Day. I call him Eshu because of his intellectual and literary ability to trigger the East and West Africans into active altercation of literary, cultural and political exchanges every other time he visits these regions. Whether in Lagos, Accra or Nairobi.
Now, in relation to Ngugi and intellectual quality of Kenyan University literature professors was Liyong right or wrong?  Does Liyong’s stand-point on Ngugi’s incompetence for Nobel recognition and mediocrity in literary scholarship among Kenyan Universities hold water. Are Liyong’s accusations of East Africa in these perspectives factually watertight and devoid of a fallacy of self-aggrandizement to African literary prefecture as Professor Chris Wanjala laments. Active literary involvement by anyone would obviously uncover that ;It is not Liyong Alone who has this intellectual bent towards East Africa, any literary common sense can easily ask a question that; Does Ngugi’s literary work really deserve or merit for Nobel recognition or not ? The answers are both yes and no. There are very many of those in Kenya who will readily cow from the debate to say yes. Like especially the community of alumni of the University of Nairobi who were Ngugi’s students in the department of English in which Ngugi was a Faculty during the mid of the last century. Also the general Kenyan masses who have been conditioned by warped political culture which always and obviously confine the Kenyan poor into a cocoonery of chauvinistic thought that Ngugi should or must win because he is one of us or Obama must win because he is one of us or Kemboi must win because he is the son of the Kenyan soil. These must also be the emotional tid-bits upon which the Kenyan Media has been based to be catapulted into Publicity feat that Ngugi will win the Nobel Prize without reporting to the same Kenyan populace the actual truths about other likely winners in the quarters from the overseas. I am in that Kenyan school thought comprising of those who genuinely argue that Ngugi’s literary work does not befit, nor merit, nor deserve recognition of Nobel Prize for literature. This position is eked on global status of the Nobel Prize in relation to Ngugi’s Kikuyu literary and writing philosophy. It is a universal truth that any and all prizes are awarded on the basis of Particular efforts displayed with peculiarity. Nobel Prize for literature is similarly awarded in recognition of unique literary effort displayed by the winner. It is not an exception when it comes to the question of formidability in a particular effort. However, the most basic literary virtue to be displayed as an overture of the writer is conversion of theory into practice. This was called by Karl Marx, Hegel, Antonio Gramsci and Paulo Freire, especially in Freire’s  pedagogy of the oppressed as praxis.History of literature and politics in their respective homogenous and comparative capacities has it that ;There has been eminent level of praxis by previous Nobelites.Right away from Rabitranathe Tagore to Wole Soyinka, From Dorriss Lessing to Wangari Mathai.Similar to JM Coatze ,Gao Tziaping,Alexander Vasleyvitch Solzhenystisn and Baraka Obama.This ideological stand of praxis is the one that made Alfred Nobel himself to to stick to his gun of intellectual  values and deny Leo Tolstoy the prize in 1907 because there was no clear connection between rudimentary Tolstoy in the nihilism and Feasible Tolstoy in the possible manner  of the times .In a similar stretch Ngugi wa Thiongo’s literary works and his ideological choices are full of ideological theory but devoid of ideological praxis. Evidence for justification in relation to this position is found back in the 70’s and 80’s of the last century, When Ngugi was an active communist theoretician of Kenya. His stature as a Kenyan communist ideologue could only get a parallel in the likes of Leon Trotsky and Gramsci. This ideological stature was displayed in Ngugi’s adoration of the North Korean communism under the auspice of the Korean leader Kim Yun Sung. This is so bare when you read Ngugi’s writers in politics, a communist pamphlet he published with the African red family. By that time this pamphlet was treated equally as Mao tse Tung’s collected works by the Kenya government which means that they were both illegal publications and if in any case you were found with them you would obviously serve nine months in prison. And of course when the late Brigadier Augustine Odongo was found with them he was jailed for nine months at Kodhiak maximum prison in Kisumu ,Kenya .O.K, the story of Odongo is preserved for another day. But remember that, this was Ngugi only at his rudimentary stage. But when Ngugi got an opportunity to get an ideological asylum, he did not go to Russia, nor East Germany, Nor Tanzania, nor China but instead he went to the USA , a country whose ideological civilization is in sharp contradiction with communism; a religion which Ngugi proffessess.In relation to this choices of Ngugi one can easily share with me these reflections; is one intellectually  honest if he argues that he is a socialist revolutionary when his or her employer is an American institution like the university of California in Irvine ?
Ngugi was not the only endangered communist ideologue of the time. There were also several others. Both in Kenya and without Kenya. They were the likes of; Raila Odinga, George Moset Anyona, ***** Mutunga and very many others from Kenya. But in Africa some to be mentioned were Walter Rodney, Yoweri Museven,Isa Shivji,Jacob Tzuma ,Robert Mugabe and others. The difference between Ngugi and all of these socialist contemporaries of him is that; Ngugi went to America and began accumulating private property just like any other capitalist. But these others remained in Africa both in freedom and detention to ensure that powers of political darkness which had bedeviled Africa during the last century must go. And indeed the powers somehow went. Raila has  been in Kenya most of the times,Anyona died in Kenya while in the struggle for second liberation of Kenyan people from the devilish fangs of Moi’s dark reign of terror and tyrany.Walter Rodney worked in Tanzania at Dare salaam University where he wrote his land mark book; How Europe underdeveloped Africa. Later on he went back to his country of birth in Africa, Guyana where he was assassinated while in the revolutionary struggle for political good of the Guyanese people. Yoweri Museven practically implemented socialism by fighting politics of sham and nonsense out of Uganda of which as per today Uganda is somehow admirable. Isa Shivji has ever remained in Dare salaam University, inspite of poverty. He is now the chair of Mwalimu Julius Nyerere school of Pan African studies. Jacob Tsuma and Robert Mugabe they are current presidents of South Africa and Zimbabwe respectively. The gist of this reference to African socialist revolutionaries as contemporaries to Ngugi wa Thiong’o is that a socialist revolutionary must and should not run away from the oppressor in to a zone of comfort. But instead must remain and relentlessly fight, just like in the words of Fidel Castro; fight and die in the battle field as long as it is a struggle against the enemy of the revolution. This view by Castro is pertinent as it’s a Revolutionary praxis which actually is redolent of practice of an ideology that has to be held for ever above ideological cosmentics.Ngugi scores badly on this. So if the Nobel academy looks at Ngugi in terms of defending human rights then it must be reminded that Ngugi have no marks on the same because he only ran away from the practical struggle. Anyway, Politics and ideology has its own fate. But let us now come back to literature. Ngugi and his books. As at  this time of writing this essay  Ngugi has published the following works; Weep not Child, The River Between, A Grain of Wheat, Black Hermit, Petals of Blood, Devils on the Cross,Matigari,Homecoming,Decolonizing the Mind, Writers in Politics, Ngugi Detained, Pen Points and Gun Points, Wizard of the Crow,Globalectics,Remeembering Africa, Dreams in Times of War and I Will Marry When I Want as well as the Trial of Dedan Kimathi which he wrote along with Micere Githae Mugo.Out of this list the only works with literary depth that call for intellectualized attention are ;A Grain of wheat, Wizard of the crow and Globalectics. The Grain of wheat is simply a post colonial reflection of Kenyan politics. Its themes, plot, lessons and entire synechedoche is also found in Wole Soyinka’s Season of Anomie as well as Achebe’s Anthills of the savannah. My argument dove-tails with those of Liyong’s stand that rewarding Ngugi’s Grain of wheat and forgetting Achebe’s Anthills of the Savannah and A man of the people would be a literary ceremony devoid of literary justice. Wizard of the Crow is indeed a magnum opus. I am ready to call it Ngugi’s oeuv

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The current political mood in Kenya is sombre and tense given the manner in which the former prime minster Raila Odinga is pushing for mass action destined to be held on 7th July of this year; 2014.He has labeled this day as saba saba day, in memory of former democratic struggles that were held on a similar date in the past by the then leaders like Martin shikuku, Masinde Muliro, Charlese Rubia and Keneth Matiba, just but to mention a few. The spirit of this political move has been inculcated into Odinga motivation during his holiday trip in America in the past three months. And the entire globalectics is eked on Raila’s personal advantages that Kenya and America has had soared relations because of Kenya’s substantial business dealings with China.
Tenseness of political feelings that are overtly observed in sombre moods of some Kenyans is based on the fresh memories of similar political behavior displayed by the same Raila Odinga in a few years before post election violence that erupted after 2007 elections. By inference,   Raila has nothing very critical that he wants to solve for Kenyans but he is only   aiming at execution of a very simple Machiavellian logic; He wants to use the mass actions to provoke international sympathy for himself as at the same time he anchors himself for the next presidential race which is barely three years to come.
It is a fact that there are some teething problems of political policy in Kenya. Like inferiority of the judiciary, biasness of the electoral institutions, insecurity, joblessness and tribalism as well as political cronyinsm.But these are usual features of politics in a developing country. They are the same things that Raila Odinga and Carol Omondi used as tools of maintaining power when the former was the prime minster and the later his aide de camp.
Effective solution to any  failures in public policy or even dysfunction in the public institution  is  usually what President Uhuru Kenyatta suggested; gentle dialogue by political representatives over a cup of tea, a class of wine , a tumbler of water or even a bottle of tusker not necessary raucous and  Arab spring like violent politicking at Kasarani grounds or Uhuru park. Raila only wants to misuse the poor masses in Kenya, the masses that are already infiltrated with deep sense of tribalism, to pile pressure on the incumbent government for his future political advantages that will go with presidential bidding. This is not reasonable.
Raila Odinga has a unique political psychology. Let me term it extra-masculinity. He has always portrayed a political signal that when he is not in power then there is no democracy in kenya.He is like Coriolanus and John Falstaff of Shakespeare. Thus by premise Raila Odinga suffers from a weakness in political thinking which can logically be branded political falstaffity. This is so when we subjectively analyze his public political behavior  in relation to Moi, Wamalwa, and Kibaki. And is still so when we soberly recognize some institutional success president Uhuru Kenya has registered during his two years as a president of Kenya. Uhuru has scored hundred percent on devolution, availability and open governance. He has already displayed promising efforts when it comes to infrastructural investiments.This is a kind the president that needs to be mentored through genuine support and criticism other than mudslinging him in every public rally  attended by masses on heat of ethnic political consciousness.
My present and tangible reason for this position is that already businessmen of kikuyu and kalenjin origin who of-course belong to Uhuru Kenyatta’s bandwagon are  now not travelling to kisumu, similarly Luos belonging  to Raila’s camp are not free in Eldoret town and Naivasha. Obviously business activities will also close on saba saba day of July 7th and as a matter of fact some people will suscetain mayhem, looted or even loose their lives. All these will happen because Raila Odinga has not seen a more reasonable way of carrying out national dialogue.


(Alexander k Opicho
Eldoret, Kenya).

the lovely picture window (always the same, always different)

There are painters who must,
having found the place, must,
repaint it, compelled to repeat it,
each a variant, yet always the same,
always different

I awake to a perspective that is wide,
always differentiated from the prior,
always almost similar, but never with
the same exactitude, differing attitude,
same longitude, identical latitude,
always different

horizon distanced, in all ways a view
encompassing, duality near, far distant,
harmoniously, eyes open, magnetized
to wake before 6am by the suns modesty,
first light, first clarity, a curtain risen, yet,
always different

am I so blessed or thus cursed, for the urge
to disclaim and ode, compose and thus self-
decompose, analyze, reflect, slice apart, needing
the comprehensive understanding this me/place
scripts the raw appreciation, daily differentiated
always the same

this peaceful venue seizures, chest calmly
pounding at the insistence it commands,
the price I must pay for the prize to praise,
to sing, weep, reward restful sleep with lyrics
eked out, pouring, unsustainable yet finished,
always different

a single May Iris, returns, born from a torrential,
thunder, lightning, sky mayhem, rises by a sundial
greets midst a planted clump, upright rises, lavender,
in a majestic solitary, absent but a day prior, yet mine eyes
failed to witness its discernible emerging birthing creation,
always different,
always the same

here, I am Iris too, always the same, a day aged,
but the differences minute but stolid actualized,
this overnight sensation, my body’s restoration,
what I visualize, indivisible, now visible, realized,
miracle of continuity, unchanging chained change,
always different ,
always the same

wonder, am I more blessed, or a s~lightly cursed being,
my breath restored, wet eyes full brimming, changed,
revived but always modified, a newer old man, whose
sum total always a different number, but in sequential,
compelled to confess, no understanding of this miracle,
always the same,
always different,
this daily visionary miracle


6:36 AM
Fri May 24
2024

Silver Beach,
Shelter Island

Look!  The state of Israeli has taken us to dark caves,
Left us hanging between western drones
And pious chauvinism of the Islamic state,
We only harvest terrorist bombs intermittently,
As true benefactors are turfed in tight security,
Where mankind linkers an actuary determines not
Only God’s shrewd calendar has salvaged mankind
From the land based time bomb ready to trigger,
But Israeli’s avaricious eye on the lands of Palestine
Wavers not in any tincture of measure,
And western appetite for the Arabic oil wells
Has now gone fluvial spilling the moral brim,
Both have sandwiched us amid delicate edges
Tracking us down to the dangerous courtyards,
Where humanity forlornly gapes at the gathering storm,


Islamic state here comes newly fangled
Fully amoured like Arabian knights
In the dhow of Sind Bad the sailor
Sharpened to date by eastern wisdom
Where China hovers like scavengerous vulture
Waiting for sweet dish of the war plunders,
As Israel giggles at the western folly
Ever jumping into war on a simple trigger,
Evinced in the war on Iraq eked on twin towers
When the true bombers were not Arabs
But shrewd Jews who ployed and stunted
For Islamic fate on the American guillotine,

Israeli state was faked in the formation
Allowing the oil venturists to flock
Menacingly flock from America to Palestine
To usurp land that belongs to the least armed,
On whimsical claims in the  fables and rituals
Skewed to favour the tongue of Ptolemy,
Otherwise, who among us has useless history?

The state is formed by identical population,
Definitely numbered for reasons of law,
How many Israelis formed the 1948 state?
Where were the Jews coming from?
How long had they been away?
No good answer will come than drones,
It is folly to claim land you never owned
Because your foremen hailed it 14 centuries ago,
You forcefully encroach on it with force and terror
Killing and ****** the genuine land owners
Israeli!  Listen to my voice of vision;
Soon God will withdraw his favour from you
For you have ***** the weak and the poor,


Which way Africa! Which way?
Will you take to cross the battle field?
Of the possibly coming horrendous war
Between Islamic state and West backed Israeli,
Don’t go to the West in support of Israeli
For after the war Israeli will become a lion’s cub
That eats the dog foster-mother on its maturity
For a Jew prefers an Arab a thousand times,
More than he does to a black and gentile African,
Let us go east and do business with the yellowmen.

Nature adorns her vacuums:

               Eden, in lieu of Gardener or Keep, overdrives the breach;

    garland wreaths, julep leaves, Clover carpets

          the well-dint of the fleeing heel,    

             just as Vitality, from Lushness, deserts to humbling Humus.      

                                     I bargain that We will        

                 be survived by teeming hosts of white Chrysanthemum.        

  Our grim miracle resembling, so, fish and loaves;    

                of Manna eked of Woe.



Staid amatory shall cater the craving of a brood;    

        from our tears rich elixir brewed,      

          our tender flanks yielding stew.    

         Scarcity is Her own aphrodisiac,    

      abused in company of more than two.      



    But sure as Man, worms lapse at their hour      

      and they, their own kind, must consume  

            giving back Space, where is room.      

        So, must we, our own Passion’s devour,

   that made manifest they replenish their expanse,      

            as when a hand replenishes a glove--      

     it first breathes upon the absence of Absence.    

           Let us, then, dine. Let us then, Love…

They sat in blankets as they tried to keep warm
penniless with no heating and no coal to burn
while outside they heard the violent storm
the blizzard of snow and ice all churn.

Slowly they both began to freeze to death
there was no-one to help or ease their plight
they were just poor and lonely old sisters
who would probably die in the dark of this night.

They were just another statistic of winter
a cold one much worse than some others
they had eked out their money on eating
so they now huddled together like lovers.

There are so many who suffer in winter
and we really should spare them a thought
we should all keep an eye out for our neighbour
as help due to their pride is not sought.

It is dawn now and the sisters are frozen
one died and the other breathes slow
but there is no-one to even take notice
and in a short while like her sister she’ll go.

©Joe Wilson – huddled together like lovers…2014

Profound the scribbles,
Eked onto page?

Useless dribble,
Don't dare attribute my name!

A stroke they said.
Came along like a puncture,
eked the breath out from him.
Not a surprise but still
a hot bullet to the chest.
Been told his organs
were wilting with age,
raisin wrinkles sprinkled
across a seven-decade face.

Wheeled the body away,
blades of grey hair,
lumpy veins that tore
through his skin.
He knew it was coming.
Wished to kiss his wife again,
eleven years after their last.
Her name was Mary I think.
Cancer.

Had a passion for horses.
Just yesterday
put a fiver on Lust for Life
and Magic Touch.
Both came in, he’d have had
fifty quid. Lucky ***.
At the bookies they all loved him.
When I collected his winnings
I had to explain.

I think they knew
before I opened my mouth.

Brave souls set out from the world that they knew,
A dangerous trip with death for more than a few.
Enduring hardship as they travelled the sea
Seeking their fortune and a better life there to be.
Single adventurers, families , all ages and types,
Possessions all stowed, they come risking their lives.
Decisions to sail were as varied as men,
Moving onto the now and leaving the then.
Not knowing before them what would unfold,
Stories and legends of many were told.
Some coming with love and wanting to teach
Of God and religion seeing heathens to reach.
Others not so, more evil of heart,
Finding men and their money so easy to part.
Fleeing the gallows of home they did run
Making a life with violence and gun.
Heroes were few but ******* abound
As they eked out a living and laid claim to their ground.
Pioneers and the lawless, fortune seekers and cads
The harlots, the clergy, all lasses and lads.
They came and they stayed. My country did grow.
Canada was born. And with pride now I glow.

i bought myself steel-toed boots for
christmas like it would matter
as if i could kick things like paranoia, fear and vulnerability

my whole head is making this strange, dissonant noise
it feels kind of like pressure building, by surprise

because i'm going, going, going with my
hands touching all of the things

i thumped my corroded heart onto the table and asked if he wouldn't
mind sitting with it for a while

did i know then that his body moves just like theirs?

i have blades in my palms walking home
despite how i interpret my murmuring heart
mostly i think it's reminding me to live, i think
it's especially easy to forget

i'm choking, go ahead and tell me how much you understand it

i have blades in my palms, the boots and buttons up to my neck
i can taste their eyeballs anyway and the rotting is sand
it's getting underneath my toenails now, stop just a second
the boots and the buttons might as well be silk
the way their bodies are closing in feels like absolute reliable death
i'm thumping and shivering and their voices
the way everything shifts a little as my hands tighten around the mace makes me wonder if i had ever been safe to begin with because it seems like i've only ever been trembling in anticipation of your violence

my father is strong and firm and knocks at the window in the way that punches a small, undeniable hole directly through my windpipe

there are a lot of things about this canal that the probe cannot understand

clearly evident in the shift in your spine as the door slams behind you

did i know at eight years old that footsteps would come to sound like fists to me? i always knew the tenor of arguments would send me over, but at this point i've lost count of the ways through which my environment stands to strangle me

how many voices eked out, slowly do you have to
miss before you'll hear me?

they might as well be constricting my limbs on the spot with the
ways they graze my hot, sweating flesh

does it count as purgatory if you're burning from the inside?

Stilted lingerie that fashions a kneaded traipse between trap-door destiny of double-take simultagnosia is a harder fright to outfox that even the most ghoulish amicable maskirovka of a throttled sapience beleaguered by the tropes of a tattermedalion class of Scarface vigor in the face of benighted tomes of a cruised palindrome of efficacy bromides flickering on the outskirts of esoteric thrones of catapults droning on about the listless squalor of philandering phronesis of ecdysiast *** in the cyprian hedges of limited wealth bemoaning the poverty of deprivation because of whiskers through feline sight languid in the remedial dances of captaincy snuck between the edges of destiny cordial only to Home Alone. We must sneak through the verdant pacification of an accordion grimace flanged by the eked snide spite of termagants of termination ruined by the future flickering into past distance because of spartan brutish mannequins of pasteurization glimpsing the thanatousia of death vindicated by vengeance brazen with a Colorado snare of a pinned etiolation of marauders of corsairs that only brave the delusion when the eternity is a trick-or-treat truth and dare consummated on the flimsy agape lychgates of constraints in flair that damage the ragged hypostasized engine of a blinkered hubris belonging to an anointed rigmarole fashioned into the pottery of fungible metamorphosis rather than frangible pulverization that scrapes through liturgy with abnegation rather than relishing plumage beyond the apes of apish planetary scares.


Trimming the blockbuster wearisome hardihood of plumes of fumigated regal ******* in the softened epigone of whiter masks of screaming scares
The times aplenty of swansong ignorance are a plaid disaster of Twister renegades that spar against the visagist carapace of hearkened live aware of ghosts that fuel the hypocrisy of belligerent mares
Forever stranded through the finifugal heaves of a 32 leaves magician of rollicking base jumps with acidic tatters in King of the World stunts the hirsute body politic is a pump and dump trumpery of livid thrills on the substitution of funk for skunk rather than grooves for humps
Nevertheless the scrappy schlep of a foggy dreary destiny is ablaze with Sergeants blistering through Forest Gump bumps as the alighted 80s returns with a vengeance in empires of victory rather than slippages of slump
Renewed by the litigable menace of oilers ****** with crudity and swimming in the askew verdure of the lewd and **** we bolt through the coltish demiurge of fastened fascination flaming with firebrands of deliberation scampering away in blemishes of profanity too rude
We scrape the legacy of elegant injustice and injury because the flamestun hypocrisy of leprosy caused by time is a rustic blue suede shoe that flummoxes in hibernation because of staggered queues ravishing too much of a screwball to be nailed because black artifacts are always unscrewed
Thanks to teamwork the cosmogony of regalia knows the Montana providence of a lissome liposuction radical in renewal because of the Morrison Hotel rather vacant but always populated with a carpal tunnel of slick oleaginous dramatics for histrionic history likable because the news is a purple hue relishing the paradise of cineaste rundles of candlelit mood
Imagine searing the sunlit halidom of the peak-time grooves of unbuttoned blarney frank and swiveled on sclerotic pretense slippery in fashion only to be ironclad in personas of the whispered woo in termagant liturgy that is a colporteur of genius hinged upon collective suitcases of IOUs blameless because the criminal is always hatched upon a 108 pentagon of newsy gripping footage of managerial flames of a barnstorm beyond booths but never above the scarecrow minister of the voguish tempers of trudgery spawned into the folkspun homely ties and wrinkles of wizened love too Titanic to be used
Parker hobohemia scowls at the punitive warbles of marsupial kingpin southern flashes of hyperborean ramshackle ruins of pooches scampered around like littoral fragments of a cinematic crudity in defeated torpindage blistering with foresight in vengeance because the clockwork hour is amazed but horrified by belligerence in overdosed ledgers of legends amused
Time hearkens that craven radication of rhizogenic demiurge blinking above the sleeping awake ringleaders of sedition enthused because of malapert princes crackling with homage to honed sharpened edges of a double-edged whisper reversal into the antithesis of the heaving red serrated by the vindication of impertinent criminals flustered by the pinpointed genius of the Primarily Blues.
Time sees past the sedative fliction of fictitious mangers on primipara  tunes that the euphoria of the now is the cement of every LP belonging above the charlatans of chavish sutured into a surgical effigy of the whitewashed preeminence of discernment into the discs that surpass the ashen cordiality of permissive and permissible leaky faucets rasping through the headlines because of craters of love becoming glabrous above the halvorked entropy of newsy Newport News living above Virginia in Deep Impact legends tipsy on shipwrecks happening too soon to be  immaculate in any crimson style of an inescapable rhyme scheme trying with clambered witticism to achieve belletrist while escaping capstone filigrees of untouchable Terry Crews.
Flickering whimpers of the scary impenetrable Kansas City brain of the touchy hedges of fumigated marstions of erratic flackeys of breweries enthused in an amazed skullduggery of time slipping on crackles of fizzgigs of clambered retinues of radical roots between a tight avenue and a broadened broadway limping on the cinemas that belong to the truth and not the rickety barnstorm of ostentation encased by bonanzas to pontifical to create a topspin of HappyGilmore erasure in bridewells of roomy litigation in uncomfortable contortions of contacts without lenses to excuse.
In the cavernous spelunk of 1990s crimson bleeding into the  expansive liturgy of the ripples of percolation cornered into diminished vacancy anointed as ritualized contrition craving a tighter grip on the tightest swank that could ever be parlayed into New England madcap screws the hunters of the hunted hypocrisy become the travail of the antagonized epiphany of flackey rice in avaricious retches beyond the squabble of punks in due times for clockwork tickers and tickets swarming with infested blemish
The ridicule of sapience is the knowledgeable manicure of livid lurid hypertrophy in exaggeration of the knowledgeable tongue of the Flemish foundering on seaworthy chemists of menace and muse too suburban to ever be urbane bourgeosie limited rankled rancid rancor of ramshackle rackrent gouges too much of a Beetlejuice excuse.
Rhythm for the fulcate furrows of the hypogeiody of epochs slinkywith aced endeavors for misadventure likened to the greatest oiler in the 1980s terror list is a craven capture of photogenesis in rapture that fastens seatbelts of strawberry deaths of crackles of blinkered hubris accelerated by the twisters of vulcanized culmination blasted for history for headlines in ravines of mastery beyond the persnickety prestidigitation of magic sarcasm in the avalanche of dynasty never nastier than violence vile in acerbic posterization of plumage that is blacker than Rush Hour in the menace of Dennis in fractal philosophy funneled into one brittle muster of height rather than weight in freakish geometries of squirrels battering a home run cast away in fracture

Interconnection
Interdependence
Interior constantly in flux
Into and out from the mix

In awe of all that keeps the virus out
In awe of all that politics hide out
In awe of all social circles virtual or not
In awe of my own limited self eked out

I bow to the in and bow to the out
In and out are all but separate not
In the out, may I see the inner
In the out, may I recognize the inner

What is out could very well be inner
What is inner could very well be out
Why muse and why use
Why not just close eyes and know

Interconnection
Interdependence
Interior constantly in flux
Into and out from the mix

Rain-scented perfume, this
Aromatic smell of rain-soaked earth
Monsoon-infused, centuries-old.

A man turns his head towards the laughter
As he crushes a batch of ancient clay.
Knowingly his attention returns to his family.

It is the smell of the baked, parched soil
When the first rains arrive after the drought
Which concerns the artisan of scented oils.

The enticing fragrance fills the air
With each precious drop of heavy syrup
Eked from the ages, eked from eternity.

Captured in the tiny bottle, power-filled.
The process has survived the fall of civilizations
And empires and conquerors.

It is said to have healing powers.
Aged like the land and its ancient people,
Deep and rich, the liquor of the essence of time.

It must come from this land, this people.

Gazing down
I see this dull blade drew blood
Dial blind as ache lulls
Defy ease as life oozes free
Don’t lie down
Don’t sleep
Keep fear sharp
As faint creeps the soothing deep
Passions eked
Awareness do not forsake me
Come on
Come on
Answer
I stare vague at the mess where my wrist used to be
Which emergency?
Ambulance please
Consciousness bleeds
I wake with cool linen covering me

Today I feel worthless. No ideas are flowing; my attempts are sporadic and trivial, just some drivel I've eked out. Poetry...barely breathing , a few gasps every week or two, beyond that it's suffocation. I'm boring, mundane, my creativity drained away, and I'm not even sure when I pulled the plug. Maybe I should take a bath, plunge myself underwater, look up at the surface, search for a purpose. I want to cry, I won't, I can't. Slip into a self-loathing depression. Hit my head against the wall till one or the other breaks, at least then I might have something to fill the pages, those ******* pages.

I've walked on beaches beyond reach,
Preached gospels bleached of mortal speech,
Eked out life; a leach, yet lived beyond impeach,
A million years each, but I beseech:

"You are tall upon these palace walls"?
Ha! With just a thousand calls, the balance falls,
You stall, but the audience is not enthralled,
You'll be mauled as Saul when they sought out Paul,

They can trade your riches for rags in this ragtime,
Sublime, subdued piano and rhyme,
Every dime a crime, every lie dines on lime,
Feelings soured like mine as it's about to be realigned.

Mists  collude  mysteriously  watching  
jungle  canopy  tops.  Irish  soldiers  
In their  base  on  a  verdant  mountain  side.  
By  the  pebble  track  and  the  graveyard,  
Our  tents  erected  inside  a  village  
school  ruins.  

Paths  built  from  river  rock,  
gullies  and  drainage  dug  around  
strong  tents.  Hard  work,  determined  grit.  
Water  supplies  and  rations  flown  in  
by  Chilean  helicopter  pilots.  
Existence  eked  normality  a  chore.  

I  gaze  at  their  barefoot  black  feet  
kicking  an  empty  plastic  bottle.  
Make  believe  goals  erected  in  the  slanting  field.  
Two  ad-hoc  teams  and  a  game  of  sorts.  
I  compare  it  to  my  schooldays.  

Red  windsock  unfurls  east  to  west  
also  proud  Tricolour  in  a  firm  wind.  
Behind  the  game,  dappled  horses  graze,  
branded  cattle  munch  wild  grass.  
Water  buffalo  lull  lazily,  comforting  
mud  pool  shielding  sun,  Clint  Eastwood  
stares.  Don't  mess  with  them.  

Coffee  in  my  hand  I  survey  all  
from  the  outside  wooden  table.  
Some  lads  jog  the  road;  duty  sentry  
at  the ******. Backdrop  tropical  trees  
and  fauna.  By  cicadas  bleat,  generator  grinds.  

Sport  during  my  youth  built  character  
I  was  told.  But  of  what  horrors  these  
infant  minds  were  exposed.  Collage  
******,  ****,  humiliation,  Bad  auguries  
which  corollaries  their  future  ideals.
  
They  have  no  ball  or  boots  
no  posts  to  shoot  at  and  no  nets  
to  burst.  I  hear  their  innocent  delightful  
cries  and  wish,  just  once,  I  had  the  power  
to  take  them  out  of  this  mire.  

Just  a  mere  glimpse  could  
perhaps  do  it.  Or  maybe  
take  them  all  up  in  an  aeroplane  
to  my  world  and  just  once  maybe  
hope  they  could  have  the  time  of  
their  lives  .To  touch  Cornucopia?  

Supermarket  shelves  packed  with  food  
and  sweets.  Fast  motorcars  in  beautiful  
cities  with  Walt  Disney  theme  parks.  
Shoe  shops,  football  boots,  new  cloths.  
Hot  showers  in  things  they  call  hotels!  
How  they  would  laugh  at  Bugs  Bunny  
And  awe  at  a  cinema  screen.
  
But  it  gets  chilly  now  and  my  
coffee  is  gone.  Twilight  assembles  
the  children  up  the  road  home.  
'Botarde' they  shout  to  me,  big  
Wave  and  smiles.  
And  I  realise  in  my  realistic  
heart  of  hearts,  that  probably  
they  have  just  had  the  time  of  their  lives.

Context and trust go hand in hand. If I tell you some stout men walked out of a bar, you'll understand that they're probably drunk. If I tell you they then walked into your house, you will be concerned, and then stop reading, or at least stop believing the things I say. And, understandably, you will be disillusioned with my tricks when I begin a story with an unexplained pronoun. But the fact of the matter is: the spaces between my words will not be a silence you abide. People have a tendency to fill in the gaps.

She held out one hand, her left, cupped firmly, fingers together, bound and tense. A tiny, prickly-cold ball of teal sparks bounced up and down, remarkably slowly, lying about gravity. She could feel each orphaned spark dissipate coolly on her skin. With her right, she squished the man's fingers together, then curled her hand around his, forcing it into the tight shape of her left. Curious townsfolk pointed excitedly at the hopping magic in her hand as they passed, walking from booth to booth.

It had been six years since Maria had felt so anxious, and even back then it was only half. She knew it would come today, in great waves. Rhythms of merry-making divided by chasms of trepidation, legato, slow-moving and dreadful. Her spine hurt, as though she had spent the previous day lifting boxes of reagents for her show at the end of the Midsummer Festival. Well, she had, but she knew how to lift; she was a responsible person, and knew proper form. Rather, her muscles were tight with nerves. She worried she might remember. With today's celebration all around her, the past was so near.

"Make sure you hold tense, all the way up through your wrist. If you give this unruly stuff any chance to hurt you, it will." She demonstrated, moving her left hand around rigid, and the spark-ball followed. She had a stern look on her face. "But it's fun as long as you're safe. Are you ready?"

He nodded. He must've been thirty, but he had clearly never gotten a chance to be a part of the magic before. His awestruck silence gave her a smirk.

She moved her left hand over his tensed right hand, then quickly snatched it back to her side, leaving the spark-ball floating above his slightly quavering fingers like a tablecloth trick. It bounced there, in his hand, just as it had for her. His face was concentrated deeply, brows clambering to touch but blocked by a pudgy wrinkle between. And yet his sense of wonder was somehow still clear, visible in the corners of his eyes, so Maria allowed herself a full-blown smile.

It was context that left that moment bittersweet for Maria. She would get it right this time.

She pulled at the head of her paper belt, a machination that often caught the eye of village children. The belt lapped her just above her hips several times, terminating in an odd box, something between a belt buckle and a mouse trap. As she pulled at the lapped belt, the latch cranked back, and then snapped down, tearing off a piece with a small wooden bead upon it. It was like a reel of button candies turned witch's tool.

Maria concentrated, rubbed her thumb across the wood, and it gave way to another playful sphere of light. She repeated her process, handing out a few more of these to those passersby she could convince herself she had taught to be safe.

One child had found it funny to spread her hand open suddenly just before Maria could give her the spark-ball. Maria glared the sphere into shattering spectacularly, sending sparks everywhere and seeming very dangerous. Of course, she would never have hurt the child, but when the girl ran off to her mother, Maria felt the smugness of the worst sort of teacher.

The horizon had just been kissed by the setting sun when she realized the time. She tried her best to steel herself and walked towards the weathered stage.

As she walked up the stairs and onto the stage, she looked out at the crowd. There was a sense of rurality that she hoped would be welcoming. The hearts of hard work preferred consistency to splendor, and she knew it. But she had worked so hard for this moment.

Behind her, the stage set was covered in trinkets. Ivy and moss draped over the drapery. A few stagehands rustled around behind the brown, musty curtains, occasionally sliding an open tome out into view, or rolling a small cart covered in lit candles out. None of these props were necessary, per se, but she knew her fellow performers had a penchant for the dramatic, so she wanted to impress them when they arrived. If they arrived.

Her back tightened and she could feel all the iron in her chest and arms. She could see shadows, fickle for sight, wisping at the outskirts of the celebration, teeming up from the earth and out from the forest on the outskirts of town. Please, help me, she whispered in her mind, knowing it was just for her own keeping calm. The motion behind the curtain grew quiet, and she knew things were ready. She swallowed.

"Good evening and good eats, my good folk! And what a festival it has been! For all of the wonderful people who were out in booths today, selling delectable treats and delightful trinkets they made themselves, can I get a round of applause?" She paused, and the crowd obeyed. Everyone likes to pat themselves on the back.

"Excellent, excellent," Maria said, nodding, her practiced smile radiant. "You know, before we start I just want to say: it's truly been a pleasure to share experiences with you all these last six years. I know I'm not always out and about at parties and the like, but your hospitality has been a beacon of light for me through a tough time. I want you all to know that. So, another round of applause, for being so amazing!"

She smiled and looked down at her feet for a moment, and as she did, she allowed herself to grit her teeth. She was suddenly chillingly aware of the danger she had gathered for her fellow citizens. This can't go wrong, she repeated in her mind, as she had been for weeks leading up to this day, to this show. She was sweating. She had to trust in her thoroughly proofread calculations, and the goodwill she had accrued with the fae near town in the last few years. Everything had been set up perfectly. It had to be.

And so she was smiling out at the crowd again when she flipped a switch on the dispenser head on her belt. "Now! Allow me to deliver to you all the display of a lifetime! Tonight, feast your eyes, ears, and hearts on the Parade of the Star Witch!" She grabbed the end of her belt and slung her hand out, casting the reel of paper out over the audience, and she left her hand there, gently grazing her thumb over each button as it passed.

She had cleared the first objective perfectly, but she didn't relax.

No fewer than twenty huge spark-***** shot wildly up into the air off the paper, directly overhead of many villagers, leaving wide, bright tails of blues and purples as they went. They hovered in place at the top of their range, blasting out light in unpredictable rhythm. It was loud. Children caught and argued over the used launch paper as it fell.

Maria stepped back with one foot and snapped. The candles on the table behind her roared into irresponsibly and unbelievably tall flames, instantly shifting from orange to varying cool colors. The scents of lavender and anise washed over the performance. The entire standing space of the stage lit up a deep green with the intricate details of a spell circle. She manually triggered the latch on her dispenser head, severing the paper, and snatched one last button into her hand. It was time for the second stage.

She turned and spun gracefully into the center of the circle, her dark sundress taking the light of the stage and the still-hovering spectacle above moodily. She put her hands together, and the wind began to swirl fiercely, and as it grew shadows eked out into the fading sunset, upright and physical, on either side of her. They lashed around rapidly, plentiful and playful, but seemed unguided by the sudden gusts.

She felt a sudden, sharp pain behind her eyes. One of her traps must have triggered backstage. Whoever it was had come too careless, and too late. No one could stop this now, not this time. It was finally going to happen right.

She raised her left hand up into the twilight sky, that last single button rising into the sky to be the biggest sparkler yet, in the shape of a massive star. Everyone would remember who brought them the joy of this night for years.

The shadows suddenly grew rigid, and then hands reached out of each, and the parade began in earnest.

Fae poured out of each shadow-portal in a march, walked off the stage, and continued out, stepping up into the air over the stunned crowd. They wove their own path through the air, finding a beat that affronted in theory but pleased in practice. They were of inconsistent shape and size, not just between individuals, but between moments. It was difficult to pin your eyes on any feature they had, but it was harder still to find them anything but dazzlingly beautiful. If the denizens of the town were impressed by the lightshow, they were rapt now.

Some of the fae reached down and pulled an audience member up to them, dragging them into the march. Those left on the ground blossomed with envy.

Now, at last, Maria relaxed. The props had been enough. Her work had been enough. Her "fellow performers" had accepted her offerings, and tonight the town would fall away from the cruelties of reason and time, and into something delightful, eternal, and fun.

There was -- to describe it as a sudden turn gives the suggestion that this eventuality was not certain. But it was abrupt, as more people were pulled up into the parade. Kissing spread like wildfire across the skywalking troupe. Some townspeople seemed uncomfortable. Some followed suit. But no one ran.

The town had left the world. The people would be swallowed up by the fae, or become them, or both, and the night would soak in revelry ad infinitum.

It was context and trust that always misguided the prey of the Town-Eater Witch.

A crackle before her, a gemstone green and deep, borne of Oberon. She collected her payment with a hand still shaky with adrenaline, and then she was the wind, and then she was gone. But the sparks remained.

Crashed sparks of the divine eked from the singularity unseen by zombies who flock to neon ****** dot rubble left in the beast’s wake
Deconstructed toys that stirred and held imaginations were tossed without loyalty in preference to increasingly depraved erogeneity
Dowsing rod in hand and reduced to indivisible essences, these mad sorcerers float blindly according to intuition
Vigorous flows that whip across this infinite unformed terror realm guide them
The struggle is immense but alchemists get to work, synthesizing slowly
To sift through it all impossible and unnecessary
Just begin
Take up this crud: sacred cow, earth mother, yin and yang, crucifixion
Exhausted vessels whose reverence is parodic
There’s no time for careful, sacred handling
Crash them together destructively
The unseen force adds itself and something new is produced material minds can’t predict
A magic object
Ethereal rainbows and new geometries
Hold it’s fire, blow on it
The wizard knows how to tend a flame without getting immolated
A new beginning is possible
Mud can be imbued with the spirit that’s been cast and sealed
Conduct disparate flows to unity
The sentience revealed will help
You’ve done your part
Slip beyond
Transcendents laying in the future will know and speak with you when time dissolves

Paint the night sky
With my breath
With my soul

Canvass of black velvet
Crystalline drops of mist
An essence eked

Paint the black velvet
**** in
My soul

The flavors of curses are cornucopic, but in the broadest sense, like all magics, curses are composed of one of four intents --

to sever, to bind; to wax, or to wane.

And in the dark, she strained, her heavy head grasping consciousness between slippery fingers. Her mind sweltered. There were no lessons here, sweating and warm. This night was not about learning. It was about execution, and rage.

She would bind them, then: less like a knot and more the way that a child's lost teeth are bound to the mouth that cast them aside, the way that a kiss is bound to two lovers and exists in neither. There was a hint of history hidden in each drop of sweat, and there was the backwards way that each conscious thing becomes what it is because of what it was when it wasn't.

She hadn't moved in hours. She wouldn't move. Some would say she couldn't move, but those that knew her wouldn't rob her of her rich stake in this. She meant this more than she had meant anything in her life.

And so she was shaking when, finally, a waft of purple eked up out of the rock on the desk in front of her, slowly lashing about, spreading, writhing, a bit like blood in water. But it wasn't blood.

Not yet.

at the very least, another life can be

eked out--by what goes unnoticed in

any given day.

a thing will always change with the

perceiver, even color is colored.

the sheer overawing & unquantifiable

detail is as matter-of-fact as imagination

itself.

begin & end anywhere you choose--

even though there's no beginning or

ending to the interactiveness.