Happiness

Ah, happiness, that elusive state

i surf cyberspace but I cannot locate

i put up huts, thatched of smiles and style

the lady i saw this morning

perched on the far edge of her mind

swallowing life around and getting swallowed back

she got me thinking, of thinking and meditating

of life and its meaning

'i must not fear', the first line in my journal quotes Frank Herbert

i must not fear, huh! sure, death is not scary

i'll tell you what is scary if you will not get scared

i'll drown my worries if you will stay overnight.

now that i have your attention dear, tell me, what makes you happy?

my occult dream told me i could be loved too

but dreamland is way tricky and sure without mirrors

my half-lover needs a star out of Orion

when they are slipping away, they get very close

hearts touching, minds groping for a way out

my boss needs my money, a relapse in despair

my beloved, she knows me better than i know myself

now, that is scary, my friend. she can play me on her accordion

she can make me sing or whine, she can make me love like a runaway lover

she can bend me in folds to fit in her leaking jeans

my hometown has had enough of me, and some extra to give away

my deathbed hasn't seen me since this morning, and that is scary too.

My Dad, a Tailor

Photo by Alexander Andrews on Unsplash

In this country, a boss should always be bald and have a big belly. My uncle isn’t bald, he hasn’t got a big belly either, and you don’t realize, the first time you see him, that he is the actual boss of a big office downtown. I didn’t believe him at first, until he invited me in after school. All excited, I deemed it to be cubby, just like our living room or that of Keza’s but it was a whole of the world, with moving chairs and everything. Well, let’s pass that but it was grand and beautiful, I tell you. I wanted my dad to get there, maybe he’d see by himself what I always wanted to tell him long before that no tailor can make a big money. So I asked uncle if ever my dad has been here but quickly judged that I shouldn’t have for if my dad had ever set his feet in this building, he would have left his tailoring machine at our veranda the next morning and went out to search for a job, a paying job.

At the beginning of this academic year, our new teach Immaculé requested us to introduce ourselves. We were asked our names, our parents’ names and their jobs, where we live and so on. When my turn arrived, I said everything as it is and…

”But your father is a tailor, why do you say he’s jobless?”

Teacher having known my dad before time, I was convinced at the end of our arguing, when no one gave in, that she ought to defend him. But when you have a job, you are either a boss like our uncle or you have a boss.

“Yes boy, he’s been here on numerous occasions, why?”

“Well, nothing. I just wanted to know.”

My dad has seen this office himself? I was disappointed and a bit angry that he did nothing to get a job afterwards. But anger shrunk when I remembered that we are never hungry and that we always get new clothes on Christmas and, above all, that we go to school. Though until now I don’t understand where he gets money to pay our school fees. Maybe our uncle pays for us and we are never let to know about it.

Disappointment didn’t go anywhere though. How can a grown-up man feed his family without having a proper job? Do people he sews clothes for pay him? I doubt that because whenever he sends me to take their clothes to them, they don’t give me any money. Maybe he does it all as the Good Community Work we are always told at Sunday school.

“A man should always do good deeds for his community to claim his place in Heaven.” Our Sunday school teacher likes to tell us. Maybe that’s what our father is doing. He just wants heaven not us, but we don’t complain. We get all we need.

World We Call Ours

Image from Pinterest

We named our world, re-named it in graven panic
our parol hung close
names uncorrelated with inherited tunic
we painted us freeze

In mediaeval formation, ought to be were seers
the expansion of our Mother's Womb
could've carried along poets of unblurred leers
leer on glassed future, unpainted tomb

I Did Not

Photo by Paweł Czerwiński

I did not write the notes
the night does not glow
when i ride myself home
what come you looking for
in this land, in this silence

I did not dictate the providence
the causality, we broke up
that was yesterday, i forgot
how could i have moved on
it is my story, myself, i'm losing

I did not cry out loud
i was just a friend i never had
death and his lines, gods and their lies
i haven't made up my mind yet, or did i?
there's a  whole mountain named after me

I did not know the face of no-pain
the light is another sore in disguise
in my world, what is right, what is not
this young man's life is brightly parched
onlookers' discretion is ergo advised


\O_o/

The Rest of Me

Photo by Folco on Unsplash

Clothe the sore warm

Leave only the pain ON when you sleep

This is your life, this is your way home

I once read about the dying elephant

The crying never heard; 

where's the rest of me?

What's left to wheel me through the days is especially gauzy

But you could read me, oh! 

you could light me on if you glanced backwards

And look where we are, look at the time trickling away, unmindful of us

The ghost in me wants you; 

the devil in me wants me, has me, tries me

But the angel in you wants something else!