home sweet home

I've been really quiet over the last few weeks, working through getting my life back, following the armed robbery at my house. They say 'when it rains, it pours', I am learning the power of the universe and its ability to push you in the direction you need to go, even if it is kicking and screaming. The last few months have been insane and I have been forced to re-visit life and my role in this madness.

I've been stressed... so stressed I got tired of being stressed and decided to relax and let things follow their natural course. The year started full of excitement and optimism and, in a very twisted way, I am re-discovering my enthusiasm for life. I threatened to quit the whole 'being a poet' experience but have found that, when I am not focused on poetry being the breadwinner, the joy and passion that comes with writing returns.

I have always tried to use this time of the year as a period of introspection, a period to look inward with complete honesty, a time to be true to oneself. I am now home in Maseru, Lesotho (look it up in a map if you don't know where that is), with family and am rediscovering what is important. I sometimes wonder why I punish myself by continuing to try to build a foundation in a country that is not my own at the expense of my own country... the answer is for me to build and develop both at home and beyond.

Never been one for New Year's resolutions but I have promised myself that in 2006, I will do more not only for my adopted country and my home country, but beyond too. We supposedly live in a global village and the only way we can ensure that we do have enough of a world to enjoy in the future, we all need to throw in our two cents. I am going to throw in mine.

I am writing a lot more, so there will be more poetry in this space in the future. Hopefully, there will also be more about poetry globally. I am one man, part of a worldwide poetic family and it is time we started sharing, talking, laughing, working and playing together.

If I do not make it back here before the end of the year, have yourselves a beautiful one. For Christians, Christmas has a particular significance. For the rest of us, it is time to spend with the ones you love and celebrate another year of happiness, success and fulfilment. You are still breathing ... keep it that way.

Easy Runnings

poetry pimp...

When it comes to poetry, I have a few categories for everything I write. There is written, performance, personal and pimped poetry, to name a few. Seems relatively straight forward but I am sure you are wondering about the pimped thing. Well, this is basically poetry for money, with no qualms about what it is for. As an idealist poet in search of perfection, this does fly in the face of the legacy I am trying to create, but .... sometimes .... it is just about eating.

Anyway, just found a poem I wrote and performed at an event for Amstel on a hot Saturday afternoon, on the top deck of a boat, with a band jamming in the background. A bit long, but thought I would share .... it does work better when heard but .... yeah .... here goes:


Shh, close your eyes and picture a place
I said, close your eyes and picture a place
A calm & soothing space
An peaceful, tranquil space
A space where everything makes sense
Free from the day-to-day stress

It’s dark outside
But you’re inside
And inside the feeling is just right

Do you see it?

Okay, now listen,

You hear music
Soulful, funky music
Passionate, real life music
The kind of music that crawls up your spine
And puts a smile on your face
The kind of music that has your soul dancing

Brown sugar music
Soulchild music
Let’s get it on music
I know you know the kind of music I’m talking about

In the background you hear voices and laughter
Faint traces of cologne and perfume tickle the air
Around you there is joy, and laughter, and smiles
That reach the eyes and break the shallow surface
Of a distorted reality

This is where you belong

Feel the clothes on your back
The ground beneath your feet
The cushions beneath your ….
Gently caressing your body
As you lean back in total rest

Reach out for your drink
Awaiting your embrace
It lingers
On a coffee table on your right

Pick it up
Let the chill factor engulf you

Take it slow, don’t rush it
Take a sip, just a sip
In your presence, in this space,
Time stands at attention
Slave to your direction
This is a moment of reflection
Introspection, resurrection

The liquid trickles down your throat
Count to twenty-one
And take another sip

Taste it, hold onto that feeling
Savour it
Feel the room around you
The atmosphere, the ambience
Feels good, doesn’t it?
The height of sophistication yet comforting
Classy and smooth
It feels slow brewed
Filled with kindred souls
All in the same space
This is home….

Now open your eyes
You’re on a gently swaying boat
As you glide seamlessly through the water
The sun dancing carelessly on the ripples
The breeze whispering dreams in your ear
The trees murmur and bow in your presence
Your soul is at one with the universe
Okay, now repeat after me

I’m still thirsty!

I had to write this around the brand characteristics of the product and incorporate those elements into the poem. I do think there are some nice elements in it that I would like to carry forward. Any suggestions on how I can remove the Amstel feel and build on this would be greatly appreciated.

passing through

I am caught in a labyrinth, crawling through the trenches of my twisted soul, seeking something I cannot define. Everything around me is familiar, and strange - all at the same time. Utopia is a worthy cause, but how can we truly appreciate light, if there is no darkness. I am lost only because I know what it is like to be found. I write nearly every day but on most days there is no comfort in the words because I know what comforting words sound like. Often I sit in prolonged silence just so I can find joy in the sound of a butterfly's wings flapping. Plus the sound of my voice sounds so much better when unused. I listen because I love to be heard. I ramble in those moments when I have so much to say, there is nothing that can be said. The letters and words choose themselves and I am merely a channel for madness and chaos that, in most places, would be considered normal. The world we live in is so abnormal it has become normal to be strange, and familiar - all at the same time. This is strange. We are strange. I am strange. I am normal.

more drama

I am writing this in a truly confused state of mind with 28 minutes left on the meter at an Internet Cafe. You see, I am at the mercy of this spaces for the first time in years, so it is really strange for me. I have always had access to the net. I have always functioned as a mobile office - as a writer, I love hanging out in coffee shops typing or scribbling away, coming up with new poems or new schemes for 'taking over the world. Today I realise how dependent I have become on technology, especially my laptop and cellphone, and now I am without.

At about 2.15am on Tuesday morning, the missus and I were awoken by a bright light in our bedroom. A man, of unknown origin, was standing at the bottom of our bed. He proceeded to silence us with a few strong words and the waving of a gun, also of unknown origin. After relieving our bedroom of our cellphones, jewellery and the missus' handbag, he told us to keep still and not move while he went back into the living room to finish up his night's work. Once he was out of the room, I jumped up, locked the bedroom door and we fled to 'safety' through our bathroom window.

As a result of this experience, I am now without two laptops and two cellphones, which means my ability to stay in touch with the world has become extremely limited. Ever the optimist, I am working on the theory that this state will only last for a week or two.

Not only can I not access the outside world, I have also lost most of my work from the last 5 months. I feel useless because I have always turned to the keyboard when bored, inspired, etc. That has been my source of income, joy and purpose. Now it is gone.

I suspect there is some great poetry in the experience but I am currently at a loss for words so please do forgive should I fall short in the next week or two. I shall recover.

I am now left with 17 minutes and need to attend to some other things before, so I shall be back soon. Easy

resuscitation

I have a problem. I suspect all writers have this, but mine is rearing its twisted head again. I have a tendency of writing anywhere, any place and anytime on anything. To avoid carrying scraps of paper around, I have a collection of little black books that I carry with me to ensure that I always have something to write on. Problem is that it ends up being a different book everyday so I have writings everywhere, that I never keep track of.

Actually, the one positive is that, like money in the pocket of a jacket you haven't worn in a while, finding them always brings so much joy. Anyway, a friend of mine, Ayob, who tends to be keeper of my writings - my hard drive once crashed with all my work in it so I send them to Ayob as offsite backups - recently found a few poems I wrote over a year ago. This has inspired me to start reading some of my old work. I even performed a few this weekend at the Blackword Poetry Festival in Johannesburg as well as at a gig last week for the Gordon Institute of Business Science. (Oh, I got Ayob into blogging so check out http://ispeakwords.blogspot.com - Revival of the Mentally Dead)

Thought I'd drag one out for you, which is from my book Voices In My Head, called 'listen to your footsteps' (why do I think I have posted this before? Must check & keep track):

i close doors
and hotbox minds with vocal dexterity
i twist meaning
and shade my ego from emotion
i lay my soul naked before strangers
and hide my heart with thick bush
i dance to god’s toe taps
and drown in the rhythm of doubt
i stand brave before giants
and quiver in the presence of children
i recite words repeatedly
and pray for salvation in affirmation
i listen to my footsteps
and search for the future in sound
i inhale weed smoke
and hope for spiritual clarity
i embrace confusion
and dream of normality
i keep both feet on the ground
and seek altered mind states
i see angels in every corner
and denounce ghosts in haunted houses
i live my truth
and epitomise hypocrisy
i justify lies with simple answers
and i am human
look into my shattered mirror
and listen to your footsteps

Latest news: I think I am starting to enjoy this poetry thing again... the last few months have been filled disillusion and frustration, but I think I am starting to remember why it is I write. As long as I do not depend on the Word as my passage to wealth, I shall be find.

Also, I finally got my books into a bookshop called Xarra Books. If you are in Johannesburg, or are ever in Johannesburg, do visit Xarra in the Newtown Cultural Precinct. While you are there, pick up Voices In My Head and And They Say: Black Men Don't Write Love Poetry.

That's a lot of words for one day.

Easy

hibernation

I have spent the last two months wallowing in a state of hibernation, reflecting on life, love and the purpose of breathing. Not necessarily the best state to exist in but it's been working for me. I believe everyone should have the odd moment of self-pity to put life into perspective and give one a ditch to crawl out of... if you don't fall, how are you going to get up? Twisted logic, I guess, but it helps me breathe.

I am now being dragged, reluctantly, back into society... I am performing at three different gigs over the next week, which should make for an interesting experience since, other than the scribblings I post here, I haven't been doing anything poetry-related and I haven't been on a stage since the beginning of August. Oh, the only performance I've done was on Channel O's O-Boma.

Anyway, this Saturday heralds the Blackword Poetry Festival at Constitution Hill in Johannesburg, which, as far as I am concerned, is probably the largest poetry festival attempted, with 20+ poets, emcees and bands, including Lebo Mashile, Afurakan, Flo, Kabomo, Napo Masheane, Ayob, Myesha Jenkins, Sabelo, Moemise Motsepe, Natalia and Kojo. Put together by the Lenaka boys, founders and publishers of B.Ko poetry journal, it should provide to be an awesome experience. It starts at about 10am, costs R30 and runs for the whole day so if you in the area, swing by.

I'm looking forward to it and maybe this is what I need to get back into society.

the pain of love

she loves to calm the demons
seven headed reflection of her inner beauty
born in the image of medusa's bastard off-spring

as painful as it may seem
schizophrenia lies within us all
blanketed by the layers of the abnormal

and she is us is she

divine creature of day and night
makes you see into the porous eye of dreams
where hope is reality
and all we dream of is flight

possibility multiplied by infinity is we
cradled between the lines of her fingerprint
we see only the burden of the love she has loved
never really seeing the tomorrow of the love she has loved

and she is us is she

her bright-eyed future is ours
where the petals of a dying rose
are the seeds from which tomorrow grows

she may have been loved before
but she will love again as will we

because she is us is she
and she is LOVE!!!

This is something i wrote for the Seven show. I seem to be caught up in a love where everything is love. wrote this over a year ago but the same line seems to crop up even today. wonder if there is a message ... too tired to think about it. just wanted to share the words.

easy

aimless ramblings

I have no idea what this post is to be about so I have decided that it should be about nothing. Totally directionless. Simply fingers tapdancing across the keyboard, making their mark wherever they want to.

i seek deliverance from normality

freedom from the ordinary

hope from within humanity

just a little extraordinary

a slice of special

a piece of fantasy

i seek deliverance from normality

that's all i seek

I dream of greatness, and making my mark on the world, and often wonder whether the great ones are as haunted by feelings of inadequacy as I am. Do great people know that they are great? A line I like from Common is 'do wack MCs know that they are wack'.. or something to that effect.

All we have is hope. All that keeps me going every day is confidence in my ability to achieve whatever I put my mind to; then I spend more time worrying about not doing anything. I hate this time of the year ... i usually start shutting down and questioning everything I have done for the year.

Every December I decide that if certain things haven't happened by the end of the next year, I shall retire from poetry and write merely as a hobby, and every year, I find reasons why I should carry on my path, although what was supposed to happen hasn't happened. Drives me mad.

Am I alone in my madness? I feel dazed ... see pic

moment of clarity

I have recently experienced a 'moment of clarity', a brief moment when life finally made sense. It may not be a big deal for some, and others may have known this for some time now, but it hit me like a stolen kiss two days ago.

The chance of me being able to comfortably live off poetry is close to nothing. It will always provide me pleasure and I will, undoubtedly, become better at it, maybe even achieving a significant level of recognition, but it will never pay my bills. Publishing, performing and recording poetry shall provide me with some of my needs and wants, but they will never bring me true wealth.

I can possibly thrive off the spin-offs that poetry may provide, such as copywriting, corporate theatre, television and theatre scripts, etc, but not purely off poetry. In other words, i can make a decent living off 'creative writing', of which poetry is one, but not solely off poetry.

The thing about this 'epiphany' is that it might just be the answer I need to re-discover my love for poetry. This whole 'building a career as a poet' thing was starting to drain me of my love for the Word. If my job is focused on something else, I am sure the joy shall return.

I am now seeking a cause. A worthy endeavour that shall become my poetic guiding light. I want to have fun again.

In Word We Trust.

one plus one equals one

Was at friends' wedding this weekend and had a moment of momentary inspiration. The missus tends to abuse the fact that I play with words for a living (well, an attempt at a living) and buys cards for all occassions that do not have writing in them, just so I can scribble something.... the pressure. Anyway, while at the wedding, these words made their presence felt:

i inhale her the way only lovers can
and exhale into her

deep within her

we are siamese twins
connected by love's umbilical cord
recipients of a life force like no other

none have loved
the way we love
and none shall love so deeply again

we consume each other daily
oblivious to all that is trivial

we are love