Year of the bastard dragon and the samurai

I’ve been thinking, how best to walk amongst you this year and be okay with myself and the rest of you. Last year I strolled around as God; I know, I may not have looked the part but trust me, I was wielding thunderbolts and only 'Martha' stopped me from unzipping my fly and drowning you-all in another biblical deluge and if I were your God, all of you, hell I would run into the lab screaming STOP! Stop it now, this thing you’re breeding is going to eat everything, kill the power and let’s go play some golf.

I don’t know if its age or maybe the things I’ve been imbibing but increasingly it seems like the world is doomed and it will never come close to the utopia you’d imagined as a child. No pretty spaceships, hover-boards, time machines, teleporters and people who minutely care about each other, oh and ‘dude, where’s my flying car? Huh? You lazy incompetent sack of evolutionary dregs.

I’ve been in me parents’ house for the last year, technically it’s been the sum total of 5 months but I’ve had the chance to observe them. My dad is retired and my mom just left her twenty-something year bank job recently. They’re old but not as old as they would like to think and one of the things I can’t help but notice, especially in my mom, is a creeping fear of the world. My dad is mostly content to listen to BBC, watch TV and ridicule the politicians (opposition) while sipping his pint, he’s always been reserved but on occasion he’ll let it slip that ‘ this is madness! You young people don’t know what we’ve been through or what’s good for you. You and these Besigye things.’  

 As you grow older, the temptation to cement views, habits and other mannerisms is overwhelming; it offers a certain kind of ‘security’, knowing that things work and will be done in a certain way. Unfortunately, the tragedy of every generation is that the next one almost always discards the former’s teachings or at least finds them wanting, discredits its rules as too rigid and backward and generally takes a piss in their flowerbeds and vegetable patches.

My dad is convinced Bes is nothing but a ‘sick’ bitter person who wants power at all costs. The fact that he used to be Sevo’s personal doctor in the bushtime irks him so much, he can’t believe the guy could turn around and ‘snake’ his gango like so. As for the rest of the opposition, fuck em all, at least I think that’s what he would say if he wasn’t too polite. My parents though generally don’t understand ‘what the kids want’, meaning me and my siblings because we’re never short of drama. Fleeting marriages, unqualified wannabe geniuses, inadequate parents and obstinate buffoons, some of us refused to graduate, citing the sham and inadequate instruction received and deploring the idea of a behind the desk occupation when the whole wide world is out there. There are those of us who can’t take the intrusion into our personal lives and so we resort to being as elusive as that damn train of thought I was just on. The rest of us won’t even say a word, content to leave everyone guessing as to our motivations and aspirations. Of course, all we want to say is ‘it’s all alright; you don’t have to worry because it’ll all turn out fine.’ But it’s the parent’s job to worry, despair, remonstrate, threaten and finally give up and just watch, hoping that you won’t sell their last shred of dignity for a quick fix around the corner with Misty and triple nippled Jasmine.

Anyway, I’ve been slowly aging, in my head, setting myself in certain ways that I think will serve me well in the years to come and make me strong enough not to crumble in the face of fucking unrelenting life. Life is senseless, in its actuality it’s force acting on matter, period. The lumps of flesh that we are are moved by the force of mind to undertake actions that we tell ourselves have meaning behind them; that my smiling at you means that perhaps I’m partial to you and will watch your pint while you go take a leak but fuck you! I’m going to drop some laxatives in your bottle and keep you occupied while I chat up and make off with your half-wasted girlfriend, why do you think you keep going to the loos?

I’m tired of being gentle with you. I have come to think that you’ll never learn until you feel that fucking steel run through. Yes. I am going to stab you, in the back, in that ever ballooning beer belly and your fucking crotch too and then I’m going to kick you in the shins and watch you bleed and cough your innards out.

I like Bes. I think he’s one of the bravest bastards to emerge from the stupid lazy ass swarm of filth you call your political class. When the rest of you are too fuckin scared to throw a pebble at the people you think are robbing your future, he’s out there being pummelled by hired thugs and acolytes, no less paid with your fuckin money. There are people out there with the IQ of a polythene paper bag, who are no doubt convinced that there is only one way to do things and if you set yourself up against it, then you’re the enemy and must be defeated by any means necessary, it is the legacy of a militant ideology. If the most successful thing you’ve ever done is fight a war, you’re bound to love the battlefields more than the rolling green hills and domesticities of ordinary life. For you, the child flying a kite is a frivolity that should be limited and all you would teach would be the sharpening of the blade. But peace is harder than war because right now I want to carry my blade and cut you to fucking bits, the you that believes men are meant to be led, that would put itself above them, I want to see you bleed before me.

Bes is not perfect, in fact he is of the same mould as those he seeks to supplant and though he may not achieve this; his victory has been the moral one. There was a time when not a single voice was to be heard in earnest opposition to those who raised themselves above you and so they went about their business with little to hold them back or in check and the ideals we nurtured at the start were taken to the back room, raped and eviscerated, splattered on the walls, bloody handprints the tell-tale signs of what once was. She lies bleeding still, Liberty, and though you’ve raped her day and night, her spirit remains, strong and true. Now she wields the sword and you who would have her in chains shall pay your due.

The other day I sat down with you and wondering how to better your lot, you asked how best to free yourself. It’s all rotten you said and you embarked on an aimless tirade meant to display your skill with the words. “There is no one to lead us,” you lamented, having exhausted the depths your intellectual façade could approximate, the fog of indolence clouding your vision you opted to turn your head and look the other way. ‘I shall wait’ you said, until a hundred seasons have gone by and the fruit lies on the fields, putrefying and the vigour of youth is gone from your bones.

Your spawn shall eat you from within the womb, if you should attempt to pass on your half cooked ideas and beliefs, all of them foreign to you. You think you have seen war, famine, pestilence and death but when they come, there will be no pity in their eyes and your wails and cries of anguish will call the carrion birds to feast on your gouged out eyes trailing in the wake of my blade. I know you can hear them, just beyond the wall, the one you built around your little world, the one you think will scare them off or hold them back. The spikes on the top, they will rip out and thrust up your anus, again and again until your guts flow out and soil the marble floor and then they will burn it all down and leave no trace of you or your line.

He who wields the sword must be prepared to cut and he who cuts knows that it is only himself that he fells, bit by bit until there is nothing left but the sword. I shall wield the blades and all that grows to choke the head of grain will be cut and if you should stand in my way, I will cut you too.

I shall be gentle with you though, for I love you and would rather spend the days with you coaxing the land to bring forth what is our just reward and the nights lost in the tenderness of your embrace. I shall sheathe my blade and remember that these are the days of peace, the days of the free and everything can be, but I cannot forget that I wear the blade.

Now!

I am at child's play
The beginning of the universe at the start of each day
Yesterday is gone and tomorrow far far away
I have only today to say
HEY!

There is no formula for the imaginary things

Bliss is here :)

If you want to be happy, be.
.......Leo Tolstoy

Geisha Love

You can avoid being a neurotic if you stop obsessively analysing what you imagine to be your character: never mind your faults, stop moaning about your complexes, do not pour out confessions about what you can and cannot do, like or desire. Treat each meeting with a person as an independent event. 'A geisha is always ready to produce pleasure with out considering her own needs.' Put aside personal ambitions and the expectations you have of yourself. Learn to be a geisha by being, first of all, a geisha to your own body; look after it, cook meals for yourself when you are alone as though giving yourself a treat; look after your mind by feeding it with poetry and music. Avoid creating an excessively rigid idea of your desires. Look upon yourself as an amoeba, floating through life, dividing: do not be afraid of losing your identity. Or look upon yourself as a collection of electric light bulbs: do not put all the electricity in a single bulb or it will explode; allow your energy to circulate freely through the many sides of yourself. The looser, the more open and limitless your identity, the better. Treat your emotions as a garden needing to be kept tidy. Be generous, and that will stimulate new resources within yourself, new ideas. Follow the 'laws of nature'. It is up to you.

--------------------- An Intimate History of Humanity by Theodore Zeldin.

Happy New Year

It was an okay year. I mean, last year; it was alright.

I spent a good amount of it in your homes, as a friend, drinking or smoking buddy, guest, invited and otherwise, acquaintance, forlorn stranger, charity case, homeless bumpkin, that guy who has grass, banange the list is endless but I spent it with you.

I gave up my place of abode at the beginning of the year, the walls did not love me anymore and spent the days hatching plans with the roof to smother me while I slept and nights glaring at me with peeling paint malice and contempt. I could not sleep. The doors would let me out no more but led me down endless corridors where the clocks always struck the hour of darkest night and the paintings came alive. Bronze horses galloping, drums beating, evil eyes laughing, sharp teeth chattering, and long bony fingers peeling off my skin.

So I left and returned to my mother’s house.

I was ashamed; somewhere in my head my ancestors sat before me and tut-tutted. I was no longer worthy to be called your friend or brother for I was just another lazy motherfucker.

Still I deigned to walk among you. I could not be alone for it meant that I would slowly but surely perish, perhaps not in form but in substance I would be less here and more there. So I walked about and saw you from the other eyes and learnt that man is a lonely and scared creature, that all he does is to quell the silent despair that lies deep in his heart. All alone out here, he gathers to himself everything he can find and would tell the story of his life by the mounds of dirt he piles, one on top of the other.

I learnt that you still believe that to have a care is to be weak and in hardening your heart, you fell and lost one.

I remembered what it meant to have a home, to catch the trailing bits of the love you once knew as a child. It is no more now, the one without a price, perhaps it never was but I knew it once and it is still somewhere deep inside of me. I will give it to you, if you let me.

I walked abroad unafraid of you for I was God in my world, and I weighed and measured and found you in need. I saw your fear and felt it run through me and knew that you’d rather it was not near or something you could hear. So I kept quiet and let the cacophony of feigned laughter, disdain, and rage wash over me.

I walked to the forest to find the wild man who went to live a deliberate life and beneath the fig tree we shared fruit. He called me a wild man too, said I was very much him, true to the wood with nothing to prove.

And then I sat with you and broke bread, told you what I saw in my mind’s eye but you did not hear. Your voice louder in your head than shrieking Valkyries drowned out all that did not please. Still I sat, and waited for you to return and listen. I sit still.

I will not give up. One day you will truly know me and then I shall have no fear and you will not be afraid of me too.

Happy New Year people in my life; friends real and imagined, family lost and found, love known and unknown.

::Hold Fast::

Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die. “He that will lose his life, the same shall save it,” is not a piece of mysticism for saints and heroes. It is a piece of everyday advice for sailors or mountaineers. It might be printed in an Alpine guide or a drill book. This paradox is the whole principle of courage; even of quite earthly or quite brutal courage.

A man cut off by the sea may save his life if he will risk it on the precipice.
He can only get away from death by continually stepping within an inch of it. A soldier surrounded by enemies, if he is to cut his way out, needs to combine a strong desire for living with a strange carelessness about dying. He must not merely cling to life, for then he will be a coward, and will not escape. He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, and will not escape. He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it; he must desire life like water and yet drink death like wine.
.......................................................................................................................... GK Chesterton

Sing a sad love song and bury me in the sky

I passed out on Sunday night, not due to substance abuse (albeit three Guinness and sherm smoke) but one of those unexplained moments when your body gives out. It’s happened to me once before, sometime in 2003 when I was with Jorge and Roger in Ntinda. We had just arrived in town from a trip to Hoima and having been seated for several hours I got out of the car to yawn and stretch me limbs. I opened the door, stood up, stretched my hands ready to embrace the full splendour of life and ZAP, the lights went out. I came to several seconds later, sprawled on the dusty pebbled ground, nervous laughter and concerned glances all round and brushed the incident off, putting it down to the exhausting trip.

The human body is frail; though when you are young and healthy you tend believe otherwise but the truth is that it’s matter and succumbs to entropy. I think one of the things that stresses and depresses people when they advance in years is that creeping realisation that your body is giving out on you, most times (you think) before you’ve had the chance to do much with it. I don’t fall sick often but for the occasional bout of the common cold and have always been reluctant to visit the physician but in the most dire of circumstances. In fact, I have always had the concept of medical bills and how high they can be at the back of my mind. When I was younger and my medical bills were the responsibility of someone else, I learned how heavy a burden that could be and I came to bear the notion that unless it’s a matter of life and death, I have no business troubling anyone with that ‘ka slight twitch of the pinkie’ that happens every now and then. As for life and death, if I’m conscious then it’s time for saving my ass, otherwise kwaheri world.

So there I was, standing over the saucepan of potatoes, fork in one hand trying to tease that nice big potato onto the plate in the other when the lights went out. Last thing I heard was the plate fall and shatter and then nothing until I came to, a minute later, lying on the kitchen floor with the saucepan of potatoes between my legs. For a minute I was terrified, scared of the fact that if it had been more serious I would have probably lain there until the mourning. Then I fully came to and started wondering where the consciousness goes in such moments; I mean, you’re not here but for an empty husk and you’re not there for there is no memory of the other place. So where?

On thinking about it some more, I realised that my body’s been doing this for years, the passing out I mean. There are times when I’m taking a leak, especially when I’ve been ‘tying’, and I feel myself go woozy for a few seconds and then an incredible rush of life and energy and aaaaaaah! It’s close to ecstasy and probably death. Thankfully it’s never happened whilst playing ‘hide the sausage’. It does however remind me of my mortality, and makes me think of what would happen if it were serious. Then I realise that I need somebody else to care about my body because oftentimes I don’t respect it that much. I once had a monologue where I threatened to toss it off a bridge when I was done with it and it calmly threatened to give me ‘Pirellis’ and throw me in ditches if I decided to binge on the finer things. I have learnt that we need other people to take care of us when we can’t do it for ourselves and that that is a very huge part of why we attach ourselves to others, why we are bonded to family and the closest of friends, why we came down from the trees.

I love my body and know it has a weakness for the things material and that I should not let it get carried away with them but it is still only flesh and will wither and die in time. I do not desire to hasten to this end but I know it is always close, never as far off as we like to tell ourselves. Apparently, so I heard some professor or doctor say, we don’t like to think about it often because of the paralysis it would induce in us, the knowing that the end is never far off would apparently cripple us to the point of inaction. It has always been on my mind since I truly became aware of it and I guess it has crippled and killed a few wants and desires in me but if anything, it has helped me act with a singular purpose for I know that it is a brief story I live.

Not to worry though, if you have any affection for me and fear that I will leave you here, a little less than you should be. I desire no such end, not to hurt in anyway but only to love, to care, to give a damn and I know it must start within my soul and to be honest, the story was begun long before I got here and I am but a brief chapter in your book of life. I walk in when the storm comes, to tell you that the thunder is but the voice of God, the fierce wind her infinite mercy and the darkness will be gone when your eyes open to the new dawn. And then I walk out, the chapter closed, my story to you told.

I want you to promise me one thing; that when I walk out, you will sing me a sad love song and bury me in the sky.

Never Saw You Coming

I am the lonely
The ones who slip away
I am the secret
The words we dare not say
I am the promise I'm about to break...again

I am the leader
Who cannot find the way
I am the preacher
Who somehow lost the faith
I am the begger reaching out my hands...again

And I never saw you coming
I could never dream of running
I have never known such love before
My God, you come, come and breathe your breath in me
Steal away what's left of me
Til you are mine and I am yours

I am the lover with no one to hold
I am the seeker with an empty soul
I'm everyone who's ever lost hope

And I never saw you coming
I could never dream of running
I have never known such love before
My God, you come, come and breathe your breath in me
Steal away what's left of me
Til you are mine and I am yours

Fall like stars on my shore
Still you are so much more

And I never saw you coming
I could never dream of running
I have never known such love before
My God, you come, come and breathe your breath in me
Steal away what's left of me
Til you are mine and I am yours
...........................................................Bebo Norman

Beyond This Mountain

Dear Love,

I’m chasing after you no more,

I’ve done this too many a time before and my feet are sore. 

This path has been long, arduous and forlorn; 

I don’t want to go on.

Is there more to this life than you

Must I forever seek to not be blue

And yet find nothing to erase the hue 

Is it true that you always come through 

If the heart that patiently waits is open and true

Am I a fool to believe in you

I want you no more, 

I’ve cried too many a tear and this heart is broke. 

The promise you made when first I awoke

Is buried in the night of past and all I have is this yoke. 

I shall dine with you no more.

Do not let yourself despair, 

For you’re always in the air 

And all is fair when the banners are raised past the hair

And your name across chests we wear

I will miss you

I will remember you

I will speak fondly of you 

But I must leave this path to you.

Farewell love

May you forever reign in the heart of the dove

And all that shines bright above

Goodbye love
.....................................................RCK

Epitaph

Even such is Time, which takes in trust
Our youth, our joys, and all we have,
And pays us but with age and dust;
Who in the dark and silent grave,
When we have wandered all our ways,
Shuts up the story of our days:
And from which earth, and grave, and dust,
The Lord shall raise me up, I trust.
.........................................................Sir Walter Raleigh

Aurora

The loving night is spent
Arms tight around the pillow; lingering scent
Here comes the light, shadows away to dispel
Visions and dreams to dissipate

Hold the night
Hold me tight
Heart fraught with care and strife
Would know more of sweet delight

Night is fled
Dawn kisses face
Morning dew on lips, tender touch, soft caress
Open mouth, open heart; gentle sigh, lost in space

Dawn is broken, 

Darkness is fled
Heart that was broken

To the lights seeks to bend

------------------------------------------RCK

Introspection

If you can help it, don’t visit your skeletons too often.
--------------------------------------------ScotchBiscuits

Becomingness

Every one ought to hold fast, not his faults, but his peculiarities, so as to retain more easily the becomingness which is the subject of our inquiry. We ought, indeed, to act in such a way as shall be in no respect repugnant to our common human nature; yet, holding this sacred, let us follow our individual nature, so that, if there are other pursuits in themselves more important and excellent, we yet may measure our own pursuits by the standard of our own nature.
-------------------------------------------------Marcus Tullius Cicero

The King and I

Back in the early 90s, when I was in primary school, I was required to watch the 9’oclock news and give my mother a report when she got back home. Bbale Francis was the king of night-time news and invariably he started the bulleting with “President Yoweri Museveni…”  There was the one TV station back then, so there wasn’t much choice in the matter and I had to sit through Sevo opening this hospital, cutting ribbons at that ground-breaking and generally dispensing advice to his fellow Ugandans to engage in small scale industry before I could catch a glimpse of Shaka Zulu, Riviera or Herr Derrick. I was aware of a couple of things back then; that my mother’s generation had seen some dark times and that Yoweri ‘son of Kaguta’ Museveni was the greatest man in all the lands of Uganda.

Several lustres later, and I have come to learn a couple more things.

Rosemary makes the news seem so delicious; I'm sorry Mr. Bbale Francis but we be moving on, you should be proud to have a more than able successor.

The religion of father and mother is not gospel truth. If there is one thing our parents have tried to make us understand and appreciate, it is that the peace and security we have enjoyed thus far was bought at a great price and we should never take it for granted. In this spirit, they have had us believe that there is no other Ugandan who can lead this nation but the great ‘son of Kaguta’ because, well, he’s the only one who can control the military, oh and look, we have peace.

All violence is borne of fear. The so called revolutionaries who started the ‘liberation war’ of the 80’s were moved to such actions out of nothing less than fear. Afraid that a corrupt and murderous regime would consume all they had built, all they were, they took up arms to answer that violence with, well, violence and when affected in your cause, it can have many rosy names; cue freedom fighters, security operatives, revolutionaries, sons of liberty and the many coats, caps and flags it has donned in the service of man. Fear is natural, it helps the species survive but when it grows to the point of phobia it becomes the worst of man. Our parents’ society was characterized by fear to the point of eroding the ordinary senses of virtue, pride and dignity; survival was the order of the day and man became beast, base and violent. Yet in all this, as in all the histories of mankind, there were people who still held sense good enough to know and show that, complete surrender was not and never is an option. Their names are forever lost to us and all we have left are second rate heroes who extoll their valiant yet violent feats louder than the village fool. ‘Twatera emundu.”

We are the unfortunate children of a weak society. Our fathers were never strong enough to stand on their own two feet and if we should follow them, we will hobble into our graves to be mocked and forgotten as the sons and daughters of Kaguta. No people should be beholden to their heroes as to sit by and watch the very thing they fought for soiled and destroyed for their want of wisdom. Any leader must know that his primary duty is to guide and inspire the next generation and his greatest triumph to see a stronger, wiser and better leader succeed him, and thus is the lack of a suitable ‘heir’ the greatest failing of the king.

Poet's Heart

I wrote to you somewhere in south Australia
a poet's heart in the eye of a hurricane
I struggle with finding words to sing these days i said
as if my thoughts are waiting in the wings
for the stage to clear

and you in your elegance and humour fill the room
your love and your concern
your anger at the injustice of man's narrowness and fear
I thank you for being here.

You wrote of love from the coast of Mendocino
a poet's heart crying a fighter's tears
the children of your body spread out across this earth
like messages written across time,
measuring the years.

And you in your elegance and humour fill the room
your love and your concern
your anger at the injustice of man's narrowness and fear
I thank you for being here.

I heard your songs reach out to California
a poet's heart locked in the Coeur d’Alene
of the old men and the booze singing out the truth in lives
of forgiveness and loyalties to friends,
constant as the endless railroad ties

and you in your elegance and humour fill the room
your love and your concern
your anger at the injustice of man's narrowness and fear
I thank you for being here.

So here we are joined finally by our words
all poets’ hearts close though far apart
i remember how you said that language is a knife
that spreads what we feel across the dry crust
of someone's heart.

And you in your elegance and humour fill the room
your love and your concern
your anger at the injustice of man's narrowness and fear
I thank you for being here.
-------------------------------Kate Wolf

Suit Up!

Once upon a time

I wanted to love. I wanted to be love. I wanted to know all there was in the world of man. I wanted to know your name, the one you whispered to the night and gave your dreams flight. I wanted to worship, to believe in god and bow in awe of all that I beheld.

To My Brother George

Full many a dreary hour have I past,
My brain bewildered, and my mind o'ercast
With heaviness; in seasons when I've thought
No spherey strains by me could e'er be caught
From the blue dome, though I to dimness gaze
On the far depth where sheeted lightning plays;
Or, on the wavy grass outstretched supinely,
Pry 'mong the stars, to strive to think divinely:
That I should never hear Apollo's song,
Though feathery clouds were floating all along
The purple west, and, two bright streaks between,
The golden lyre itself were dimly seen:
That the still murmur of the honey bee
Would never teach a rural song to me:
That the bright glance from beauty's eyelids slanting
Would never make a lay of mine enchanting,
Or warm my breast with ardour to unfold
Some tale of love and arms in time of old.

But there are times, when those that love the bay,
Fly from all sorrowing far, far away;
A sudden glow comes on them, nought they see
In water, earth, or air, but poesy.
It has been said, dear George, and true I hold it,
(For knightly Spenser to Libertas told it,)
That when a Poet is in such a trance,
In air her sees white coursers paw, and prance,
Bestridden of gay knights, in gay apparel,
Who at each other tilt in playful quarrel,
And what we, ignorantly, sheet-lightning call,
Is the swift opening of their wide portal,
When the bright warder blows his trumpet clear,
Whose tones reach nought on earth but Poet's ear.
When these enchanted portals open wide,
And through the light the horsemen swiftly glide,
The Poet's eye can reach those golden halls,
And view the glory of their festivals:
Their ladies fair, that in the distance seem
Fit for the silv'ring of a seraph's dream;
Their rich brimmed goblets, that incessant run
Like the bright spots that move about the sun;
And, when upheld, the wine from each bright jar
Pours with the lustre of a falling star.
Yet further off, are dimly seen their bowers,
Of which, no mortal eye can reach the flowers;
And 'tis right just, for well Apollo knows
'Twould make the Poet quarrel with the rose.
All that's revealed from that far seat of blisses
Is the clear fountains' interchanging kisses,
As gracefully descending, light and thin,
Like silver streaks across a dolphin's fin,
When he upswimmeth from the coral caves,
And sports with half his tail above the waves.

These wonders strange he sees, and many more,
Whose head is pregnant with poetic lore.
Should he upon an evening ramble fare
With forehead to the soothing breezes bare,
Would he nought see but the dark, silent blue
With all its diamonds trembling through and through?
Or the coy moon, when in the waviness
Of whitest clouds she does her beauty dress,
And staidly paces higher up, and higher,
Like a sweet nun in holy-day attire?
Ah, yes! much more would start into his sight—
The revelries and mysteries of night:
And should I ever see them, I will tell you
Such tales as needs must with amazement spell you.

These are the living pleasures of the bard:
But richer far posterity's reward.
What does he murmur with his latest breath,
While his proud eye looks though the film of death?
"What though I leave this dull and earthly mould,
Yet shall my spirit lofty converse hold
With after times.—The patriot shall feel
My stern alarum, and unsheath his steel;
Or, in the senate thunder out my numbers
To startle princes from their easy slumbers.
The sage will mingle with each moral theme
My happy thoughts sententious; he will teem
With lofty periods when my verses fire him,
And then I'll stoop from heaven to inspire him.
Lays have I left of such a dear delight
That maids will sing them on their bridal night.
Gay villagers, upon a morn of May,
When they have tired their gentle limbs with play
And formed a snowy circle on the grass,
And placed in midst of all that lovely lass
Who chosen is their queen,—with her fine head
Crowned with flowers purple, white, and red:
For there the lily, and the musk-rose, sighing,
Are emblems true of hapless lovers dying:
Between her breasts, that never yet felt trouble,
A bunch of violets full blown, and double,
Serenely sleep:—she from a casket takes
A little book,—and then a joy awakes
About each youthful heart,—with stifled cries,
And rubbing of white hands, and sparkling eyes:
For she's to read a tale of hopes, and fears;
One that I fostered in my youthful years:
The pearls, that on each glist'ning circlet sleep,
Must ever and anon with silent creep,
Lured by the innocent dimples. To sweet rest
Shall the dear babe, upon its mother's breast,
Be lulled with songs of mine. Fair world, adieu!
Thy dales, and hills, are fading from my view:
Swiftly I mount, upon wide spreading pinions,
Far from the narrow bound of thy dominions.
Full joy I feel, while thus I cleave the air,
That my soft verse will charm thy daughters fair,
And warm thy sons!" Ah, my dear friend and brother,
Could I, at once, my mad ambition smother,
For tasting joys like these, sure I should be
Happier, and dearer to society.
At times, 'tis true, I've felt relief from pain
When some bright thought has darted through my brain:
Through all that day I've felt a greater pleasure
Than if I'd brought to light a hidden treasure.
As to my sonnets, though none else should heed them,
I feel delighted, still, that you should read them.
Of late, too, I have had much calm enjoyment,
Stretched on the grass at my best loved employment
Of scribbling lines for you. These things I thought
While, in my face, the freshest breeze I caught.
E'en now I'm pillowed on a bed of flowers
That crowns a lofty clift, which proudly towers
Above the ocean-waves, The stalks, and blades,
Chequer my tablet with their quivering shades.
On one side is a field of drooping oats,
Through which the poppies show their scarlet coats;
So pert and useless, that they bring to mind
The scarlet coats that pester human-kind.
And on the other side, outspread, is seen
Ocean's blue mantle streaked with purple, and green.
Now 'tis I see a canvassed ship, and now
Mark the bright silver curling round her prow.
I see the lark dowm-dropping to his nest,
And the broad winged sea-gull never at rest;
For when no more he spreads his feathers free,
His breast is dancing on the restless sea.
Now I direct my eyes into the west,
Which at this moment is in sunbeams drest:
Why westward turn? 'Twas but to say adieu!
'Twas but to kiss my hand, dear George, to you!
-------------------------------------------------John Keats

Raptured!

Greetings earthlings! If you're reading this, you're probably still stuck on earth! The rapture went fine and heaven is okay so far; we're all lining up to enter this tall white tower where sounds of praise can be heard. I've noticed some really excited people walking in the opposite direction; MJ, Marvin Gaye and I think I saw Pac and Biggie share some chronic and overheard Pac say "Thugz mansion is in the other direction" I think I'm in the wrong line!

If the world should pass away tomorrow

I want you to know that you're the best thing that has ever happened to me.

There was a time when I didn't know what it was all for. Life it seemed was stacked against me by an unseen force that paid no heed to my cries. I would have unraveled the string that tied me to everything if I had found the will to tug at it.

I knew you from the beginning; before the flesh, before the eye of mind could paint your face. You were in my heart, calling me forth. I heard your voice, in the still silent moment before the plunge, I heard you will it to live and let nothing within die.

I want you to know that I trust you with the nakedness of a newborn babe; that in this facade I cannot hide from you.

I want you to know that I have hope in you; that tomorrow will be better for two and the skies oh so sunny and blue.

I want you to know that I love you.

Test Emails

In the spring of 1643, Jacob travelled down to the shores of the Mediterranean and set sail for the dark continent of Africa. At first, he couldn't find any captain willing to go that far out to sea. "There be monsters there" said George "Skinny" McPhallon, who had sailed farthest of any known man. He was a legend in the sailors' club, talked about as far as the northern tip of Galicia. Captain Skinny first went out to sea when he was nine years old. His father, a well known sailor from the isles of Albion had taken him out on his birthday, to teach him the ropes, so he said.
*
This is not a drill. In the 5th year of the 23rd vertical lunar shift, Kashar left the aqua colony of Aegrat for the southern system of Klom. He was accompanied by the 3rd guard of her royal highness, queen Pax.
*
I am all alone. This empty place weighs on my soul. I cannot leave for there is nothing anywhere else. There is no anywhere else only here and I. All alone.
*
The World is mine....mwahahahahahaha!
*

Someone Like You

I heard that you're settled down,
That you found a girl and you're married now,
I heard that your dreams came true,
Guess she gave you things I didn't give to you,
Old friend, why are you so shy?
Ain't like you to hold back or hide from the light,

I hate to turn up out of the blue uninvited,
But I couldn't stay away, I couldn't fight it,
I had hoped you'd see my face,
And that you'd be reminded that for me it isn't over,

Nevermind, I'll find someone like you,
I wish nothing but the best for you, too,
Don't forget me, I beg,
I remember you said,
"Sometimes it lasts in love,
But sometimes it hurts instead,"
Sometimes it lasts in love,
But sometimes it hurts instead, yeah,

You know how the time flies,
Only yesterday was the time of our lives,
We were born and raised in a summer haze,
Bound by the surprise of our glory days,

I hate to turn up out of the blue uninvited,
But I couldn't stay away, I couldn't fight it,
I had hoped you'd see my face,
And that you'd be reminded that for me it isn't over,


Nevermind, I'll find someone like you,
I wish nothing but the best for you, too,
Don't forget me, I beg,
I remember you said,
"Sometimes it lasts in love,
But sometimes it hurts instead,"

Nothing compares,
No worries or cares,
Regrets and mistakes, they're memories made,
Who would have known how bittersweet this would taste?

Nevermind, I'll find someone like you,
I wish nothing but the best for you,
Don't forget me, I beg,
I remember you said,
"Sometimes it lasts in love,
But sometimes it hurts instead,"

Nevermind, I'll find someone like you,
I wish nothing but the best for you, too,
Don't forget me, I beg,
I remember you said,
"Sometimes it lasts in love,
But sometimes it hurts instead,"
Sometimes it lasts in love,
But sometimes it hurts instead.
---------------------------------Adele

Turning Pink

I'm starting to dislike my government very much, it shows so much fear, infantile logic and an alarming willingness to resort to violence. That is not what I want from it. I want it to be just, to inspire me to be a better person and to help me create a better place for my kin and I to live in. I don't want it to threaten me with death should I choose to differ in opinion and practice, if that is the society it wishes to create, then I would rather not be party to it.

Tomato Sandwich

The only person you have to fight with is yourself, when all the anger is done, when the flame has burned out, and the people say that it was all your fault, that the sin was borne in the circumstance, dead and decaying, what they taught was wrong from the beginning, if I was to be the unfortunate one to tell you of how it is to be the bastard son of a dead ideaology, I would say you rather give me death than pent up animosity.

I have learned, somehow, through the years, that anger destroys first and foremost he who wields it, for then it leads him to violence. The lessons to be learned from an act of violence are without number for he can never truly know what he could have done to stop it from happening in the first place. Yet there is what you know, in the myriad happenstances of life, you are here.

You must know how to save a life, first and foremost your own. If you should find yourself on the edge of destruction, and in the passions of strife choose to fight against the world, know well how to save thy soul, for it is only you at the beginning and the end.

I have been angry, at many things. {Okaay, I just made the best sandwich in the whole world! Its a brown bread, tomato sandwich with mayo and a sprinkling of salt. Right now, I'm going to take a big bite and get lost in some other world, only for a moment.}

I got angry at life a long time ago, I was told once that life was meant to be harsh to me, that did i not know that I was an orphan? Are you God's son, that you would utter these words and decree a life of servitude for a man? When I was younger, the only father I had was God and then I walked out of his house.

When the anger is done, there must be peace, for the soul must find rest in its understanding of the world. To be otherwise is to long for another state, of being, dead perhaps but you are here so you must find some sense, in all of it.

May it make you a better person, and may you leave by the wayside all that is between us sown with a bitterness of heart.

Beef

I want to tell you that I am angry, that I hate you but its not true. I hate myself, for letting you make me feel this blue. Why am I so weak? Why do I believe? That when I speak, you will see everything in me?

I want to say that I am sorry, for making you believe that I wouldn't break but I am a fool. I thought it was brave to parade myself before you, bleeding and broken, but these words you've spoken burn through.

I want to say goodbye, to break the bonds and burn the bridges to that place called you. I am through, tis true, you broke me and now I shall forget you.

Rukurubana

I can feel the words tumbling in a distant place in my head. Whispers, echoes, engine revving up up up the hill. It carries, the sound across the valleys, mingled with the birds, the wind it brings delight in the promise of a sight.

Why I haven't written in a long while

"So I made up my mind not to come to you again to make you sad. For if I were to make you sad, who would be left to cheer me up? Only the very persons I had made sad. That is why I wrote that letter to you. I did not want to come to you and be made sad by the very people who should make me glad. For I am convinced that when I am happy, then all of you are happy too. I wrote you with a greatly troubled and distressed heart and with many tears; my purpose was not to make you sad, but to make you realize how much I love you all."
-------------------------------------------------------2 Corinthians 2:2

When I made up my mind to write, I decided that I would simply do it for myself and those that love words. I told myself it would not matter if I never made a cent off my writing (even though that is my dream) and that I would do it for the love of it. Then I became so sad and I didn't have the heart to tell you how much, though I probably did :-) somewhere somehow. I stopped writing, but never in my head, in the ether, screaming words and more often making unintelligible sounds.  I could not come to you, I could not tell you, I could not move myself to show you. There was nothing, no trust and no hope.

You shall never truly know me nor I you. We are but two specks of dust blown by the eternal wind and I must go across the desert, all alone, for that is my path, home.

I am okay, I am happy, I am here.

World Poetry Day

It doesn't have to be this way

Sometimes I wonder where you’re coming from
when you roll in like thunder just to turn around and run…
it’s a good thing I don’t need you to stay

You smell like moonlight in early morning rain
Pray tell a fool might surrender to your pain
Or find a cure for your decay

You’re at your best with an ache in your chest
and that worn out old song that you play
Only Jesus and you who long to teach us
should no one be left to betray

I don’t know the answer but I know who to blame
You can choose the dancer and you can choose the flame
I think you’ll find they’re one in the same
It doesn’t have to be this way

You’re at your best with an ache in your chest
and that worn out old song that you play
Only Jesus and you who long to teach us
should no one be left to betray

I don’t know the answer but I know who to blame
Pray til a fool but surrender to your pain
It’s a good thing I don’t need you to stay

Sometimes I wonder where you’re coming from
when you roll in like thunder just to turn around and run
It’s a good thing I don’t need you to stay
It doesn’t have to be this way

---------------------Alison Krauss

Unfinished Life

It's an unfinished life that I find lies before me
An open-ended dream and I don't want to wake
I've crossed so many rivers in search of crystal fountains
I've found the truest paths always lead through mountains
I've seen water on the sky, and fire burning on the lake.

You said to me, "I cannot make you happy.
Like a wounded bird, you must find the strength to fly.
Time can paint the treetops with colors of the rainbow
But you cannot find the end, no matter how you try."

It's a journey with my soul that I am taking.
One that only goes from the cradle to the grave.
Going 'round in circles like painted dancing horses
Up and down we ride on the wooden courses.
And light from a lover's eyes is all that I can save.

You said to me, "I cannot make you happy.
Like a wounded bird, you must find the strength to fly.
Time can paint the treetops with colors of the rainbow
But you cannot find the end, no matter how you try."

So I’ll take the day and run out across the open fields
Where the grass grows high and the shadows fall
Where my eyes can see all the colors in the air
So quiet that the wind whistles in my hair
And takes the rising dust and carries it away.

You said to me, "I cannot make you happy.
Like a wounded bird, you must find the strength to fly.
Time can paint the treetops with colors of the rainbow
But you cannot find the end, no matter how you try."

..........................Kate Wolf

Outside City Hall

This morning, a group of KCC workers blocked off Parliament avenue demanding payment of their salary arrears.

"I have not been paid for four months now."

"We want to see the town clerk."

I was on my way to Kibuli so I had to dash off; by the time I left, a police officer was trying to calm the workers down.

If I was president

I cast my ballot a little earlier on this morning. I don't normally pay much attention to politics, at least not for a good chunk of my life but I have tried to understand it for the last couple of years. Here's what I have learnt :-

1. All politicians are liars. 
2. The electorate always behaves like a bunch of kids, a majority of it hardly understanding how their systems work and preferring a bandwagon to independent choice.
3. In any system, the incumbent has the advantage of access to more resources, more so in Uganda.
4. No idea should ever go without genuine and honest challenge, only then can its substance be truly understood and its merits and demerits put forth for all to measure.
5. Corrupt leaders are only a reflection of a corrupt, morally deficient and weak society. Such societies never last more than a few generations, their deaths are always borne from within, beginning with fear.
6. Government of the people, by the people and for the people shall never perish from the earth. Not as long as there are men and women willing to fight for it
7. The most important leaders in a democratic government are those most immediate to the people.
8. The people reserve the right to recall any ineffective representative at any point of their choosing. Exercise of this right is the ultimate form of democracy.
9. I am going to put my MP to task in the next five years and if he's not up to scratch, I will ask him to return to his home and engage in other business.
10. The People shall prevail, always, even under the most oppressive of leaderships, they shall always prevail.

Missing

Shu-doo-doo-doo
Dam-dam, dam-du-dam, doo-bee-doo
Dam-dam, dam-du-dam, doo-bee-doo
Dam-dam, dam-du-dam, doo-bee-doo
Dam-dam, dam-du-dam, doo-bee-doo

I am Doolittle but I do a lot
I try to do the best with what I've got
Sometimes nobody notices at all
If I stood on a chair, I'd be taller

I know there's a million people like me
I'm sure a kick up the bum's all we need
We plan but it never comes true
All I need is somebody like you

Because I'm missing how you found me
I can't afford a bigger world but, baby, I'm reliable
I'll never go
If you find me, find me, find me, find me

Because I'm missing how you found me
If anybody has a key to spare a little dream for me
I'll let it be
That you find me, find me, finally found me

When I fall nobody helps me up
And when I call nobody's pickin' up the phone
It seems they won't even call me upon
Stickin' my face on a lamppost

So if you see me in your favorite spot
Just remember I could give you a lot
'Cause I stray in whatever I do
All I need is somebody like you

Because I'm missing how you found me
I can't afford a bigger world but, baby, I'm reliable
I'll never go
If you find me, find me, find me, find me

Because I'm missing how you found me
If anybody has a key to spare a little dream for me
I'll let it be
That you find me, find me, finally found me

I gotta get up
I gotta get up
I gotta get up
I gotta get up

So when you see me in your favorite spot
Just remember I could give you a lot
I came to see you when there's no use pretendin'
Let's hope it's a happier ending

Because I'm missing, yeah, you'll find me
I can't afford a bigger world but, baby, I'm reliable
I'll never go
If you find me, find me, find me, find me

Because I'm missing and you'll find me
If anybody has a key to spare a little dream for me
I'll let it be
That you finally, finally, finally found me

Dam-dam, dam-du-dam, doo-bee-doo
Dam-dam, dam-du-dam, doo-bee-doo
Dam-dam, dam-du-dam, doo-bee-doo

..................................Eliza Doolittle

Stylish and Versatile

Stylish he said, and versatile too; Sibo tagged me on his blog and now I am bound by all the rules of the blogosphere to tell you

1. I have lost my belief in unconditional love. Everywhere I look, touch, taste and take in, is a million little conditions that one must fulfill before he or she is loved. She said to me that it was too hard for her, that she couldn't do it anymore, that all the little things were for a little more and if I wasn't willing to give, well...
2. Everything I see is a mirror of me and all that I do is a mirror of you. I love you in my own way too but I do not know which is true, if we are one and two or I am only you.
3. You are a star. In the dark depths of heaven you shine and I see your light. Shine
4. I was once a child of love and she said to me, take me in your heart and go forth into the world.
5. I am a child of death, always have been and always will be, and one day, she will claim me. Oh glorious day!
6. I have hope, in you and me and what we could together be. I hope you shall believe with me.
7. I am full of shit and the less you listen to me, the  better off you will be. :-)

Hmmm...how many of you have steez? I must confess I haven't caught up on my favourite blogs in a while so I will tag less than the required 15.

  ElleB who's disappeared from the blogging scene for more than a year now and her last blog comments are full of viagra ads. I'm sure she'll show up one day.

Number 27 who is way too intellectual for most of his peers. He once left a comment on my blog and then I guess after a few minutes decided to delete it but alas it was already in my inbox.

Spartakuss  who like me is not afraid to say he likes Celine Dion.

Iwaya who is indeed mad but I'm not sure about crazy.

For this award the rules are clear;

 

1. Thank the person who gave you the award and link back to them in your post.

2. Tell us 7 things about yourself.

3. Award 15 other bloggers.(Good luck with that!)

4. Contact these bloggers and let them know they have won. (Um, by phone, fax or email?)

Rabbit Wabbit

It was the year of the rabbit. Having sat down for many a day and ploughed the mindfields, he was once again content with what was planted. The garden had needed tending, after so many years of being left to their own devices, all manner of things had grown there. There was the picture of the little girl with the umbrella and the wolf's tail. Jack had grown a garden of beans but none reached the sky. The old man with the grey wispy hair kept staring at him, asking if he had formed his resolve. He wanted to teach, the way of life, the way of death; the way of the sword.

He had been born in the year of the rat. The stars told him he was forthright, generous and easy going. He hadn't felt them in a while; there were things he couldn't say because there was always a condition. He wanted to give everything and hold back from none but he would surely die and maybe that was the path to walk, the way of death. It would not go easy, not with those whom he held dear, there was still fear.

All begins with the soul, the candle that lights the dark; the spirit moves and always it must, for to stay is to die, so it must grow and evolve; the body is only material, it will be shed one day and thus mark the end. Until then you must remain.

This is the year of the rabbit.

Enlightened Anarchy

To me political power is not an end but one of the means of enabling people to better their condition in every department of life. Political power means capacity to regulate national life through national representatives. If national life becomes so perfect as to become self regulated, no representation becomes necessary. There is then a state of enlightened anarchy. In such a state every one is his own ruler. He rules himself in such a manner that he is never a hindrance to his neighbour. In the ideal State, therefore, there is no political power because there is no State. But the ideal is never fully realized in life. Hence the classical statement of Thoreau that that government is best which governs the least.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi; Young India, July 2, 1931

The PiFF Annual Report

The Pay It Forward Foundation Uganda is a little more than a year old. Here's what we've been up and what we hope to get up to this year and many others after.

The PiFF Annual Report

Later this year, we will be officially launching the 'Big Brother Big Sister' mentorship project/program/whatever you wish to call it. Those of you interested in taking part will be able to do so then. I will be in touch with the details in due course.

Otherwise, mahalo.

Tweet tweet tweet tweet tweet tweet tweet tweet

Take a moment, everyday, to breathe

Stretch life and limb, and feel

Listen, the bell upon the hill

Chimes and counts the hour of three

Be free.

Swish

Why am I here? Not here on earth but on this blog, like right now. I mean, it's not like I have kb for you or anything, I just felt like letting some words out.

You ever been there feeling restless for no apparent reason? Like there's all this stuff welling up inside that wants to come out and you can't quite figure out how to let it flow? There's a picture in my head, of you and me and I like the hues, strokes and scents. The scenes change, merging one into the other with a subtlety that would put the sun, rising and setting, to shame. And yet you and I remain.

No Fear

 There is a violence in my soul but I know it is borne of fear. I fear not you, nor the sword you raise to cut me down. I fear that you will never know, how much I love you all.

There's Always Porn

The alarm goes off at 06:00, the Rundfunker radio clock is well into its tenth year of service, trusty old Rundfunker.

“Good morning good denizens, if you’re just joining us this is Azazel and Beelzebub on the ‘Fiery Morning Show’ and today’s special guest is JEZEBEL, queen of Babylon. Welcome your highness. Now, there’s something our listeners want to know, how was it with Ahab and what the hell, forgive me, was that vineyard stuff all about?........”

It’s loud, loud enough to jolt her from sleep and dream world. It’s old too, imbued with the memories of the years, the moves across the continent, the piece of junk car, lonely motel rooms, endless highway, and Machine Town of course. She got it in Machine Town, a parting gift from Teri before she went to war, to fight with those like her for a future without her.

It’s a good piece of work too, she can picture the machines gliding on the assembly track, graceful mechanical hands dancing, a resistor here, a capacitor there, all under the watchful eye of the assembly plant manager, man and machine, at their best.

Five more minutes and then she’ll go make breakfast. She reaches out a hand to the bedside table; book, keys, phone, aah, she hits the Rundfunker, pulls the comforter over her head and returns to the world of the machines; man and woman and machine. She drifts.

She wakes ten minutes later, she is trapped. The cave is a dead end, she shouldn’t have run down here but she had to keep moving. After the bridge, she had to run and find a safe place to hide. The bridge, Oh God! It couldn’t be true! But she had seen it with her own eyes.

His foot was stuck. The machines were coming. The timer was running down. His foot was stuck. She screamed at Machine to cut him loose, even if it meant losing the foot but the thing was in a trance, walking slowly back onto the bridge, back to the machines. There was fury in its eyes, red burning fury fixed at the oncoming horde. We’re all going to die, she thought. John grabbed her hand and placed the RAD into her palm.

“Get this back to CENTCOM and give it to Mobius. Only Mobius.”

“I’m not leaving you here.”

“You don’t have a choice, they’ll be on us in thirty, Machine is not responding to any command, he seems drawn to the horde. Tell Mobius, he owes me, I told him this damn thing would let us down.”

“No. No no no no no. I’m not leaving you here.”

“Go. Now!”

Machine had at this point reached the base of the bridge tower where she and John huddled. John’s back against the railing, struggling to free his foot, and her struggling to pull him loose with no luck

“I can cut it off”

“There’s no time Misty, this is an order. Go. GO NOW!”

Machine stopped, his tall hulk obscuring the light of the oncoming horde, silhouetting his majestic frame against the forest night, he was not Machine anymore, he was something more, a wonder to behold. He leaned down, picked her up and swung her like a discus, all the while screaming at her to “Flex. FLEX. FLEX!” The bridge exploded, a bright orange light illuminated the night, a ringing sound as she sailed through the air, screaming, then darkness.

Kingston 12

"There is a lot of goodie goodie down in a Kingston 12
Don't be no, don't be no little stock on the shelf
Do unto you breda like you do to yu self
Good healthy body value more than wealth
So big up all the massive in Kingston 12
Dem nuh want no lickie lickie in Kingston 12
Dem nuh want no none progressive in Kingston 12
Dem nuh want no lazy body in Kingston 12
A chapter a day keep the devil away
So read your Bible go down on your knees and pray
Ask GOD Almighty guide you day by day
Go down in di ghetto and hear what the people a say"

Ahimsa or The Way of Nonviolence

Plato said long ago, "There always are in the world a few inspired men whose acquaintance is beyond price"

I am reading a book titled "All Men Are Brothers" which is a collection of autobiographical reflections by Mahatma Gandhi. I have started building my code, the principles I hope will take me through my thirties and well into adulthood. 

Ahimsa literally means 'the avoidance of violence - himsa'. It means kindness and non-violence towards all living things including animals; it respects living beings as a unity, the belief that all living things are connected.

I have at my core, a belief that all life is sacred and should be treated as such. When I was younger, and it happened to be one of those occasions that called for the enjoyment of kikoko, I always volunteered to do the honors of execution or slaughter. Of course my primary motive was to secure the liver and heart, which I put on a skewer, roasted for a few minutes and painfully enjoyed as the time lag between getting them off the fire and into my mouth was at best 10 seconds to whoosh some cold air onto the sizzling bits. But oooh, were they yummy! However I recall always being struck by the fact that I was ending a life, that somehow I was playing a very big role and that I needed to accord it as much respect. I would look the chicken in the eye, say a prayer and in very quick sawing motions, sever head from body. The body always writhed, as blood spurted and splattered on the banana leaves. I held tight until the writhing stopped and then got down to the plucking of feathers, dissecting, and cleaning. 

We played games with beetles, my childhood friends and I, we would stick a pin through the thorax or thereabouts, tie a string to it and then let the beetle fly while holding onto the string. After we had been introduced to the marvels of electric lighting, my brothers and I took advantage of the allure of the lights to take pot shots at the geckos that always sauntered close looking for dinner, the lights attracted all sorts of insects in the nighttime. I have never forgotten those moments, writhing bodies, severed tails, malicious laughter and glee, little boys.

Some boys never grow up. The instruments of torture and malice employed in childhood, gradually evolve into the fists of the brute and the animal within is never tamed.

"Man as animal is violent, but as Spirit is nonviolent. The moment he awakes to the Spirit within, he cannot remain violent. Either he progresses towards ahimsa or rushes to his doom."

Happy New Year

It's amazing isn't it? One year goes by and another takes its place, seasons come and go and yet it all seems to stay the same. I've made tons of resolutions not least of which is to take back my body from the snatchers, I think I will emulate the Shinigami this year, or the Samurai. I want to devise a code of conduct that will serve me well through my thirties but I subscribe to various beliefs, some of which are in eternal conflict. So, if you find me variously coloured any day this year or for the rest of my life, do not worry for my sanity, I suspect that deep down is still a very rational me that looks upon my deeds and laughs, cries, shakes his head and ambles off to suck his thumb. It is well, it is happy, it is full of promise and there is a rainbow against the sky. The storms have passed, and the wanderer may walk forth.

So I will walk on the earth, for there lies the path to coloured skies. I will sit beside the calm waters and know the depths of the hidden heart. If must needs, I will soar on the winds and be the master of change. But to home, I shall trudge with a free heart and leave the world at the gates of the stead.

My Boy Builds Coffins

My boy builds coffins with hammers and nails
He doesn't build ships, he has no use for sails
He doesn't make tables, dressers or chairs
He can't carve a whistle 'cause he just doesn't care

My boy builds coffins for the rich and the poor
Kings and queens them all knocked on his door
Beggars and liars, gypsies and thieves
They all come to him 'cause he's so eager to please

My boy builds coffins, he makes them all day
But it's not just for work and it isn't for play
He's made one for himself, one for me too
One of these days he'll make one for you
For you, for you, for you

My boy builds coffins for better or worse
Some say it's a blessing, some say it's a curse
He fits them together in sunshine or rain
Each one is unique, no two are the same

My boy builds coffins and I think it's a shame
That when each ones been made, he can't see it again
He crafts every one with love and with care
Then it's thrown in the ground, it just isn't fair

My boy builds coffins, he makes them all day
But it's not just for work and it isn't for play
He's made one for himself, one for me too
And one of these days he'll make one for you
For you, for you, for you

....................... Florence and the Machine

Patience

Sabali, Sabali, Sabali, yonkontê
Sabali, Sabali, Sabali, kiye
Ni kêra môgô
Sabali, Sabali, Sabali, yonkontê
Sabali, Sabali, Sabali, kagni
Ni kêra môgô

Huh, we born not knowing, are we born knowing all?
We growing wiser, are we just growing tall?
Can you read thoughts? can you read palms?
Huh, can you predict the future? can you see storms, coming?
The Earth was flat if you went too far you would fall off
Now the Earth is round if the shape change again everybody woulda start laugh
The average man can't prove of most of the things that he chooses to speak of
And still won't research and find out the root of the truth that you seek of
Scholars teach in Universities and claim that they're smart and cunning
Tell them find a cure when we sneeze and that's when their nose start running
And the rich get stitched up, when we get cut
Man a heal dem broken bones in the bush with the wed mud
Can you read signs? can you read stars?
Can you make peace? can you fight war?
Can you milk cows, even though you drive cars? huh
Can you survive, Against All Odds, Now?

......................Damian Marley

Idealogoue 5.5.5 and Make the Children Smile

Be Better

This past weekend was ballistic among many other things. It all begun with the PiFF meet at Kyoto which as always is a great way to start any weekend. The meet was well attended and there was a new face, Brad 'Strobe Light' Strobel of Kampala International Church. After the various activities that take place at 'PiFF meetings', I hooked up with other members of the 'Monday Think Tank: Side B' and we proceeded to the 'High Priestess' home for a reasoning and grounation and other such stuff.

If I was to relay the goings on of the think tank, I would run the risk of becoming persona non grata in the tank, so let it be known that I made my way home at 7:30 am, after breaking my no drinking rule again, no, wait, its December already so am back on the booze. Speaking of which, nothing beats beer, no siree, nothing. I have been informed that it makes for a good power breakfast, but I am yet to experiment.

Anyway, I got home and decided I would get an hour's sleep before I run off to the 'Yellow House' to prepare for the xmas party. No such luck. After flirting with sleep for 30 min, drifting in and out of Morpheus' realm, I got a call from Beqy and decided to abandon the nap.

The xmas party. Last year when the PiFF was starting out, the first activity we did was to help chaperone a kids xmas party.

smile for the camera sweetie

'Make the Children Smile' is a group of young, passionate, mostly cute, vibrant gals and boys who, much like PiFFers, provide support to the Oasis of Life orphanage and each year they organise a christmas party for the children at the orphanage, oh, they do Easter as well and I'm sure Abid can get them to organise an Idd party.They have been kind enough to let the PiFF in on their parties and allow us to add our meagre contributions and it was in this spirit that Saturday found us heading to Kiwatule Recreation Center for the annual, 'Make the Children Smile' (are u tired of reading that phrase yet? bse I'm not done with it :-) ) xmas party.

Before I could head there, I had to send out an email to Strobe Light concerning PiFF activities and the like so that the PiFF can receive support from his church. Over the past year, I have written various documents about the PiFF that sometimes I feel like exploding when someone walks up to me and asks, "So, what's this piffy, piffing, ePiFFany stuff about anyway?" But, as always, I compose myself and launch into how the PiFF is simply an idea and that's what we're in the business of, nothing tangible I say, its all about the stuff in your head.

There's this nice coffee shop in Kigowa, 'The Haven' its called, its not bad at all, nice muffins and there's an internet cafe next door with a hot spot, so you can enjoy a cup of chai while surfing the internets. I decided to stop by and send the email. The internets is big, everytime I log on, I get carried away. Ooh, there's this site, theurf.com, I found the link on uginsomniac's blog, it's malarious, hilarious stuff. Have you been to urbanlegendkampala.com? Baz, Streets, Sleek and Erique doing their thing, its brilliant. Hey, what do you guys think about WikiLeaks? I think its an amazing achievement that would never have been possible but for willing people and the internets. Interestingly, the man behind the idea is now facing sexual offence charges which of course have nothing to do with WikiLeaks. Hmmph! I think an idea is hard to kill, if not impossible, and it won't be too long before something better than WikiLeaks comes along, also, once information is out on the internets, it's a wrap! You might as well shut down a gazillion websites but it's always out there somewhere, being peddled by those who excel at it, those who push the boundaries of human knowledge.

While I was sending the email, I received two calls, the first from Beqy informing me that I was late and that they would have to leave without me, I told her I would find her at the party later and proceeded to order some food. You know, fat frog and all. Then I got a call from one of my clients, the big guy could not access his email and the world had come to a stop, someone had to come and fix it, eh eh. Knowing how important email is to business, coupled with a bit of cajoling from my business partner, I decided to go and sort out said problem. But I was in Ntinda, the party was in Kiwatule and the client in Bugolobi.

I had previously agreed to hook up with Becca of 'The House on Friendship Road' on my way to the party so I headed to her place. Becca, Carlo and Darlyne are roomies and I have been spending a lot of time at their hewis[house]. They made me watch Glee! Its this series where everyone keeps breaking out in song. I found Carlo who was in the midst of sending a message via facebook, she was totally engrossed, facebook yaja! I called Becca and she was in Muyenga, doing Yoga, she would be back in 30min. Darlyne was out there somewhere, no doubt up to some interesting stuff, she does many interesting things that one. Anyway, I put one foot in a hammock and the other in Zion and decided to take a nap. No such luck, so I just lay in the hammock and looked at the sky, trees, listened to the birds, I thought I could hear the damn grass grow. Grating of metal, the gate was opening, Becca was back, 45min, not too bad. I should pick a leaf.

After she'd taken a shower, dressed up and what not (which amazingly didn't take too long), we headed to Bugolobi so that I could hook up the client. IT tech support is interesting, among many things, it requires a calm reflective mind, a willingness to learn and the ability to handle the unexpected. Thankfully, this job took 10 minutes to accomplish and another 20 to answer the client's questions, there are always questions, mob of them.

Paul, you bastard! I can see you :-)

We left Bugos and headed to Kiwatule and the xmas party. It was great, there was face painting, nice bus[food], happy kids, cute girls, fleeting butterflies, friends, PiFFers and interesting strangers. The snaps are on facebook. The bus was so nice, there were seconds and thirds, for the kids I mean. Compliments to the chef. Some kb, a kickabout, a doughnut and much more and then I had to prepare for a 5min presentation I was scheduled to make at the inaugural Idealogue 5.5.5 event.

So, there's these guys, they call themselves 'Speakers Without Borders', mbu they're in the business of banging unrestricted kb, Ssewa would say "syuuu! you're sloping, splash! splash!" but that was a long time ago. Speakers Without Borders, Xter Inc, Kitenge Spaces, The WorkZine and Emaline Graphics got together and arranged a kimeza and called it Idealogue 5.5.5. The idea was to have 6 presenters each make 5min presentations of ideas, concepts, things that they wanted to put out there, 5min for feedback and then I guess the conversation would carry on in other forms and on other forums. The PiFF was invited to take part and yours truly was oba chosen to make the presentation. Yours truly did not have the presentation ready by 4pm and the event was starting at 5pm.

The Scouts have a motto, 'Be Prepared' and if its the only claim you ever lay to being a scout, do it and always 'Be Prepared'.

4:30pm or thereabouts and I sat down with Eunice, Becca and Davinah to finalise the presentation. We had previously flirted with a few concepts, the best of which was to have 5 PiFFers each talk for one minute and tell a simple story about paying it forward, however this was deemed impractical due to the time available for preparations and other such things, so we decided to go with a classic powerpoint slide thingy. One hour later and we bundled ourselves into Becca's auto and headed to Workers' House for my first public presentation.

It went well, I was nervous at the beginning, sweated a little bit but I think and I'm told it was great! Yay! I banged all my kb and even had time to play for guys a Marley kids song, 'The Mission' which I thought summed up the PiFf idea.

"Haile Selassie say a one respect for every man
No care the race, no care the color nor di religion
So make a decision fi bun di division
Cause each and every human being fi trod pon di mission"

The Idealogue 5.5.5. was a success, though some of us broke the rules, we had more than 5 slides, we didn't have any pictures and in fact Davis, one of the organizers and he of the unbordered kb, had me panicking to fit some pics into the PiFF presentation. I did, and one of them prompted a question from the audience.

Dinner was served by Becca after the event, i.e., I had a nice dinner with Becca and then it was off to home to see my housemate and me landlord, i.e. pay my rent. My landlord was supposed to have locked up his hewis that night at 11pm if we hadn't come up with his gees, thankfully my housemate kept him at bay and I managed to come up with gees from my end of the world. I need a break from my landlord though, he once had the audacity to tell me that he was 'sponsoring my stay in Kampala', I wanted to throttle him but I had to smile nicely and tell him I was sorry his rent was late. Sheesh!

Having had that burden off my shoulders, I finally made it to the 'Yellow House' and found everyone else blasting. I duly joined in the celebrations and capped the night at about 1am.

Sunday morning and I was up at 6am for the MTN marathon. Becca, Carlo and Darlyne picked me up and we headed to Kololo. Huff puff muff and 1:13:21 seconds after some arbitrary start time, Franis Amuriat ambled over the finish line, begging for a pail of water.

So, I didn't register for the marathon and the Barefoot Power Firefly team had an extra number and chip which I put on and became Francis Amuriat from Amuriat.

It was pretty much winddown from there. Spliff, hammock, music, snatches of despicable me, sleep, drooling, long walk home with Richard and the weekend was over.

Today is Thursday and I still feel like I need a week of sleep.

You're Gonna Leave

Uhh! Which way from here
I’m caught up in the pages of my mind
And it’s not so clear
But it seems the hurt is way too much this time
Cause I see a vain look in your eyes
Tell me, do you see the same, same look in mine
Sandpaper kisses, papercut bliss
Don’t know what this is, but it all leads to this
You’re gonna leave, her
You have deceived, her
Ooh just a girl

Now here I go again
She said I’ll break her heart again
She plays the fool again
She said I’ll break the rules again
Though I disagree
She thinks she knows me more than me
It’s so hard to see
What this voice keeps telling me
Ooh just a girl with featherweight curls
To expose all she knows you play like tease
Just a girl with featherweight curls
To expose all she knows you play like tease
You’re gonna leave, her
You have deceived, her
Ooh just a girl

Written by Stephen Marley, Martina Topley-Bird, Nick Bird, Steve Crittall and Alex McGowan

Banana Muffin

Is this the best muffin in the world or what? Yuuummmm!