The injection

He, in a white coat,
With a slight twitch of his lips,
Looked me dead in the eye and said,
“You have Pneumonia.”

Amidst wracking coughs,
I looked at him weakly,
Hoping against hope,
He’d say something to clear the air.

“You need an injection real fast;
Four shots of BenzylPenicillin Sodium,
Will do you a world of good!”
Benzy…? Four shots? I was bewildered.

He tied my wrist tightly,
And with the precision of a marksman,
Injected the Benz… substance into a vein,
That clearly stood out on the ‘strangulated’ hand.

The prick is one I’ll not forget for a long time,
As the needle wend its way into the vein,
I shut my eyes and waited for the worst,
All this time my hand was trembling slightly.

Finally, the needle was pulled out of the vein,
The nurse with a reassuring smile said,
“You’ll be alright, my friend;
Remember the second shot’s in six hours time.”

All Thanks to You, Mama

Dear Mama this is for you,
Oh, how I wish you only knew,
What I feel in my heart,
Why? You are a mother so smart.

In darkness I walked,
In darkness I moved,
But you, with ‘loads’ of pity,
Lifted me from the pit.

Darkness fled when to school you took me,
You did sacrifice just for me,
From Primary School to University,
Your care has surely been proven.

In my heart of hearts, I know,
All this I cannot repay,
But my gratitude knows no bounds,
Dear Mama, you’ve really made me bounce.

Brighter Side?

A thought comes,
It makes a fog,
And a mist to match,
In your clear mind.

All things seem useless,
All thoughts baseless,
And all ideas worthless,
In your now foggy mind.

You’re pessimistic, they say,
Look at the brighter side,
Life is not always a rough road,
It’s got a bright side to it.

I do say, verily,
Optimism or pessimism,
Are just big words,
For life, surely, is your own doing.

Obituary

Lying here,
In this big body bag,
Is our friend, comrade,
Who passed away the other day.

He stood, when with us,
With lots of confidence,
And talked sheer sense,
That made us feel good.

Our friend, dear comrades,
Was a man of virtue,
With no vice in him,
He did good to everyone.

Now as is custom,
The evil one, death,
Reaps where he’s not sown,
And that’s what he did.

We loved him,
Old and young,
Boy and girl,
We did it well and truly.

Now as we send him off,
Let us shed a tear,
A warm tear of love,
That will make him smile.

Let us say we love him,
We’ll always do,
And he shouldn’t worry,
Let us say it this once.

Anyway, we are headed that way,
Our friend has just gone before us,
So take heart, my comrades,
For we’ll see him on that day.

EL-NINO: Proper or Misnomer?

Rain droplets peered from the clouds. What they saw, made their hearts break. They saw dust, dust everywhere: the earth was hungry and thirsty. Its lips were cracked, parched and lifeless. It needed water to save its soul. The water droplets, out of a sense of duty to help, held an emergency meeting at the expansive plenary hall in the clouds. They were so small and many that their silvery colour blended to become one big dark mass.

They reasoned that it wasn’t good to make merry while earth was so thirsty and disgruntled. The mother of all water droplets moved closer to the peering hole and peered down to the earth. With all the energy it could muster, earth lifted its eyes and looked up at the clouds. It saw mother rain wearing a long face that bespoke of the compassion it felt towards poor earth. With one last snap at the nerves, it lifted its arms and pleaded earnestly with mother rain to send at least two of its children to wet its cracked lips.

The children heard this plea of the earth to mother rain and, out of an uncontrollable ‘goodwill’ emotion, pushed their mother with all their might down to the earth through the peeping hole in the clouds. The children followed suit.

Great rumbles and arguments ensued as the droplets fought to get a chance to jump to the earth. The earth, in return, gave a belch as a sure sign of the respite brought about by the ‘goodwill’ action. Its intestines came to life once more as water washed down every dirt and dust on its path.

Satisfied, it raised one of its hands to signify that the droplets could now stop jumping from the clouds and that it was very grateful. The droplets misunderstood this motion of the hand and came tumbling down a million fold.

Fear set in. Great fear. The earth foresaw the repercussions of being misunderstood. It tried to open its mouth to speak but as it parted its lips water gushed in; so all the sound it could make was a muffle as more water made rushed down the gullet. In essence, nothing could deter the rain droplets from jumping off the clouds. Rumbles traversed the lengths of the sky as more water inundated the face of the earth.

Rain clouds were all smiles as they gleefully jumped from the opening in the clouds. Least did they know that by doing so they were endangering the life of their friend, earth.

The inhabitants of the face of the earth called this ridiculous jumping of rain droplets from the clouds EL-NINO. Whatever that means I know not! But I know how it came about.

You know this rain thing left a number of things in its wake. People came down with coughs and colds. Their shoes were left in a horrible mess. They were gaping, yawning, name it. People died and houses were either destroyed or their roofs blown off. All these things wrought by the rain meant that the inhabitants of the earth had to dive into their pockets to buy medicine and also ‘cajole’ the cobblers to restore their shoes to their once good condition. New houses had to be built and the dead had to be buried.

One question was clearly written on their scowled foreheads: Why did it have to rain with such continuity here while there were places that needed water of such immensity more than us guys? The Sahara, for example!

That’s why, in one last bid to rave mad, they cooked up a name that befit this midsummer madness: EL-NINO. I think it’s a misnomer but let it rest at that.

A Bad Dream or...

(The “I” in the poem is “me”. This really happened to me!)

Went home one day,
Everything was tranquil and quiet,
Everything beautiful and sweet,
But for my mum.

She just sat there,
Cabbage-sack style,
Not moving,
Just staring and muttering incessantly.

Her body so worn out,
Her bones all showing,
Her eyes sunken,
And hair dirty and ruffled.

‘was awe struck,
I didn’t expect this,
To happen to one of my family,
At least not to someone I knew.

Her words incomprehensible,
Her actions intolerable,
She took the baby by the hand,
And, unfeelingly, threw her out.

Sped out of the room, I did,
Went out and wept,
Hoping that all along,
It was only a bad dream.

Mid-night Brawl

Prevailing altercation,
A string of expletives,
A dash of angry shouting,
Rent the warm night air.

The faithful night breeze,
Carried the commotion far and wide,
Rats stopped their activities to listen,
Crickets stopped their innocuous sounds.

The man could be heard quite distinctly,
Effing and blinding strenuously,
Barking, screaming and shouting,
As he pulled his wife by her hair.

Finally, the two were outside.
And the whole world with them,
The world watched as they rolled and turned,
Clutched, clawed and hit each other.

The man shouted:
You have betrayed our love,
You did confidently sleep,
With my friend, under my very roof!

The neighbours very well remembered,
The tall, lanky fellow,
Who had discreetly left the man's house,
Early that evening.

The woman heatedly rejoined:
You slept with the chief's wife last week,
You moved around with my best friend,
And I did not raise as much as an eyebrow.


The bandying was sustained for as long as it could hold,
With either party venting their heart's contents on the other,
The man was the first one to have enough of it all,
As he slammed his burning fist against her face.

Face Challenges Head-on: The Battle is not for the Self-effacing

In his book Ake, Wole Soyinka writes what his grandfather told him about dealing with bullies:
"Wherever you find yourself, don't run away from a fight. Your adversary will probably be bigger, he will trounce you the first time. Next time you meet him, challenge him again. He will beat you all over again. The third, time I promise you this, you will either defeat him or he will run away."

As we enter this New Year, let us brace ourselves for change, new challenges and new ways of dealing with these challenges and difficulties. Life is not for the faint-hearted but for those who have the heart of a lion.

Dr Maya Angelou once said: "You may encounter many defeats, but you must never be defeated. It may even be necessary to encounter some defeats to know who you are. Forgive yourself – no one else will."

The good thing is that challenges never leave you where they find you. When you bare your muscle and brawn and fight through the mist of near-defeat, you emerge better than you started out. Furthermore, nothing good comes easy. In fact, faint heart never won fair lady!

Challenges come to mould us and make us strong. They come to help us focus even more intently on matters at hand.
My call to us today is to face challenges that come our way with sober minds and to realise that the battle is for the strong (not necessarily physical strength) and not for the fearful and self-effacing.

Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year

It's been nice and, let me say, encouraging to have had your company for most of this year. It has been a pleasure to have been writing my blog posts for your eyes only: I have loved it every bit of the way.

Why am I writing all this? Is it that I am throwing in the towel on blogging and indirectly bidding you goodbye?
No, never! Once you have been bitten by the blog bug it becomes pretty difficult to wean yourself off blogging. It is one of the best addictions I have seen around for a long time (at least better than drug addiction, what do you reckon?).

The reason for writing this: I'll be travelling upcountry to visit family during this festive season. For this reason, I'll not be able to blog for a week or so.
"Why?" you ask.
The 'upcountry' where I am travelling to is not well served with Internet facilities. Internet 'access points' are few and far between. Anyway, I'll miss you all.

Feel free to visit my other blogs (links below):

African Affairs

Career and Workplace

Fgm: Down With It!

Finally, I wish you a Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year. Till we meet again: Take care and God bless you!

A Fly in the Soup

Diner: Bring me some soup and make sure a fly isn't in it. When I ate lunch here yesterday, there was a fly in my soup!
Waiter: Oh, that can't happen today, sir, because our special is frogs' legs.
Diner: What's today's special have to do with a fly in my soup?
Waiter: Before the chef cooked the frogs, they ate every fly in the place.
.........................

Diner: Waiter, there's a fly in my soup.
Waiter: Don't worry, sir. The spider on the bread will eat it.
............................

Diner: Waiter, there's a roach in my soup and he's drowning.
Waiter: Well, sir, shall I teach him how to swim or strap a life preserver on his back?
..............................

Diner: There's a fly in the bottom of my teacup, waiter. What does this mean?
Waiter: How do I know? I am a waiter not a fortune teller.
..................................

Diner: Waiter, there's a fly in my soup!
Waiter: That's alright, sir. He won't drink much.
.......................................

Diner: Waiter, there's a dead fly in my soup.
Waiter: What do you want us to do – have a funeral?
...................................

Diner: Waiter, there's a fly in my soup!
Waiter: I've been looking all over for him.
.........................................



Diner: Waiter, why are these flies in my soup?
Waiter: Because we're all out of DDT, so we decided to drown them.
.........................................

Diner: Waiter, there's a fly in my soup!
Waiter: All right, I'll get you a fork.
............................................

Diner: Hey, waiter, there's a fly in my soup!
Waiter: Shh! Everybody will want one.
...............................................
Diner: Waiter, there's a fly in my soup!
Waiter: What did you expect with the cheap dinner – a hummingbird?
...........................................

Diner: Waiter, there's a fly in my soup!
Waiter: Ah, cornered at last!
...............................................

A Slip of the Tongue

In the shoes of a teacher whose tongue did a jumble, in front of the whole school and parents on closing day, when he was reading the marks of the pupils for all present to hear.

'Twas on closing day,
When my tongue did a jumble,
Not my liking, I suppose,
But it did all the same.

'Stood up to read the marks,
And I called parents pupils,
Tried again, stammering,
But it didn't help a thing.

Okay, I was corrected,
And called parents parents,
I could see them smiling,
Smiling at my slip.

'Asked them to forgive me,
For I would read in Kiswahili,
There again my tongue somersaulted,
This time my face felt hot.

I don't know what they thought of me,
A tall, good-for-nothing teacher, maybe,
But one thing I know, surely,
All of us 've had a slip one time or the other.

Please Forgive Me

These are the words of a man asking for forgiveness from a woman. It takes loads and loads of guts for a man to ask for forgiveness from a woman. Most men believe asking for forgiveness, especially from a woman, is stooping too low and that it is a sign of subservience. However, I say, men of honour admit when they are wrong and, unabashedly, ask for forgiveness (even from women!)

I am lost for words,
Because of how I played my cards,
It's a real shame,
To even imagine.

'can't imagine,
That I did it,
To no one but you,
I simply can't imagine:

To you,
Whom yours is mine,
And mine yours,
I did such a damn thing.

How could I break your heart?
I know it hurt,
Right betwixt and between,
The wound and the flesh.

Oh, please do for...

'can't bring myself,
To say what I must,
(Though, I really mean it),
Please honour my request.

Don't shame me this once,
Lend me a listening ear,
Right, are you set?
Let me spill the beans.

I verily entreat you,
And earnestly ask,
Do forgive me,
Please forgive me:

Oh please do...

Love

Eyes meet,
Hearts soften,
Softer than butter;
The heat in the bowels,
Melts the heart,
And it starts flowing,
All over,
Down to the legs;
Weakening them,
To the hands;
Making them do the works,
That no other can,
To the head;
Making it dizzy,
To the eyes;
You go crazy.

The melt heart,
Flows out to the other,
Eye talking to eye,
Wanting only the best,
The very best,
For the other.

Do You Really Know?

Do you know,
Really know,
What you think,
You know,
Really know?

Maybe you just think,
That you know,
When you don't know,
What you know,
And what you really don't know.

So do you think,
That you can know,
What you really,
Don't know,
When you don't want to know,
That you don't know;
And that you will only know,
When you accept that you,
Really don't know.

So do you really know?

Nail on the Head

When people want to say something,
They beat about the bush,
They don't want to push,
They feel it's not posh.

I reprimand 'em,
In the harshest of terms;
If you want something,
Get it without thumping.

If you so do,
You'll reduce alot of loops,
Which form the nooks,
That destroy our looks.

School

When early I wake,
The trudge at stake,
The shoes at flake,
For school, I take.

When my time I take,
To get to the gate,
The prefect on date,
Records my fate.

When we start the day,
The teacher on stay,
Keeps laziness at bay,
By shunning play.

At the end of the spell,
Of education's well,
We feel swell,
In the power of school.

Your Eyes

Your eyes look, blink,
How wonderful your face is,
With your small, white, oval,
Distinctive feature of your,
Round face,
Your Eyes.

What a magnet they have,
They look, a sweet smile,
On your face;
I was captivated, enthralled,
Brought closer, eye talking to eye,
Fell on your bosom and kissed you.

Your breath was heavy,
As we breathed vigorously,
And our hands doing the works,
That no other could do;
Jaded and out of breath,
We fell on the grass,
I thinking of only,
Your eyes.

Morning Cold

Just like a soldier,
Ready with a gun,
So is the cold,
Ready for me.


When I awake,
And, blankets I strew,
It pounces and says,"Ahoy there."
It seeps through my bones.

I shudder, cringe and cower,
With teeth chattering like a mower,
Goose pimples are the evidence,
Of this monster: Morning cold!

A Sentimental Village Dam

A narrow path leads to this beautiful expanse. Nature's blended beauty. At the end of the path is a big, green clearing.

At the far end, lies a small expanse of muddy-brown water – where grazing cattle saunter to quench their thirst. They slosh, splash, and even venture to graze on the grass floating lazily on the water.

Just where the path joins this expanse, sit them – the boys. Boys, who undoubtedly have thrown all caution to the winds, sit there chitchatting and spinning yarns. Some of them lie with their bellies on the green carpet as they enjoy everything that is going on.

A joke is taken up, tossed about until the air hangs down heavily with laughter. Their raucous, guttural laughs reverberate throughout the field.

The colour of their clothes blends with that of the water: brown and dirty. One of the boys sports a dirty-brown headband whose original colour was white. In between their chitchat, they throw casual glances at the cattle they brought to graze, and then, retiredly, plunge back into their rigmarole.

To the extreme left of the field, are women waiting for their clothes to dry. These clothes billow in the cool breeze that caresses the surface of the green beauty from time to time. The ocean-blue sky is sprinkled with sparse white sailing boats that move with the breeze.

On the opposite side of the green expanse, is a line of trees that get nourishment from this muddy-brown water. These trees bow to let the breeze pass as it carries the secret of the green expanse far and wide.

The sun sends out its rays, soft rays, to touch and caress the beautiful green grass. When you sit on this velvet-soft grass, your mind floods with memories. Memories which are more than stories. Fond memories of how you spent your time, with a lass, kissing her sensuous lips, in the yellow moonlight beside this expanse of water which is a dam to more than many. Memories of when you once would sit on the grass, a pen in hand, and pen many a poem drawing courage and inspiration from this scenic 'conglomeration'.

Love In Disguise?

Abstruse, obscure, recondite, name it:
'T rankles in my mind and soul;
Now I feel a fool,
And, to contend with it, I have.

In the absence of the lass,
I feel nothing but gas,
Lighting up my inner man,
And soar high up, I do.

In the presence of the lass,
I feel nothing, totally nothing,
Only curt responses and nods,
'Stain' our communion.

In the absence of the lass,
Her picture: radiant, alive,
Floats before my mind's eye,
Sate, I smile warmly.

In the presence of the lass,
Pictures of this and whatever,
Float before my mind's eye,
Discreetly, politely, I look away.

In the absence of the lass,
I tell myself "I'll surely tell her,
That tremors she causes in me."
I'll surely say: "I love you."

In the presence of the lass,
Nothing is given away,
No emotion, no feeling,
Only a cold, unresponsive duo.

Surely, this is eating at me,
Eating, tearing at my every fibre,
Someone please do tell me,
Can this be termed 'Love in disguise?'