100 WORDS A DAY: Between Earth & That Heaven Place

She sang haunted chants against the winds that carelessly carried her croon. Nomdiba, ntombi ye ntaba uchaza nenyoni zithi cwaka. She is the gateway between earth and that heaven place and with her song our ears taste the pleasures of Gods and sleeping ancestors. How sad the Gods must be that she sings songs that bring tears to the most hardened herding sage. How wonderfully sad they must be. Nomdiba lies in her sister’s arms, the eternal wailer, goddess of the water, uNomvula. Euphonic wailing keeps her sobbing sweet rain and swirling seas. A sisterhood birthed of Mother’s natures benevolent womb. (12April11)

100 WORDS A DAY: A WOOD SONG

The wooden stairs announce their creaking song, notes long and croaked and toneless ‘neath the old man’s heavy, tired and laboured step – they play the last cry of a dead tree conducted by an old bladder’s need for continuous relief. Loud and obtrusive the song of a filed-down forest under foot-found, under carpet, under piano, under sleeping cat and snoring bed, under polished and over-trodden by heavy-heeled tiptoe midnight march. The candlelit chorus that pierces the soft silence of the night. The mournful melancholy moaning moping ‘mongst the counted sheep and rock-a-by baby sleep. A tuneless symphony of pre-dawn wake. (24May11)

A POINTLESS RAMBLE ABOUT THE TWO KINDS

Everyone will tell you about the kinds of people in the world. On most assertions there are two kinds; the optimist or the pessimist; the haves and the have not; the believers and heathens; the left and right wing; those who let fear shackle them to the monotony of their circumstance and those who in the most hideous face of fear would dare change their destiny.

Based on these arguments we can assume that no matter the variables of character there is a preferable side for all of humanity to be in. We should rather be optimists and not pessimists, intelligent and not ignorant and so on – a sort of ying and yang, if you may.

But these statements do not suggest a balance that requires the existence of both extremes. One side is preferable and can exist alone. A world of loving people can exist without the paradox of hate and contempt. Mathematically, on a probability calculation, this state can exist.

So the statement “there are two types of people” is not an absolute truth – unless you split the world into these two types of people; leaders and followers. None is more important than the other. None can exist without the other. As with light and darkness they are inseparable concepts. The one defines the other.

With this we have to look at the world and consider who is following and who is leading. The fact of the matter is the character or group, town, country, party, is on the most part defined and directed by the character of the leader and not necessarily the character of the sum of the parts.

Basically, the world is filled with acquiescent followers who, due to no fault of their own, are quite clueless as what direction they should take. These people are desperate for a leader. Their utility is defined by the ideals they can follow. This is not necessarily a weakness. It is the nature of social creatures.

But the true genius of nature is that a leader doesn’t need to lead everyone. A leader needs only lead the person who’s directly behind him in the rankings. He will be leader to number three, who’ll lead number four, et cetera.

So you can be both, or one or the other. You cannot be neither. Reluctant leaders and clueless followers abound the earth. Question is, which are you, really?

And it’s ok to be a follower as long as whatever you’re following is true to you. It’s not wrong to be either of the two.

ARE YOU SCARED OF YOU?

You are a scary thing, indeed. Just terrifying. I’d be scared of the real you too if I were you, what with your hopes and dreams, fallen-star wishes and dumbed desires.

You dream too big. You aspire too high. You want to be too amazing.

Oh to be anyone else but me, you say. Silly creature you are. Anyone else but you?  Me oh my, I wouldn’t be anyone else but I.

It’s you, it’s you, It’s you who makes your world go round. It’s you who falls in love. It’s you who aches to be amazing. It’s you who chooses, so why not choose you?

And how dare you not be you. Don’t be me; I do not wish to be a passing phase. Don’t be him; he was him first so you’ll never win at that.

Don’t fear being you. You should fear being him or her who never truly was he or she. 

Better the world misunderstand your authenticity than completely reject you as an unnoticeable rehash of someone else.

Be you. The real deal. The genuine article. The one and only. The real McCoy. The first rate version of the original. That way you’ll never be scared of being you because nobody can beat you at that.

100 WORDS A DAY: Beyond The Blue

I try to write 100 words everyday. Try. No more than 100 words and no less. This was my first piece.

A path wound drunken and sure toward the unreachable horizon where it met the sky between a stubborn cactus and a humble stone cottage. There, a round, old and hooded betty stirring porridge for her grandchildren, three, face as stern as the un-malleable mortar that bound the stone-paved footpath stood guarding the door to the blue. I gave her a hundred pieces of gold and a wry smile. With that the aged lass hunched by age and toil grunted for the shepherd’s boy to let open the door and let me through beyond the now cloudy blue. The atmosphere parted. (20Feb11)

The Middle Finger

Man:   My, that is an impressive middle finger you have there.

Man2: Why, thank you.

Man:   Oh don’t thank me. I’m just happy to bear witness to such a dashing digit.

Man2: I cannot argue with that observation. I, myself, have looked upon it many a time and thought well how lucky are those who find themselves on the nail-side.

Man:   Pardon my forwardness but is it, by some chance, for me?

Man2: For you?

Man:   Of course, I have been presumptuous.

Man2: No, no, no. Not at all. I guess, I’d have to ask you if you are an asshole?

Man:   An asshole?

Man2: Well only those worthy of being dubbed assholes may receive my middle finger.

Man:   All right. Well, then, I would assume only a humble man would ever stop to consider whether they were an asshole or not. A true asshole, a natural asshole, would be oblivious to his effortless assholiness.

Man2: Indeed.

 
Man:   Marvelous! I am an asshole.