Alone in this skerry

Network

2012-06-04T03:56:00.001-07:00

Will someone explain this inner demon that haunts many
Maybe this clouded consciousness has finally expired
Was it was some test on the people as if we were lab rats
Maybe depression is some psy-op posing as clinical truth

Drug companies have a cure for everything, and nothing
Basic life instructions seem to condition us all and are obeyed
The media gives us our opinions and sells us on the latest trend
They solve pending court cases and propogate the newest truth

Our own government created and maintains a welfare nation
Rights of the poor are just that, poor, slaves to the upper clases
No one ever fights for that welfare family, especially that welfare family
The powers that be have one goal, and that is to exploit the sufferings of others

We should send all media outlets on a fact finding mission, on the moon
Then bring the American listeners hard facts, while standing on that sound stage
Debrief all the network slaves through techniques I won't even go into and post the answers online
The mainstream media is a terrorist organization, we have all come to accept

Written by deathsbackdoor

"Chicken Hunting and Culling The Herd"

2012-06-04T03:53:00.001-07:00

or..."Dichotomous Diatribe"

Offensively curious people disrupt the natural balance.
Claiming to be righteous, they speak of love and romance.
It would be a better world if they just stayed silent.
They know who they are, rotten inside to the core.
There's no beauty in these beasts, them even the God's deplore.
Flipping through our letters, they're just fearful bedwetters,
seeking redemption from their many imperfections.
No personal introspection, they get continual rejection.
Prying eyes telling lies, living in their
trailer park pigsties, somewhere, who really cares.
Snoopy neighbors constantly watching us,
making unnecessary fuss, they're nasty as pus.
Cocksure pricks, needing a hard head slap with a hickory stick.
That would do the trick, knock they're brains out of their noggin,
maybe some flogging, too. And tell 'em, "Screw you!"
Sinful sphincters, losers, not victors.
What if they fell in a pit of twenty-foot boa constrictors?
It would serve them right for their sleights.
I pray for it with all my might. How about tonight!
A worthless, clueless lot, ranting ridiculous incantations, just snots that
need to be shot with double-aught buck. Oh, it's just their bad luck.
Rubberneckers creating traffic jams, needing not one, but several wham whams.
Masquerading as writers, spewing mindless prose about things they do not know,
I'm hoping they just blow away with the rest of the tumbleweeds and hayseeds, inbreeds.
They call themselves Masters of The Art, I call them worthless body parts.
Obscene, mean and vulgar, they need to be drawn and quartered, thrown out as carrion
to the vultures and other scavengers, including the jackals and grackles.
Oh, let us bring back English Law penalty culture to those who insult us!
It was more civilized than these emotional pretenders, they're not real contenders,
they cause just more stupid ruckus.
Worthless small shrews, lacking any prominence, not worth even a single halfpence.
Again, their smooth lips and elegant pens talk of love and romance.
Really?
I say, "Okay, bend over, pull down your pants,
I got something for your romance, hungry red ants for that stance."
Renegade inhumans like these should be penalized on their knees for good reason.
They've committed
High Treason and crimes
against those of
us with a pure heart.
What do you say,
let's start today!?

Written by Strider

Come Undone

2012-05-02T01:12:00.000-07:00

Swallow the blemish
flavoured skewed cocktail
that you poured so freely
once upon I shall never forget

Force fed by your clawed hand

The intravenous drip that you
attached to my soul
blinding poison
swirling darkness
as hate drips from my very core
diluting in it's wake

There is no breaking me
as I watch you fall
I spill your own doing
down your unwilling throat
so needy now as you choke

It just makes me loathe you all the more

Your acid coated chains that bound
my hands and feet
melted and mixed with the blood
dripping from your unworthy heart

I paint in red
a picture of you
as you come undone.

Written by Magdalena

GOING POSTAL

2012-04-16T01:04:00.001-07:00

We all wonder why
Some people lose it
Some rant and rave
Others just shoot it

Just look at our lives
Nasty, brutish and very long
Enough injustices pile up
To undo even the strong

We are not only dangerous
As a military force
Each of us is capable
Of doing damage in 1000s of ways

Bullying, cheating, insulting, beating
Road rage, ignoring, not caring
Raping, snubbing, belittling and taunting
Happen every day to someone in the USA

If you are lucky to be balanced
And can let it run off your back
You are wise to turn a blind eye
Vengeance is so bad for your soul

Children and emotionally abused adults
Have it piled on high, can do nothing
To defend themselves except scream and shout
These are ignored, to the harm of many

One a day a person can take no more
Suicide is the first choice
It does not always work
Homicide is so effective
You hurt them and they kill you

Sticks and stones can break your bones
But WORDS can HURT YOU
Be careful what you say to people
Some people are hand grenades

Written by somelikeithot

Dear.

2012-04-11T01:32:00.005-07:00

One moment
seconds dripping with need
Fingers hungry for flesh, reaching
breath held in hunger, want
I'll show you what she can't do
As I taste blood through my lip
My heartbeat pulsates through my body
Can you hear it?
Can you just taste it?

I'll wrap you in my body, in my words
in all the shameless acts I perform on you
all the fantasies you have of me
I want to tease you with my lips
Torture you with my fingers
Delight you in my soul
Confine you completely in the idea of me
Take you so far inside me you get lost there
I want to scratch her fingerprints off your skin
then brand you myself,
Claim you as incredibly, deliciously,
irrevocably mine,
Entwine love and fuck into a yarn
spin it around you so tight you can't see,
and once you are enraptured in the thought of me,
I will fuck your best friend
shoving this hurt right back into you,
then walk away and leave you for emotionally dead.

Dear.

Written by beautiful_accident

I'm Not the Daughter of Your Dreams.

2012-03-16T08:19:00.002-07:00

I know life fucked you over young,
and I get it that you work hard.
I've heard you never got to have fun,
and yes, you told me of your broken heart.

Mom, you gotta grow up sometime,
you can't stay 16 forever.
You're quitting jobs and pinching dimes,
saying, "we gotta stay together."

I blame myself, just like you do,
for Daddy's death and our situation.
All the tears I've cried, you have no clue.
Mom, all these years I've been so patient.

Please quit calling me a whore,
and if you can, stop selling drugs?
Hun, I know you're insecure.
That's no excuse to fuck brainless thugs.

You used to have a heart,
I recall that, somewhere inside.
While it seems you've grown apart,
you've locked it up, or tossed it aside.

I don't mean to chastise you,
but could you chastise me?
Don't let me have sex in your room,
and dude, grow up. Don't give me weed.

I appreciate the freedom,
but this is just too much.
While you don't have to believe it,
I tend to give in to lust.

Written by KristynAshley.

I Release Me

2012-03-07T07:19:00.001-08:00

I´m fed up with the monotony
of waking up to the same routine
everyday;
the same problems
the same worries
the same aspirations
the same goals,
roaming like a nomad
drunk on the present
in the early hours
of this city, this lifestyle.

I´m fed up with having
all the time to do everything
without enough time for
anything, to spend another minute
not holding you
not being with you,
with being love sick.

I´m fed up with wealth
my social class, prosperity,
the white picket fence,
with experts
with America
with Europe,
with all the things
I´ve ever been taught.

I´m fed up with
always being distracted
by mindless distractions,
with T.V., fast food
and no one saying
what they really think,
with apathy and society.

I´m fed up with
being a nice young man
who will graduate from a top 100 school
who will make alot of money
who will make everyone proud
who will do the right thing

I´m fed up with poetry,
with having to scream
into the coffee-stained pages
of a notebook, and listen
to your crap because
you´ve memorized all the right words.

Written by matthew bass

Our power!

2012-03-06T23:45:00.001-08:00

Hypocrites
and Bureaucrats
Clogging my brain
Why aren't the people seeing red
and posting threads
about what should be said,

We must fight for our power,
Our freedom of speech

I should be preaching to the choir,
the long time converted
instead I find ignorance abound

It's your life,
It's your voice,
Don't give away your choice!

Written by Duncan Alexander (Duncan)

Corrosion of conformity

2012-03-02T08:08:00.000-08:00

Their was a time when I was very unique;
The way I dressed to the way I speak.
I had my piercings and my tattoos
Now I'm old hate; just old news.

I have always believed if you can't be true to anyone else;
Don't fall a victim, and not be true to yourself.
Conforming is the new way these days;
To the way we look, or even our kids we raise.

They want us to look like the people of the mass;
I will not conform: they can kiss my ass!
I am what I am; this is all I know how to be;
If you don't like they way I look; don't look at me.

I do not walk with a lowered head;
I choose to look right at you instead.
I know I have nothing to hide;
As you walk around; your feelings trapped deep inside.

I know I have pains that are all of my own;
From you trying to conform me; no rules written in stone.
Act this and that way, the way you were born;
I'm not sorry: I will not conform.

I will dress and look like what I feel;
I'm not a minuteman I am truly real.
I am no different that you to I;
The only thing that is different: to myself to choose not to lie.

You can be what ever to want to be;
I will stick to my faith; corrosion of conformity.
I will live my life how I see fit;
Your opinion doesn't matter; it doesn't mean shit.

So don't you judge me because I am me;
I know who I am, and know what I see.
I am true amongst my kind;
I have my freedom of speech: I have my own mind.

I will not sympathies if your life is wrong;
Maybe it's because you have conformed way to long.
Weather I know you or not...you see;
No matter what I will always be me.

I will not conform to the standards that you've set so high;
The new world order; from me you can kiss that good-bye.
No matter what you may think of what you see.
I still will be true and I will always now that I am me.

So for those who think that we live your ways;
The day that I conform to your way; it will be truly the end of days.

So I say to your conformity of your world;
I know what my goals are: what I'm working toward.
I will not judge you if you do the same;
If you have nothing from conformity...well ain't that a shame.

So which direction that you may chose;
I know in my heart; I have nothing to lose.
So conform to that this world of cost;
It is your expense: your life its cost.

This may be the silence before the storm;
I will still stand strong and never conform!

Written by Atropabelladonna

Red Motivation

2012-02-08T08:21:00.000-08:00

Ice burns with cold fire.
In the sun movements are no longer limited.
Potential hides behind a lazy will.
The light is seen and can be worked.
When someone's so low all they dream is higher.
I'm going to do this and that they say.
Share and communicate with friends only to be deemed a liar.
Why expose myself when I'd rather remain rare.
Hate is everything money is about, it can make or strongly break you.
Was I ever on top?
Life goes in one of two ways, up or down or down and up.
Is this what happens in the result of bad decisions?
Sorry if my words sometimes are harsh.
I try not to be that.
As I try to move faster than I've ever been before, that's my scream.
What has really changed?
Moved as always things keep being rearranged.
Sometimes I just want to remain in a calm warm place.
Not saying that I'd hide away and give up life's short race.

Written by ClearmindedVillain

Preverbal Whip

2011-07-19T07:22:00.000-07:00

Corrupt officials waging a war
greed and power fuel their quest.

A nation drowning in red ink
Politicians doing what it takes
lining their pockets as Americans sink.

people in need so easy to forget
until its time to punch a voting card
Money borrowed from communist's hands.

The middle class has been removed
the American dream all but shattered.

Wealthy favors have been approved
as if their dreams were all that mattered.

Elected posts demeaned and abused
bought by corporations and Wall Street.

Wake up people before it’s too late
This preverbal whip is here open your eyes
a new form of slavery is being enacted

Written by Tammy

Voodoo Doll

2011-07-19T06:57:00.000-07:00

My heart is bleeding, not believing,
What I'm seeing,
Through these eyes, it's so decieving,
You leave me greiving, heavy breathing,
What did I do to deserve this treating...
To much to lose, you bet it all,
Playing the cards, big or small,
Gambling with life, it's your price,
You pay to play, see through my eyes another day,
Straight to my soul, you skipped the toll,
What do you think I am,
Your voodoo doll.?

Written by PoisonousLove

The act of suicide doesn't always occur at the last breath

2011-02-17T03:28:00.000-08:00

The key to my heart
can be found in the lock
of the blade that tears me apart.
cure the pain, cure the pain
so i can be saved.
deem me sane, deem me sane.
Idle time is a dangerous thing for the idle brain,

I said i didnt want to start again.
Square one has high walls.
To stay trapped or to climb?
well that all depends,
maybe im a little scared to fall.

Strung out on the astmosphere of the evening
and all the days before.
I leave all of my entrances wide out and open,
but infatuative hate uses no doors.
it's here to stay...
so were trapped in ardour bay.
the tug boats are dwindling,
the tourists that were afloat,
well spiteful sharks they swallowed them whole,
and now were left in salted blood
and eager tilling.

I used to believe that all i harboured was guilt,
but all ive come to find over time
was how my design was really built.
ive never been so close to hate
yet i have never been so far away.

the things i feel have lost their appeal
once again i am lost to the on going fray.

all i wanted, all i wanted,
was to taste these things again.
all i wanted...
is this what i wanted?
perhaps to sense tangibly my eager friend.

black and white
day and night
love and hate.
i never used to act, i ever had to hid my shame.
so turn on the light
and give me some sight.
or is the fillament burnt?
if so i will surely fade.

The key to my heart
is in this pain i feel.
a deadlock cut that tears apart
and makes such hatred real.

Written by Cobie (innileika)

This uglyness is corrosive

2011-02-17T02:50:00.000-08:00

I felt it fall away
inches from my hands
just couldnt grasp it in time
save it from the jaggedness beneath
worlds apart never farther away
never as easy as it seemed
when you actually start to struggle against the currents
hurts to see it ripping us apart at the seams
this uglyness is carossive
brings out the worst in us both
fractures us into pieces that can never be put back together
floating in the air
ashes blowing in the wind
shielding your eyes from its aggression
trailing out of sight
a heavy burden to carry on your own
but the strength it will bring will be worth the effort
tears will build this foundation up around us
block out the elements wearing away our complections
the ashes start to clear
letting our eyes focus in on the horizon
so close but never further away
one step and then anouther
on shattered knees
obtainable
so sertain
unending
leaving me in pieces
scraping them together with my hands
trying to realign this puzzle into a form recognizable to my memory
before it broke
but answers seem distaint
and the pain we feel continues to grow and fester
into a storm of ash
fallout from the sorrowed eyes of a growing storm
caught up in the wreakage
eroded by the winds bending around us

Written by stepintomywinter

I've got hope, now where's the change?

2010-09-23T01:46:00.000-07:00

When will we grasp a reality,

that isn't made by the T.V.?
Embrace the dramatic art,
which allows us to find a
part of ourselves vicariously?
Paperboy's selling the "news"
but it's all become fiction.
Not events, just a prediction.

While the markets frozen,
let us bow to the chosen,
The ones that will liberate us,
silence us, save us from ourselves.
Oh, tell me how to think Mr. teacher.
Oh, show me how to live Mr. preacher.

I've got my own dreams,
the youth's got our ideals,
but it's not ruled by the people,
only the "qualified" fields.
Putting tax dollars into crowd control,
more badges for the job increase,
give them all guns to protect the peace.

So draw us a map to progess,
with a promise we won't digress,
while we're taking food from mother,
to print school books for our brother.
Our elders are a knowledge to the past,
But fuck it, degrees are meant to last.
While we're all buying into debt,
i've got the hope, now where's my change?

Yesterday, the nobel peace prize,
for a speech, for a proposal of compromise!
There's something wrong with me,
I can't believe this will end the cross fire,
pretty words just fail to inspire,
while I look into my best friends eyes,
before he's sent into the desert,
where everybody dies...

I've got my hope, now where's the change?!

Mr_Sin

Caged

2010-09-02T06:52:00.000-07:00

The pillow that stifles my soul stinks of love, and whispers that hiding my [he]art away is not a sacrifice, not really.

I can speak silently, perform to nobody, paint with invisible ink, and express myself to a blank page… all in the name of love.

I poured out the wine gone sour because I love you, and hate the idea of you sipping from a poisoned chalice, but you caught every drip and stared at me with pained eyes when your flesh melted away.

So the wine sits and sours every time something comes up, and the drains are off limits from now on. Removing the cork doesn’t empty the bottle, merely lets the fumes waft over us and turns the air as bitter as the brew.

I made no promise so there’s nothing to break, except a fragile glass with ‘trust’ tentatively written on the label next to a piece that many cherish but forget. I’ll dust around the plinth it sits on and try not to knock it, but I was always clumsy and the glass wobbles alarmingly whenever I get too close.

You never asked me to stop doing, only to stop speaking. My soul is still there but the cage has come down and the silence is terrifying.

Rachel Gleavy

Note to whom ever, My last day alive.

2010-09-01T08:02:00.000-07:00

You said I never had to feel alone.
I've heard more promising words.
But I believed you.
Yet I feel so alone.
I give it about 7 months.
You wouldn't even remember my name by then.
You'll never enter my room again.
Because it'll be closed off.
But you know inside.
Is where I lay.
Dead.
You know inside my room is where I took my last beath.
You said I'd always have a reason to stay alive.
You said you'd never leave me without no reason.
Then one day, your no where to be found.
Tell my family this is not their fault.
This is but mine.
Note to whomever.
This is my last day.
Alive.
Note this.
Trust no one but yourself.
Things change.
People change.
People lie.
The world still turns.
Only now.
I'll be six feet under.
You drove me to death.

Written by Nik-Forever

liberty or death

2010-09-01T07:58:00.000-07:00

I spit senseless shit..........

jumbled words to disturb,,,, the morals within,

your proper up bringing, fuck ya I was raised in a barn,

And my pops is a piece of shit, was love to much to ask?

he could of at least hung around and beat my fuckin ass,

disfunctional would had been better than nothing,

now my life lacks fatherly guidance, I latch on to role models,

its so goddamn disgusting, but I is who I is,

And the counselor says I have personality issues,

a fatal prognosis, how did it happen?

with this fat sack of cannabis I entertain smoking,

you must be fucking joking , with your positive influences,

and your uptown attitude, I dont mean to offend,

my words just get misconstrued ,

you dont desire to understand me, reality wont let you...

forgiveness is bullshit, just a way of saying you're a pussy....

to damn scared to do something about it,

pull the pistol and pop it.... consequences forsaken,

you wrong me I wrong you, revenge replaces forgiveness,

thats true about justice, fry him where he stands,

dont get me wrong I still love, just a little bit different

I love if it suits me, helps me in some small way

mutually benefical, maybe I'm shallow,

a shell of a man, I'm fine with that

no identity crisis, just acceptance here,

throw in the hand I was dealt, or double down,

screw it I'm all in, jaw dropped and long faced

addicted and dont know why, bullshit

I decided to get high, nobody forced my hand

crack was a decision and I am not sorry for your pain,

dont choose now to be the hero and save me from myself,

I'm drunk and i'm driving, swerving in all lanes,

I drive like I live, reckless and shit,

and the dopeman is my friend, he furnishes my escape

puts it on face, but my face value is void,

even as a baby, I was twisted when they made me

a faulty product destined for the system,

a third world mentality, destitute and despicable,

it fuckin amazing, and I live next door,

close to your love ones and future and fancy dreams,

I enjoy people like me who cause pain, destroy destiny,

give people a reason to give up, promotes prostitution,

not an office job but it works, blue collar if you will,

seedy hotels with nasty smells, the scent of failure,

scars like lines on a mirror, and anger like fury,

give me liberty or give you death

Written by drugfree1977

Untitled

2010-08-19T02:04:00.000-07:00

Openin my eyes to the dark I must still be dreaming
Cause I hear this soft screaming
in the back of my head and my memory is vague
Last nights scene slowly come back to mind and
All I can remeber is Hi-Hat, a few drinks, loud music
preferably slow grinding
A jigsaw puzzle I'm trying to put together with missing pieces
First clue is a warm breath on the back of my neck I can't believe this.
As my eyes get use to the dark I realize this room is not mine
The sheets i lay on are moist and my boxer breifs i cant find
There is a trail of clothing leading from the foot of the door to the end of the bed a path of square toes, stilletoes, a button up, and some gouchoes
Flashbacks of freshly manicured hand carresing the back of my head
Thought of me holding her up against the wall feet around the waist trying not to slip.
Different scenes coming back to me to quick
Intoxicated from pleasure, intoxicated from memories or am I intoxicated from the drinking
Altogther a sudden movement take me from my thinking
She is now woke probraly wondering what she got her self into now
Both confused me scared to face the truth and turn around
She wondering who this niggas is, I am wondering what she look like
We both trying the find out what going to happen tonight
We both thinking I don't even know her(his) name.

King Young

Navigating the Woodland Of Life

2010-08-16T02:17:00.000-07:00

Life has been no easy forest for me to navigate --

Not always with a predetermined path to follow,

But abounding with rocks and roots to trip over

While stumbling along in a period of darkness.

Never knowing whether to take the left or the right fork,

Ever maneuvering the endless labyrinth

Of trees with dancing boughs and gnarled bark.

Always following the gently trickling blue snake,

Which is really a minute stream

But never too closely

For fear of falling in.

Constantly checking in all directions

For vicious, rampaging, wild beasts

That may be roaming the wood.

Never willing to stop, pause, or turn around,

Though sometimes I wish I could,

Being prevented only by the fact that

Even if I tried, I wouldn't be able to find my way back.

Ever keeping my faith in the reward on the other side,

I continue to traverse through the seasonally changing woodland of life.

Mark Hazel

Mis-appreciation Of African Literature (101)

2010-08-10T07:04:00.000-07:00

Students are advised that this course carries no credits. This course is designed only for the Appreciation of African Literature.
By David Kaiza“

The force of the poetry that was beginning to come out of those young people became one huge challenge to many of us. It wasn’t because we hated other people’s poetry but because we were frightened of our emotions.” -David Rubadiri, Malawian Poet. Makerere University , May 2009.

David Rubadiri was speaking to an audience at Makerere University in May 2009 at a memorial lecture to editor David Cook when he said this, in front of an audience of students whose parents would have been children when in 1962, African writers descended on the university:

Octogenarian and walking with a noticeable shuffle, Rubadiri still had in him, the ability to whip up the aura of the 1960s when African literature was still received with extremes of emotion; 47 years ago, Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Okot P’Bitek, Ngugi wa Thiong’o and others who attended that conference were well-known already or would soon be.

Brought up on a forced diet of Shakespeare and Dickens, they plotted to throw the ‘English Department’ out of universities in Africa and replace it with African literature; a challenge to the “fatalistic logic of the unassailable position of English in our literature”. In 1962, the mass of what we now call African literature had not been written yet. So, June 1962 on Makerere Hill was also a mission statement. The next two decades would see a great number of novels, poems, essays and plays written.

Lewis Nkosi reporting in The Guardian on the conference pointed out that “those writers talked endlessly about the problems of creation … as though they were amazed that fate had entrusted them with the task of interpreting a continent to the world.”

This statement by Nkosi would not have been the only sentiment at that conference, but the essence of it was picked up and passed over to become the standard reaction – and even expectation – when reading African literature, implicitly stating that African literature was written for a non-African audience. Presumably, a piece of work that “interprets” carries the sterile tones of a tour guide rather than the rounded texture of the architect.

The defining character of African literature, one from which problems of reading it emerge, is that a handful of writers and editors wilfully created a body of work that had not existed before. Compression and extensions of pasts and histories was inevitable, assumptions that would only become apparent with time went to press. In time, Song of Lawino, The Trials of Brother Jero and The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born appeared; the writing was done and the reading started in earnest.

Immediately, reviewers were at loss for appropriate expressions that would best describe the appearance of characters like Abd’ji’bidji and Lawino who in comparison to Heathcliff or Emma Bovary, seemed to orbit in a universe in which pumpkin roots, yams and Ogun had replaced cheese, daffodils and Yorkshire moors as narrative paraphernalia.

The theoretic reader’s bone of contention is that African literature was largely made to a cultural-nationalist order, however unconsciously (which can be said of any work); to use imagery of the 60s, the African Writers Series (AWS) was a cultural Apollo Project, a literary 5-year Plan.

A lot seemed to be at stake in the 1960s; the Cold War, threat of a nuclear holocaust, student protests and the Vietnam War, defining a high époque’s loss of certainty in the face of destabilising transitions. To accuse African writers of over-determining their terms, in the manner in which Kwame Anthony Appiah did in his book, In My Father’s House, may not be inaccurate but it misses the point that the ‘60s were years of over-determinism.

At the beginning of the 70s, the well-regarded African literary critic, Adrian Roscoe (Mother is Gold), in what appears a casual reference, wrote of John Pepper Clarke’s, Second Round: "The pull of the British tradition remains strong, for Clarke here is obviously feeling the influence of Hopkins, a poet whose deliberately rude handling of language for special effects might be expected to appeal to a young free spirit like Clarke!"

There would be more. Part of the praises heaped on Song of Lawino was that it sounded like Hiawatha. For Western readers, their heritage was the accepted canon and everything else could only be seen in comparison.

Tasters with less flamboyance, and perhaps weary of cross-cultural conflation, found the gravy, “remarkable”, “intelligent”; the presentation “portrayed” the “beauty of African traditions” with “humour”, “originality” and “power”; others found the gruel “thin”, lacking in “universal” salt. These first line readings licked the edges of the bowl, tentative, weary of plunging headlong into the steaming soup, occasionally snatching up bits of “culture clash”, and morsels of “tradition versus progress”.

Irate response erupted. Soyinka summed up as a “facile tag”, the convenient black/white, north/south, body/mind, and Africa/Europe, juxtaposition.

This patronizing tone from Western readers drove Ayi Kwei Armah to make an enduring riposte to Charles Larson (Under African Skies) and give name to de-contextualised readings. Larson remarked of Armah, saying that in The Beautiful Ones are Not Yet Born the latter had, “gone to great pains to make it clear that he is writing literature first, and that the Africanness of his writing is something of less great importance.”

Armah, fuming from this reductionist tone, termed as “Larsony” what he saw as an externalising reading "which consists of the judicious distortion of African truths to fit Western prejudices”. Perhaps worse, Larson had, again like Roscoe, compared The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born to Ralph Ellison’s The Invisible Man.

A high point was reached with the controversy over Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman, a development which focused serious reading beyond plot and story. The play’s weighty suggestions provoked significant comment. Soyinka’s stated aim was what he called a metaphysical study of death, ritual and transition. For many (who cannot be shielded by the trite defence that they don’t know Africa ), Soyinka’s description was curious, given that the antagonism between Pilkin – the colonial administrator, and Elesin – the tragic Oba (leading characters in the play) clearly spelt culture-clash.

The prime problem, which continues to our age, was that the continent lacked, or did not chrystalise, the lofty macro-narratives by which the West categorised its traditions. Hence, Marxist readers could recklessly say Soyinka neglected to take into account the impact of petty commodity trading, class structure and power politics.

Who said you must write to ideological order, and was not Marxism a product of specific, Western experience?

Pushed into a corner, and asked to contextualise themselves within already existing grand narratives, African writers – sadly - came with such constructions as “Cosmology”, “Unanimism” as armour against the Roscoes of the time.

The charge was that rather than presenting Africa as it was, African writers were inventing a past to equal the material stature of another’s heritage; assuming that race was a fact and that with so many “tribes” and languages, the idea of Africa was false.

It could be however argued that the spirited response from Soyinka and Armah held Western readers in check. With the closing of the 70s cursory readings gave way to the multi-disciplinary facet of theory.

But Africa was not solely the pre-occupation of the literary world. Historians, linguists and anthropologists from the continent like Valentin Yves Mudimbe, Cheik Anta Diop and Armah himself, who had started digging as far back as Egypt, further complicated the milieu. Given the climate of the time, the reading of African literature too went extra-literary, into the risk-fraught grounds of Theory.

The problem of its birth meant that inevitably, African literature would be asked teething questions. AWS had created a body of works lacking textual parentage. That it was written in refutation, that this refutation was a militant counterpoint to Europe , made it a foregone conclusion that the tag, “Afrocentrism” would be slapped on it.

Stephen Howe’s book, Afrocentrism: Mythical Pasts and Imagined Homes, which came out much later, was the kind of ground on which not only the works of Diop and Armah were doubted, but also the intellectual context in which men like Appiah had questioned African creative works of literature.

For defenders of the idea of Africa , philosophical and technical questions stunk of neo-colonialism: Could these deniers not see that the immensity of suffering of the black peoples necessitated a massive counter-offensive? Could they not see that these theoretic affronts were rearming the neo-imperialists who walked boldly back into places like Congo ?

The complexity arises from the fact that this self-fortification of the African spirit was made at the tail-end of a tragic, intellectual refraction that begun in Europe a few hundred years before. In claiming ownership of truth and science, renaissance Europe appropriated all the good that all other societies do as their preserve, the very reason for their existing. In equal measure, it regurgitated the messy waste it did not need, and heaped it upon all the other societies it dominated; to work, imperialism dubiously over-emphasized black/white demarcations.

It was as if two plus two equalled three in the tropics. With equal imbecility, Negritude claimed for Africa, patent rights over the innate and the inscrutable, oblivious of the same being mass-produced in Hitler’s Europe .

In many ways, Negritude thrives in circles that spell Africa with a K; Negritude’s two plus two may equal four, but the four is dressed up in a grass skirt for authenticity. It was within this chimera of cultural confusion that the misdirected readings emanated.

The uncertainty over reading African writing properly came from an old idea that the straight, the symmetrical and the structured could only be European; that what is authentically African could only be the malformed, primordial, and lacked surface finesse. It was as if Africans never puzzled over psychology, as if the knowledge of smelting and tooling metal, lost wax casting and making dies – which reached high levels of refinement in pre-colonial Africa had been the product of witchcraft rather than of science.

Armah’s characters failed to agree to an easy patenting along Negritudinist lines, and could hence be labelled as “European” by Larson. An immense silliness seemed to have gripped everyone.

There was and is no special key into reading African writing – no African solution to this Africanised problem. All Art, whether made in the Tundra or the Savannah , comes from the same place and hence, to think that different standards ought to be erected to study works from different geographical settings is a disservice to art.The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

It is only from this deformity that any narrative of a pre-colonial Africa in which the rational and explicable happened could be perceived as “inventing” an African past.

AWS’s heroic act of “creating” a grand project was dismissed as mere invention; the “invented” seen as a dubious, back-handed creation of heroic pasts big enough to respond adequately to Conrad, Carey and other colonial anthropologies.

It is not too hard to know why hardly any of these readings grappled with these works as pure works of art, to give them a good shaking to see whether they were good or bad art, to find out if as novels, they created narratives that captured the essence of existence properly.

There are readers who still think that Africans experience existence in alien ways; theorists like Appiah consider good or bad art as categories for the lowly craft of criticism; defenders of African essence were interested in these books only for the sake of history. Nearly all were interested in the anthropological possibilities they offered.

One can jump up with an easy defence of African literature and say that all literary traditions invent pasts, that the renaissance in Europe was appropriation of a classicalism borrowed from the Greeks who borrowed it from ancient Egypt . One can say this to brutally undercut European claims to primacy in the same way Howe made claims of the new African literary project.Kindle Wireless Reading Device, Free 3G + Wi-Fi, 6" Display, Graphite, 3G Works Globally - Latest Generation

It would be easy to say that all books are written with conscious intent, rather than absent-mindedly – in the same way it was once said of the acquisition of the British Empire , a thin attempt to escape historical responsibility for its crimes. To the extent that Beowulf is literature, that War and Peace does not oversell the Russian spirit, Howe’s thesis that African writers and scholars were constructing ‘mythical pasts and imagined homes’ can pass as legitimate.

But the fights over reading African literature ought to concern us in Africa only as a curiosity. We have, for good and for worse, inherited a body of work already. But it is not our place to doubt what is ours.

We who would continue creating art and literature on the continent ought to concern ourselves with technical questions to start the kind of reading which should have been done years ago; to say if a book is written well or badly, to compare what we experience inside the pages and compare them to what we experience outside of them. Kindle Wireless Reading Device, Free 3G + Wi-Fi, 6" Display, Graphite, 3G Works Globally - Latest Generation

That chokora you left. Remember?

2010-08-09T07:53:00.001-07:00

Its as if I have no real control over myself. I feel primal and savage with every waking moment. An animal is what I am. The urges are incredible. The adrenaline is overwhelming. I feel insane. Giving in to all of this seems to be the inevitable path. My hair is long and unruly, like a desperate beast. My face is un kept and un-shaven clearly showing I have no interest in appearances. Dark circles have formed under my eyes, evidence to my lack of sleep. My lips are chapped to the point of blood and the gaunt form of my body magnifies its already unsightly effects. The left ear that has recently been pierced, is oozing with what seems to be a delicate mixture of blood and puss. What could be called my beard is more of a disgusting nest of brown and grey hairs.
Why am I doing this?
Sympathy maybe. Maybe I am trying to show myself how much of a wreak I am, so that I can effectively change myself. Maybe I am doing it because I like this monster I have become. You know I have been described as a psychotic lunatic.
My chest is shallow yet defined. What muscle I have is clearly showing itself. As if desperately trying to display the strength that it desires. My arms weed out of my torso like angry little branches. Though there is very little muscle visible in these branches, they pulse and resonate what strength they have. They are truly hatful little creatures that mock me at every turn. The coarse little hairs that cover my torso imply a slightly masculine nature, they hint at my desires to be a strong man. My back being, the muscle that has kept me up for so long is now bent and broken. An overused reliance, a tired old dog. It is bent and broken, yet refuses to let me down, sacrificing more than it can give at most times.
Maybe I am doing this for comfort, or to impress those around me. I don’t think that’s it. I think I want to write. I want to overcome everything, to defeat all of my problems and doubts. I want nothing more that to be happy. I think that’s why I am doing this. I must win this fight. I must beat everyone, and overcome myself. This anger, this animal must be overcome.
My cold red eyes, are clearly active despite my tired persona. They flare with anger, passion and desire. I want to take. I want what I deserve. No one can stand in my way. The flare of my life is in these eyes. I am what I make myself. I long to be a virtuous soul, not a vengeful hate fueled animal. I must work myself out of the frenzy of my life.
My legs are clearly defined muscles, the one piece of me that I can still rely on. They will take me places I do not desire to be and will inspire my body to move. They will carry me forward. The muscles that hang from there bones is strong yet tangible, it is a practical strength that only the wanderer can acquire.
As a whole I am a creature, little less than a beast. I look to the future to change this, but for the time I am the savage. I will indulge in this until I can take it no more. I am wild, an untamable monster. With only a shell of virtue guiding it along. I will break. Whether this will end well or not I can’t yet tell. I only know for certain that I am a train wreak, a unpleasant skeleton of who I used to be. A rage filled Zombie. A walking Hate Machine. An animal. You saw me in the bins; am that chokora.

A Letter To The Law - Common

2010-08-09T07:51:00.001-07:00

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So, what is the point of living anyway?

2010-08-09T07:49:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time in Hollywood, smoking was considered the height of sophistication. Glamorous girls puffed daintily on Virginia Slims, while tough dudes smoked Sportsman.

In fact in the ‘80s, the most popular advert both on TV and the Kenya Newsreel in the film theatres was the one of a couple in a red Mustang who sped out to some picturesque countryside and played chess, then as the sun set over the savannah, they smoothly lit their Embassy Kings.

In 2010, it is impossible to find such an advertisement in Kenya.Health warnings

‘Cigarettes are harmful to your health’ campaigns became ‘Smoking kills’, complete with warnings on the packets. And I feel sure we’re moving in the direction of the USA where the warnings on cigarette packets are so many (‘Smoking this pack will distort your Mitochondria and you’ll give birth to a two-headed Mongoloid with five arms’) it is hard to tell what brand it is.

‘Two and-a-half million people die from smoking every year globally’ is the official figure. But did you know smoking is also associated with chronic low back pain among younger adults? I didn’t, until last week, when I read an article by Dr Shiri of the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health.

Drinking beer — and eating roast goat — causes gout, and liquor finishes your liver and kills you. So does sex, one of the most pleasurable past-times known to man, bird, animal and beast. You cannot even take comfort in gastronomic delights. Chips and chocolates will literally ‘fatten you for the kill’ through obesity and then heart attack. Red meat is also supposedly bad for your health, so you need to eat like an herbivore.

Coffee has caffeine, so it is supposedly just like a liquid cigarette, and tea has something or the other that messes up your dopamine levels. And if you thought you could take refuge in water, drink too much and you get hyper-gly-something, but too little means you’re dehydrated.

Gloom and doom

White bread lowers your immunity levels while eggs over-protein-ise the system and makes you vulnerable to a number of maladies. If you don’t exercise, you will die, but if one over-exercises, one could collapse like a cardiac house of cards.

Even the additives that add ‘spice to life’ are bad for your health. Sugar leads to diabetes, salt makes one prone to strokes, and so on and so forth.

In New York restaurants, the city health authorities are now asking that the number of calories in each sugar packet be printed on them. As for ‘fat-free’ products, this is all the fad, and the fuss has spread all the way to Kenya where everything is ‘herbal’.

Now our own authorities have joined the "Kenyan Kill Joy Boys’ Choir,’ (KKJBC) and decided that too much noise is harmful to our health. Excited young Kenyans now cannot ride in matatus and listen to the ‘boom-twaff’ that is the joy of youth. The matatu touts cannot shout, so how does one know where their vehicles are headed? We can’t read, you know!

Last straw

But what finally broke this camel’s was a recent news item from some US journal which informed us that "every hour spent sitting in front of the TV raises a person’s risk of death from cardiovascular disease by 18 per cent, and the risk of cancer by nine per cent."

The long and short of it? To live long, one cannot drink, smoke, have sex, eat chips, chocolates, nyama choma, drink too much or too little water, let alone tea or coffee, eat white bread or eggs, exercise or not at all, listen to music, watch TV, etc, etc!

What is the point of living?

As a colleague glumly concludes, "Waking up in 2010 could be harmful to your health." And by the very act of being born, don’t babies already sign up to something that says, "Living will be hazardous to your health" and at some point, will certainly end in death?

By Tony Mochama

Bitter Sweet

2010-08-09T07:22:00.000-07:00

see what i want so much
should never hurt this bad
never did this before
that's what the virgin says
we been generally warned
that's what the surgen says
god talk to me now
this is an emergency

and she claim she only with me for the currency
you cut me deep bitch
cut me like surgery
and i was too proud to admit
that it was hurting me
id never do that to you
at least purposely
we breaking up again
we making up again
but we dont love no more
i guess wee fucking then
have you ever wanted to kill her
and you mixed them emotions with tequila
and you mixed that with a little bad advice
on one of them bad nights
yall have a bad fight
and you talking bout her family
her aunts and shit
and she say motherfucker your mommas a bitch
you know
domestic drama and shit
all the attitude
i'd never hit a girl but i'd shake the shit out of you
but imma be the bigger man
big pimpin like jigga man
oh i guess i figga it's
bitter sweet
your going to be the death of me

andmy niggas said i shouldntlet it worry me
and this relationship it even got me back to drinkin
and this hennessey is going to be the death of me
and you and cracked up to what you were supposed to be
you always gone you always be where those hoes will be
cause everytime i tried you would question me

Kanye West