Category Archives: life

WALKING ABOUT NAKED

cover pix of book 2

If someone had told me two years ago that I would be writing a book, well.

I wish to clearly state, not in the manner of a disclaimer, but as a matter of fact that this should not be seen as exactly a book. I honestly can barely find remote similarities to one. This means that this is to be approached with very low expectations. Thank you.

It is actually more like a journal of my musings on issues relating to the science-religion discourse. More than that, it shows some actual conflicts I may have gone through as I tried to navigate this curious issue.

I hope you enjoy seeing me walk naked.

 

The link to the pdf file, hosted on google drive is

https://drive.google.com/file/d/11TvLfGVkrD5_o8ybeAVhj8t79ecLkJDT/view?usp=sharing

Download and enjoy freely.

I should post the link to my first collection later. Apparently, I have two collections to my name now. *sighs

 

Yours shamelessly,

MIDWINTERNIGHT’S WHISPERS

source: travelization.net

 

It’s winter again and I am born again

With the weather dropping its angst and baggage

 

Gunshots and thunders have been known to not wake me up

I have been blessed with the gift of sleep, in addition to milk and wine

But tonight I stagger out of bed like a drinker

Who was given a particularly potent new brand of ethanol

The piss of the spirits it is called

“It’s time to get rid of the past”

I heard winter’s chilly-sweet voice tell me out of sleep

 

I dance into the toilet like a goat out of a marijuana joint

Caution: I don’t encourage the use of illicit drugs

I reverently approach the toilet bowl and kneel before it

Like a priest before a deity

I gaze red-misty-eyed into the water

As commanded by winter

 

And I begin to see the seasons of my life gone by…

 

 

 

Bells in the air

Happy chaos everywhere

It’s the sound of joy and love

Spring came with the first romance of my life

All gift-wrapped and abandoned at my doorstep

I didn’t have to sweat for or with her

The whole feeling was that clear ecstasy you got

When your thoroughly engineered plans fell into place

And you had covered up for all possible lapses

Time flew past fast

Work was meaningful

And better than what I had dreamt of

Oh, things threatened to go wrong at times during the day

But in this spring season, nothing could go awry

I would find me singing as I strolled back from work in the evening

As I smelt the fragrance of freshly growing grasses

And believed all was right with the world

 

Transition…

 

A little sweat here and there

But I still got this under control

Summer doesn’t care who your father is

This sun will burn even on the rich as well

A little sweat here a little ache there

And I began to learn the harsher rules of life

I enjoyed growing up and seeing the other sides

But drudgery comes upon every relationship

As the couple grow too familiar with each other

Even the work you love

Soon gathers its own dust and makes you sneeze

You can only hope the heat doesn’t go for too long

Because that would usher in unexpectedly on you

 

The autumn

 

Singing: let everything fall and fade away

Let the romance of death begin… la la la

 

The couple will dance to this song

And it takes two to rock it!

When every good immortalized relationship dies

It takes two to drive the stake through the vampirical heart

And I see how we both did our jobs well in the murder

Remember the threats of things to go wrong during the day

Well, they got their wishes

On the work front, I got the famous sack letter

The heat was too much for too long

Things started looking honestly bleak

But autumn never fails me

Autumn took everything away

Stripped me naked

It reminded me of how I came into the world

 

This cold place

 

Where the best season is

 

Winter

 

Welcome, winter

The comforter of souls in pain

The season of celebrating the birth of the one called Christ

The time when the year calls us to balance the books

The season that mixes so much sanguinity with melancholy

 

Here now comes the slow fade

 

When you hear them sing

From now on our troubles will be out of sight

It just means the cold has made us appropriately numb to them

It was a gradual step

From the innocence and bliss of spring

To the harsh realities of summer

Then to the frank cruelty of autumn

By now, you are fully made

Beaten out into shape

You have seen it all

The pain does not bother anymore

You have hung out your tears on winter to freeze them away

The slow fade has occurred

And I was left wondering if I wanted spring to come next as expected

In that state, did I even bother

I stared at the mirror intently to read my inner desires

But I am the man I once knew

The person I see in the mirror now

Is distorted by the ripples

Of the water in the toilet bowl

I get up reverentially

Dance out of the toilet like a goat out of a marijuana joint

Staggered into bed like a drinker

Totally light and drifting like one

Who has dropped all his angst and baggage

To be born or die again…

 

Who can ‘let it go’ better than a dead man

Sleep tonight Chris

Let it go

Harmattan 2016

Harmattan (source: nairaland.com)

Shadow,

How have you been? It’s been aeons since I last reached out to you. Since I last reached in to you.

But you have always been there somehow, haven’t you. You faithfully stalk the soul. Lovingly following your owner. Through his busy days and dark nights.

I have been silent because I went away on a trip. I have been busy being stranded on this trip. But you were still there somehow, reminding me of what was inside me. Reminding me that I was not nothing.

I went out tonight like I had done many nights before. And imagine the very simple joy that I had seeing the dusty mist. This is what heralds the harmattan. And I fondly thought of you.

Make no mistake, the rain has its magic. But the rains of this year met me at night. The dark days. And I was not even home. I had travelled lost into the night, working away my bones and blood, alone and lonely, comforted with the numbness only the living dead enjoy. I had travelled dead into the night. Living like one who does not live. So, when the rain came, it was like a flood. I barely escaped with my life –figuratively and literally. Never mind that I was properly drenched. I stoically looked forward to the relief of home. The rain was faithful to the mission life had given it. It made a frank mess on my hut of a life. I had slippery clay everywhere and nothing made a lot a sense. Many things made very little sense. I could not reach out to you. I could not reach in to you. I was just A-W-A-Y.

Harmattan however did not fail me. Hence my coming here tonight. Harmattan blows dust that settles on my flesh like a soft protective cocoon and cold that cools my blood. I remember how I came to be. I remember how life all started. From dust. Harmattan does not fail me. It comes and kills the trees. The green leaves turn brown and most fall away. The whole ground is littered continuously and human intervention won’t outwit the downpour of death. Death fills the air. The trees leaves die. The animals run away. The whole region is bare. The sights, sounds and smells of death do not fail me. They put me at ease. They remind me of how fleeting everything is. They remind me of how I must take time away from my toils and cares and dying, and focus on the state of existence –the frailty of existence itself. They remind me not to focus on the frailty of existence itself. But to live for life.

 

Shadows,

No, I am not deep.

Instead, I probably am shallow –for something as the weather change to be what turns me on. I must be shallow for waiting for external changes to bring me back to you.

 

I am not the best of the pile. Please accept me the way I am.

I wait to see how long I stay at home this time before the wanderlust maggot starts eating into my soul again.

I hope I stay this time.

I hope my soul does not get lost out in the jungle of life this time.

 

Yours,

 

coming clean

source: gettyimages.com

 

It amazes me
Your expression
When you strut about
Like you own the dunghill

The dunghill
Is where men need to go
Where they need to clear out their lives
When they need to get rid of the old
Oh yes, they need you
They need you for such things nonetheless

Great mistress of the night
You are the lover and husband of our dark habits
The mother of the monsters growing inside us
The nurse of the festering sores
That mock our daytime puritan act
You keep them decaying
So we never stop needing you
For such things nonetheless

You give meaning to our addictions
You give us shame to carry like babies
And what terrible nannies we make
Sooner or later when the babies drop
And the skeletons you hid for us in the wardrobe fall out
You are the one we run to

All we have become we owe to you
When our life stories are told
In the secret cinemas
To fellow decadents like us
They are never complete without you
The mark you have given us
This mark of corruption
The dirty stinking clothes you stacked up for us

You are very important to us

You walk about proudly
In this dunghill
Where all you are
Is the keeper of dirt
You own us

But
What then happens
When we wake from our slumber
And start washing our clothes
When we take our wounds to a doctor
When we clear out our closets

When your power over us is taken away
And we do not bow or cower
Before you in devoted slavery
When we forever stop making that booty call
And actually start loving the light
When we stop hiding away in the darkness
Afraid to be seen for how we really look
When we finally begin
Feeling so clean and free
Freedom from you
Freedom from ourselves

What will you do
When we finally come clean?

Where it ends

(source: seriouseats.com)

On the day I was born

You saw me

My heart like granulated sugar

Little drops of innocent sweetness

The kind so pure

Everyone wants a feel and fill of

Including the ants

Who really have nothing to offer in return

They come asking for ‘some sugar’

Even they know what’s sweet

 

I became smart in my own ways

Learning my share of lessons from life

I took pride in the great pyramid I built

Heart now hard like cubed sugar

I swore anyone who wanted a taste would sweat

You were there warning me

A little drop of water could mar me

I am not invincible yet

 

Life told me I hadn’t seen the start

The worst began to take a shot at me

I tried, God you must know that

You know I could only withstand the heat for so long

They told me the heat was good

They told me the most painful lessons

Would bring out the better in me

Behold my heart a golden syrup finally

 

But I fall short

I ain’t no honey

I still attract ants

Water still dilutes me

I am tougher than a cube

But I bend under pressure still

 

There is no way to complete this story

There is nothing within me

That could turn this tale into a fairy one

The only way is to remove myself from this story

Change the writer

Who appears obsessed with the various states of matter of sugar

Maybe for a writer who’d paint me as dust

 

At least, there’d be hope for a diamond in my end.

 

*flaccid smile*