There are chickens
That shit on and eat from the ground
And in these times that sort do abound
Eagles that soar
high up in the sky
Are fewer by far and much more renown
To live in the sky
You must first learn to fly
Leap from a ledge
And spread your wings wide
Because after that moment
When you think you might die
Comes the moment when you
Will feel most alive
I occasionally feel the urge to create. If I don’t kill that urge, I get slightly depressed (does that make me homicidal?). Recently my mind was like: “Hey, let’s do drawings of the constellation of characters in The Rising.” (in case you don’t know about The Rising, read the story here, or check related post under the “Fiction” tab up there.)
Turns out I can’t draw as good as I think I can in my head. So I hopped over to Google to learn how to draw Japanese style chibi. Here is the first one I did:
Spider (real name: Temi Adeola) is a reality twisting Magus with a strange past which includes patricide. She kinda-sorta saved the life of Carlos, below, and he is eternally grateful.
This is Carlos, he’s a sad chap at the moment, he was just dumped rather unceremoniously at a very public event. That thing circling around him? That’s fluidized Alchemycal metal (Again, more details on the events surrounding the image here)
Will be back with more in the near future, well… as long as I don’t get bogged down by my day job.
Macabre poetry after the style of the Nursery Rhyme, This is the House that Jack Built. Enjoy!
It came to me…
It came to me
like a stab in the back
It came to me
like a stab in the back
in the dark
It came to me
like a stab in the back
in the dark
by a friend
It came to me
like a stab in the back
in the dark
by a friend
that I loved like a brother
It came to me
like a stab in the back
in the dark
by a friend
that I loved like a brother
who called my Mum, Mother
It came to me
like a stab in the back
in the dark
by a friend
that I loved like a brother
who called my Mum, Mother
but then slept with the girl that I liked
It came to me
like a stab in the back
in the dark
by a friend
that I loved like a brother
who called my Mum, Mother
but then slept with the girl that I liked
who then moved away to a city that sat in a bay
It came to me
like a stab in the back
in the dark
by a friend
that I loved like a brother
who called my Mum, Mother
but then slept with the girl that I liked
who then moved away to a city that sat in a bay
but I forgave him in the end, because he was my friend
and he promised we’d always be cool
It came to me
like a stab in the back
in the dark
by a friend
that I loved like a brother
who called my Mum, Mother
but then slept with the girl that I liked
who then moved away to a city that sat in a bay
but I forgave him in the end, because he was my friend
and he promised we’d always be cool
When we grew, he traced that girl down and told her the truth,
Convinced her until, she knew it was true
It came to me
like a stab in the back
in the dark
by a friend
that I loved like a brother
who called my Mum, Mother
but then slept with the girl that I liked
who then moved away to a city that sat in a bay
but I forgave him in the end, because he was my friend
and he promised we’d always be cool
When we grew, he traced that girl down and told her the truth,
Convinced her until, she knew it was true
So we started dating, and courting and stuff
Got engaged then got married on a church on a bluff
It came to me
like a stab in the back
in the dark
by a friend
that I loved like a brother
who called my Mum, Mother
but then slept with the girl that I liked
who then moved away to a city that sat in a bay
but I forgave him in the end, because he was my friend
and he promised we’d always be cool
When we grew, he traced that girl down and told her the truth,
Convinced her until, she knew it was true
So we started dating, and courting and stuff
Got engaged then got married on a church on a bluff
He was my best man, in a bow-tie and tux
Danced with my sister and they hit it off
The got married a year later and she got a job pushing data
Both of us couples bought houses
in that city that sat on a bay
the same place I dated, got married and stuff
two blocks from the church that sat on a bluff
where he was my best man in a bow-tie and tux
Am I repeating myself?
I probably lost too much blood
Hold on…
This is a simile
a figure of speech
and yet my juices are spilling
like an overripe peach
Yegads!
I realize
I really was stabbed!
The thought
came to me…
Like a stab in the back
In the dark
….
(Cough, burble)
By a friend
(Who’s is now holding my hand
and grinning,
but why?)
Who I loved,
like a brother
…
what’s that?
…
What’s he saying?
That it was all part
Of a devious plan?!
Hey D.C.
Don’t you hate me
I got a lot of stress now
And I can’t be
Coming around you every time
You been spending all my dimes
I don’t really think that you love me
D.C. above refers to Dansoman Community, a neighborhood within the City of Accra. The City of Accra is the Administrative, Commercial and Judicial Capital of the Republic of Ghana. It has expanded rapidly and engulfed neighboring towns, now even exceeding the boundaries of the Greater Accra Region of which it also Regional Capital.
And Kumasi
We may get messy
You be my Barcelona
Give you best feat
I’ve been taking time to grow
I’ve been breaking
I be broke
I don’t really think that you love me
Kumasi (or Kumase), now capital of the Ashanti Region, is the ancient capital city of the pre-colonial Asante Empire. It is still the capital of the (much smaller) Asante Kingdom; centered in Manhyia which loosely translates to “where the State/Kingdom meets”.
Hello Tema
Let’s be real Ma
You been by backbone
I’ve just been a tumor
Maybe I’ve been doing things
That and seven deadly sins
And Now
I really don’t think you should love me
Tema, close to the City of Accra, is the home of the Tema Harbour. A planned community project by Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah, it also sits right squarely on the Greenwich Meridian.
Tell me Kof Town
Can we get down?
On the other hand
I’ll just be a let down
I pluck your flowers errday
But I won’t be here to stay
I really don’t think I can love you
Koforidua, aka Kof Town, is the highest Regional capital in Ghana (Capital of the Eastern Region). It is also said to have the densest distribution of beautiful girls in Ghana; Koforidua’s Flowers.
Hey Cape Coast
What you don’t know
Won’t kill you
It’s been tough since Gold coast
You got a lot of honeys
Needing a lot of money
I got nothing so you’ve been a no show
Cape Coast was once known Cabo Corso. It was the original capital of the Gold Coast before the capital city was moved to the City of Accra.
And Tamale
What’s the hurry?
We’ve been hanging out
Since Atari
We been to a lot of parties
You have been my favorite lady
But you haven’t yet told me you love me
Tamale, formerly adminstrative Capital of the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast, is the flattest City in Ghana. It is now capital City of the Northern Region.
Tell me Sunyani
Why you always talking money
So you’re industrious
But you’re not very funny
You can’t follow any jokes
You don’t understand ‘bespoke’
How did you ever think that I could love you?
Sunyani is said to be the cleanest City in Ghana. It’s also close to the historical town of Techiman, once center of the Gyaman State, the spiritual home of all Akan tribes including the Asante, Fante and Baoulé.
Bolgatanga
Slim as a hangar
I like slim
But you remind me of hunger
I put a baby in your oven
Then you gave it to a coven
I’m way too scared to even love you
Bolgatanga, aka Bolga, is another Ancient Ghanaian settlement. It was at the southernmost tip of Trans-Saharan trade during the Pre-colonial era.
Pretty young Wa
Mamacita
You’re too young girl
Don’t even come closer
You are just a little sister
Really nice to meet you
You are lovely but I can’t love you
Wa, brackets with Ho as one of the places in Ghana with the shortest place-name. It also shares with Bolga, the honour of being one of Ghana’s youngest Regional Capitals
And then we come to…
You
Technically, A Ho
I know you’ve changed
But history is ugly
Get me wrong or get me right
I really do not mind
You and I?
Never. We can’t be
Ho and it’s nearby sister city Hohoe were originally part of Togoland, a German territory ceded to the British and the French after the first world war. The British bit (Trans-Volta Togoland) voted to join Ghana after independence as the Volta Region.
Takoradi
O so naughty
You’ve been my girl
But you can’t be my wifey
Mom and Daddy both complain
They say,
This your girl she is insane
I am sorry. I cannot love you
Takoradi, aka T’adi, is twin-town to neighbouring Sekondi (even though Takoradi is smidge bigger). Together, the two towns form the City of Sekondi-Takoradi, capital city of Ghana’s Western Region
Please make time to click here and check out my fictional work on Wattpad
The final part of the first Tetrad of The Rising was supposed to come out yesterday. Unfortunately, I had data connection and editing issues. This means it’s being released today instead.
I don’t have much time to actually write a blog post today but here’s a sneak preview of the draft cover for the next scene:
That red stuff… not necessarily macabre. Red is a Christmas color too you know.
The new cover has almost the same color scheme as the first Tetrad cover (plus or minus a little hint and hue and a whole lot of black):
I decided to use a different format for each cover, the same way the writing styles in each new part are switched around. I look forward to stretching the limits of font and imagination!
Check out the complete Tetrad 1
🙂
Merry Christmas!
Pax,
Salaam,
Shalom
Peace be unto you.
I ate an unhealthy amount of fermented milk this morning. This has nothing to do with the days post whatsoever, just thought it was important somehow. It’s all good though, I ate an equally unhealthy amount of babies to mop up all that milk…[insert suitably evil laugh].
“Yoghurt and a cheese sandwich is the breakfast of champions” methought, when I woke up this dark and dismal morning…
Bad idea.
The yoghurt was slightly off and the cheese (made by a certain wicked corporation which refuses to quit milking the endangered laughing cow, bos grinon-idyoticalus) was hard enough to crush diamonds with. Meal of champions my ASS (Applied Sciences Society)!
Luckily, even though I am not tall enough to be irresistibly appealing to the fairer sex, I am not short enough to get constant heartburn (I am dark and handsome though, two out of three ain’t bad I guess).
Back to the topic (coincidentally the title of a video made for filibusters, politicians and women’s rights campaigners… and several others including apparently one that would get me slammed for being ‘anti-semetic’… … … oops).
My free thesis today is on a particularly curious trend that grows curiouser and curiouser every year. The plague on trial is social, physical, psychological and Freudian (not really, just thought that it would be a nice time to spice up my post with a bit of psychoanalytic babble). Curiousest of all, it seems to target the young more than the aged, a kind of reverse stroke/cardiovascular problem/brittleness of bones thing. I call the disease, detachment (pronounce it like you’re French; “dey-tach-man”, if you feel like being posh and expert-like).
Detachment, the curious situation which results from a curiouser attachment to personal digital devices and deprives a naturally gregarious homo sapien of his social instinct. The affected specimen (a close biological relative of the chitter-chattering, flea-picking, ass-sniffing primate known as the chimpanzee) loses all the real social interactivity which is characteristic of its biological family: gossip (chitter-chattering), tactile contact (flea-picking) and ass-kissing (the only kind of gregarious contact in which our species skill had exceeded the lowly chimp).
There are varying levels of affliction. Victims vary between acute: constantly listening to music on phone/walkman/ipod with one earbud occasionally ostentatiously placed outside of its biological receptacle…
To chronic: simultaneously tweeting, BBing/IMing and listening to music…
And to tragically fatal: simultaneously tweeting, BBing/IMing, listening to music with music-studio type beats by dre headphones, iphone gaming AND facebooking
My fellow researchers (buddies and gal pals) posit that although addiction to social media is a symptom of detachment, the severity of affliction is independent of the degree of the symptom. Simplified for weaker readers; addiction to social media doesn’t necessarily equate with detachment.
Detachment is more like a kind of new era pseudo-autism. In an online society where you are judged by your photo-shopped profile pics, retweeted smarts and ‘number-of-strangers-I-know’, it’s much easier to feel superhuman. We have essentially stored part of our psyche; our essential persona and most importantly our self-esteem in cyberspace (see how many of us started hyperventilating when we heard rumours about facebook shutting down… life hard oo!).
Kinda reminds me of my reflections after watching that movie with the ‘yippie ka-yay mother******’ dude… Smel Ribson or something; Surrogates. Whilst the compatriots who were almost as deep as paper [sarcasm] said “duhh, I don’t get it” and those who were much smarter than themselves [inverted sarcasm] thought “pshht! That stuff is impossible, ah! See obroni (white man), lying as always, awam nkoaa”. I took time to stew and realized that that was me, or more accurately, that was us.
We interact through surrogates now. At least in the movie Smel didn’t forsake tactile contact like we’ve begun to. We’re so afraid of injuring not our bodies, but our psyches, that we project ourselves as ‘mighty mighty’ (see award winning comedy producer, Chuck Lorre’s Mike and Molly S1 Ep. 1) on a plane in which we really can’t exist.
Enough of the serious stuff though, heard the term cyber cahoneys? (balls, big-boys, guts, chutzpah, grits, vim, ani3den etc.). Noticed lately how full of beans people can seem on the socialweb, and then how lame they actually are in life… nuff said. I’m not saying I’m excluded though, wish I could say that I’ve actually talked to even 50% of the hot girls on my facebook friend list!
I am only concerned about detachment because of its implications for humanity. In a world with; environmental problems, a widening gap between rich and poor, widespread poverty, discriminatory hate and crime, doesn’t this plague remove the fix-it generation from the world crises?
It’s a further decomposition of what I like to call the human tele-empathic trait; ‘feelin’ the pain of anotha brotha’. The effect could be tragic (not counting the loss of the next Einstein as he crosses the street lost in his ipod playing at ‘public broadcasting’ volume levels).
P.s. I seriously miss the good ol’ days when a fella with real cahoneys could hit on a hot girl whilst in transit in public transport, nowadays they’re all on their BB machines going tick-tick-tickity-tick at 120 LPM (lols a minute). Let’s not even talk about the evils of the iphone… an app with instructions to fix every possible PC error?! Horrors, now there’s not gonna be any more fixit calls! (distant cousin to the booty call).
The Following poem was actually written in my local Language, Akan/Twi. The Translation below it embodies as much as possible, the feelings of the original words, as well as trying to maintain some form of poetic meter.
Spelling guide:
Original
Ódó kasa
na mengyae su
firi sé wonkoaa
na wo fata me do
hó ne hó yi deé
mempé o
ka kyeré me o
ka kyeré me o
‘Cos I’m stronger
Yes I was born in this town
A rain might fall any day town
A sun might shine any minute town
So we get down
Cos we might rise any moment now
And that could be right now
Can’t put me on lock down
Continue reading
I just had to do this! The black&white backdrop is a photo of the city this verse refers to – Kumasi, Ghana. Read the full poem HERE
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
[insert sample from Ne-Yo hit single, ‘So Sick’]
[sampled] I’m stronger
Oh yes I is
my grammar may be off
but understand just this
I hit hard and I don’t miss
Just like this miss I kissed
and I’ma do it just like this
show you how we is…
‘Cos
[sampled] I’m stronger
And I was born in this town
Sun will shine everyday town
Rain might fall anyway town
So I know how it might go down
That might mean right now
So I don’t slow down
‘cos…
[sampled] I’m stronger
Heart pumps blood like a piston
Mind shoots sharp like a Wesson
and I ain’t stressing
I’m just proclaiming my blessing
African child and I’m repping
[sampled] I’m stronger
Oh yes I is
My skin may be black
Don’t mean that my mind is
and you will never pin me in,
Cos I’m as bad as sin
Hit me hard
but I keep up my chin
‘cos…
[sampled] I’m stronger
Oh yes I is
so I wrapped it up
and brought it back to your crib
Just a little something
Show you how I think
so connect the dots and form the link
cos…
[sampled] I’m stronger
I’m stronger than this
Kwesi Woode 