…DEAL SO GOOD, THINK TWICE!

She got a new freaky face,

A brand new stunning face that put rats and flies on the run,

One with a complete set of bizarre hair- rising features,

A face that could scare even the devil himself,

And baffle senseless even the hardest –hearted man,

Were she the one commissioned to negotiate Israelites freedom, from the Egyptian slavery,

Pharaoh, the tough man, could have been ‘scared senseless’,

And comply with absolute zero harangue.

She got the most horrible face,

A blood-curdling grotesque bizarre face that was,

A twisted kaleidoscope of gnarled network of terrible scars,

Crisscrossing like a map showing high undulating altitudes,

A face, gut-churning with a withering ice-cold tremor,

A sight so terrible to the eye, so horrifying,

It lingered on with some maiming memories,

Hot, lurid, scalding, in-mind picture; unforgettable.

And once she was born with the most beautiful face,

‘Baby face’, we used to call her,

Had the most gallant voluptuous figure,

A figure cut with an excellent deliberate artistic hand,

‘Masterpiece,’ the artist would have remarked,

Her face had held the most wonderful eye-captivating elegant features

That left photographic memories to most ‘manly men’,

She was a born beauty, no doubting, a belle.

I knew her all along,

A dear schoolmate, classmate, desk mate,

And before matters had catapulted out of hand,

 She was a precious playmate and a compliant ritzy lover,

You see, we grew up together, discovering and experiencing,

From the childish era of “show-me-and-I-show-you” 

She was my first genuine love- never forgotten,

Until she discovered other mouth-watering delicacies,

On pegging seventeen years of age.

‘Selling like hot cakes,’ she was occasionally told she was,

And her wanton smashing bewitching looks became popular,

Accompanied by her climaxing enchanting tantalizing façade,

‘A well-set combination of a gorgeous mobile elegance’,

Quotable quotes could be quoted busily quoting,

And our homely camaraderie started withering progressively,

When more ‘manly men’ confronted her diary,

With delicious dates, drives and dizzying propagandas,

Our little lovely love boat capsized unceremoniously,

When she became a player in a strange conniving diabolic game,

When fun, money, sex and romance amalgamated, then inter-married,

Without the witness of the clergy! Illegal funny marriage!

One particular gentleman got her confused completely,

Snared her like a fly right in the middle of a spider’s cobweb,

She felt he brought her heaven-glory in a calabash,

While live, fresh and throbbing like a diesel engine,

She got more flustered and paralyzed,

When the man bought her a mobile phone,

Time when mobiles were the ‘real’ thing,

Easy communications…you know…,

And used to drive her on secluded date sojourns,

In his loaded four-wheel majestic convertible,

That gleamed like the inside of a new thermos flask!

She started singing besotted praises of him in fascinating hyperboles,

His generosity, to part with the contents of his wallet,

His eye-pleasing physique with gentle capturing looks,

The way he looked, cool and young…

Despite the fact that he was a family man with two kids,

The girl felt he was a coming Messiah, no doubt,

She felt ‘Heaven Bliss’, having such a lover,

At seventeen surely, it felt greater than life itself,

Talk of being madly in love, or head over heels

For her, it wasn’t just head over heels, or madly in love,

But deadly, pathetically –in-love… Oops!

Me; I witnessed all this frenzied giddying phenomena

I could have blown the warning whistle,

Coz I knew the boat she was riding in would soon capsize,

Coz my dear mama warned me long time ago:

“Young boy when the deal is so good, think twice”,

Logically thinking, the girl wouldn’t have entertained such sentiments,

But I didn’t try communicating

I refrained in a huff, she unceremoniously jilted me,

She didn’t care a damned about me, why should I care then?

And the clandestine affair was thriving so well,

I just decided grudgingly, coz I loved her with a passion,

No doubt, no kidding.

For her, life was a gigantic orgasmic tidal wave,

Body-rupturing with ecstatic orgasmic shudders,

She believed she was born with a silver spoon in her mouth,

And adopted some exotic obnoxious habits to match,

Faked one majestic  ‘Sarafina’ walking style,

Of the famous South African movie, ‘Sarafina’

She complied with funny westernized tongue-twisting accents,

And occasionally pushed off imaginary hair off her face,

Started spotting strange screwy dressing styles,

Scanty; scattered over specific anatomies of her body,

Wow, funny, funny!

I tell you she transformed rapidly,

From an ordinary calico girl into a hot number,

But surprisingly, remained exquisitely charming,

For her, undiminishing source of money was in adequate supply,

To help glamour every inch and length of her,

I adored her, but at a distance,

Well, she wasn’t my class anymore,

Oh my, I never owned mobiles and bulging wallets,

Nor silver-spur dazzling automobiles….

To acquire just some mere new under wears,

I had to humbly consult my parents -- poor man,

You could be surprised her name was Wangeci Caroline,

And not actress Demi More, Nicole Kidman or Brandy Norwood,

Not even super model Naomi Campbell, or Miss Kenya.

Then disaster struck, as sure as daylight,

With no warnings, no footsteps, no echoes,

It was time to reap and she reaped richly,

Reaped a colossal silo sized harvest of catastrophic calamity,

For she and the lover boy (lovito) were thieves,

Thieves, thieving each other in secret rendezvous

But thieves always have their unfortunate day,

Their fortieth day of doom and colossal breakdown,

The eloquent perfect gentleman, who dated and drove simultaneously,

Was fantastic enough but silently harboured a time bomb,

The game of relishing the young girl became bleak and sour,

Tragic! When he and the girl were caught red-handed,

PANTS DOWN! I say!

And caught they were, while nude-naked,

Telling each other those useless nonsense

While their bodies were engaged in fierce sweat-gathering battles

Were caught, by the man’s faithful wife

who’d suspected long ago,

And had shrewdly set a trap to net the thieving culprits-thieving thieves…

On seeing the wild game and the strongly intermingled “busy bodies”,

Wife went ballistic with berserk fury,

Frothing and fuming like a bull buffalo driven off by another,

Away from the sight of a willing mating counterpart,

She grabbed some highly acidic domestic chemical,

And sprayed the busily entwined ‘busy-bodies’, strategically,

The girl met her disaster right on the face,

Like receiving a soft wind kiss!

While the man, husband of the mouth-frothing enraged wife,

Received his generous share on the crucial vitals,

Which seconds earlier, had been taut and throbbing hot,

Standing erect and alert like a presidential statue,

Deflated and capsized like a pricked balloon!

And the wife was muttering to the husband, savagely,

“Why this, breach of conduct, using that on the wrong person?”

The girl looked with horror; actually watched her pretty face,

Ooze down in bits like some thick porridge,

And the world seemed to dance around her, jeering and cheering,

Laughing and mocking, making faces like blinking neon lights.

She wished it were a bad nightmare,

And she’ll wake up and push it aside, ‘bad dream’,

But the sight of the man she’d been happily  ‘organizing’,

Howling like a castrated dog…

Groping madly at his maimed mechanism,

She knew there were no nightmare,

The man’s banana, and the two avocados,

Which had looked seconds before,

So marvelous and wonderful to the young girl,

Now started disintegrating into minced meaty glob lets,

Appearing half cooked, half boiled, half roasted and

half-fried,

Like a rotten carrot! God have mercy!

To add salt to the bleeding injury,

The savage wild wife ordered the girl out, naked,

While brandishing a fatal-looking kitchen knife,

Which was gleaming hotly; winking in the pale moonlight,

While the man was left yelling and howling,

While madly wallowing and wiggling non-stop,

Like he housed a thousand stinging and biting demons,

Crawling all over his body,

The guy was emitting strange ear-pricking blood-freezing agonizing sounds,

Like an international ventriloquist entertainer,

While still nursing his mangled appendages…

Frog- marched, the girl was, yes, shown out,

While still naked, by a tongue-lashing almost flammable wife,

In the middle of the night, and warned:

“I find you seducing my man again, young girl,

you’ll see heaven and hell riding a ‘mkokoteni’,

holding hands like newly weds…”

Hey! Things weren’t cool anymore…

She didn’t have to wait for the threats to climax,

Which were coming out in overlapping non-stop chain-like mumbo-jumbo,

And highly juxtaposed vocabularies and grim hard abuses,

Or, the knife might be put into use.

But fled for her wonky wobbling life,

Naked, with a peeling face, coming in bits.

The good old life was tumbling so fast around her,

In an amazing dazzling rocket-speed crumbling forces,

Away, she ran, helter-skelteredly, crying and screaming,

She remembered people talked of a God,

So she screamed his name until she went hoarse,

But God wasn’t coming to her aid,

He wasn’t coming to turn around reality into a dream,

Until she convinced herself, God must be sleeping!

Or gone on leave, if not retiring without a successor,

Somewhere along, good people helped her receive medication,

Though they could never understand her destitute sorry state- state of shock and confusion,

Screaming in middle of the night!

Must be madness of high degree!

The doctor snubbed off any life hopes left out of her,

Opened the can of worms on her, completely,

“Your face would remain ugly and horrible the rest of your life, unless you have big figures of money,

 For an artificial plastic surgery process”

Of course she had none; her parents wouldn’t help

“You were naughty; you refused to listen to us,

So just go to your grand lover, your messiah,

You had much fun with him; share the pain too,

Let him be the first to help you,”

But the man wouldn’t even dream of seeing her again,

He had his grim enomorous problem to solve,

Aha! His vitals were in danger of total extinction,

Poor… Dear classmate pretty Wangeci!

But she tried more, desperately, wouldn’t give up.

“Friends and relatives, my people, please organize a fund drive”

But that channel wasn’t working either,

Nobody was willing to help a lady who corrupted ‘family men’

And caused adverse mayhems and chaos to innocent homes,

Still, friends were nowhere to be found,

She’d lost them all while riding and climbing high life class,

So she felt, God must have died of old age,

Or she wasn’t using the applicable hotline….

She cursed, cried, yelled, whimpered and cackled like a hen,

But things remained the same, grim and solemn,

Sombre and sober, the reality wouldn’t change, 

Her face would always remain so,

A cornucopia mass of conjectured flabbergasting horrors!

Horrible it was, like a rupturing gangrecious wound, 

Painful, like an agonizing boil right in the ass!

Mother Mary, mother of Jesus, have mercy,

She went into self-indicted hibernation, refusing to see anyone,

She hated the world with a lethal passion,

She could have bombed it whole were she given a chance,

And showed characters like Osama Bin Wamadeni,

A hot contest on bombing and bomb letting,

But soon, she discovered, life still went on,

People still went on with their daily businesses,

No one cared,  sympathized or grieved for her, 

People still ate, worked, pissed, copulated and slept,

Harlots went on harloting; preachers preached,

Land grabbers, land grabbed; hero-worshippers hero-worshipped,

Politicians went on politicking

Sunday, people still went to church,

And life was good and normal, to normal people.

Slowly, a pocco a pocco, she emerged from her frozen cocoon,

And adopted on realizing she’d live ugly lifelong,

Came into terms with the immediate concept,

Was what she did and slowly, she got accommodated,

Amazingly, even mad men and women get admirers –

You might spot a mad woman,

Nicely carrying a baby, busily performing those activities,

Mad people are so fond of performing!

Don’t ever assume the man behind the pregnancy

To be another hopeless mad man

Likewise, my first love, beautiful Wangeci,

She still got some, despite her face,

Resembling the second stomach of a ruminant animal

Raw meaty piles in cascading blauhaha puzzles!

And every time I see her these days, I can’t help visualizing,

The pretty cute girl who cat-walked around like a super-model,

Holding her mobile crisply, like a precious pedant,

Cladding fancy blow rising garments,

These days, she has transformed into locality again,

The high-class sophistication got eroded

unceremoniously

And those times, she had no time for ‘unfortunate’

people like you and me,

I, her real desk mate, friend and lover,

And whenever we met, she had no time for

Simple greetings,

Nor a friendly smile, not even a nod of recognition,

But would pass like an express electric train,

And leave me engulfed in a hot thick mass,

Of suffocating perfumes that trawled behind her.

Pass, she would, with a brute business-like aloof

Ice-hard expression,

Sorry, whenever they go up, they have to come down

The SAME route!…

For this matter I write this poem,

To remind those knowing and those not knowing alike,

 That great kingdoms, great rulers and great people

Come and go,

And life is predictable to no one,

You could be on top of the world, one minute, then

The next,

Wallowing in towns’ back street rubbles and

debris,

It’s unwise to treat other people cheaply and

inferior,

Those we hurriedly brand ‘unfortunate’

You could join them anytime,

“Never boast of tomorrow…” the Bible says

You’ll never know what’ll happen next,

A certain man was driving leisurely, talking on a

mobile,

The mobile-talking got sweeter and corrupted the

driving,

Car ploughed into a market place, thronging with

masses of people,

And mangled dead five innocent people.

One second the man was content, sure of life,

Driving and feeling good, communicating mobile-

wise,

And the next second, he was in some frothing soup,

With varying grave counts of crimes to answer, from

Dangerous driving, over-speeding, careless driving

causing death,

Using a mobile while driving – public scorn was the

worst,

“Murderer!” he got branded instantly,

And would have been mob-lynched pronto.

God gives and God could take any time,

Nebukkadinezza, the mighty king of Babylon,

Browsed grass for seven years, seven good years,

Crawling on the ground like a lizard!

Even world super-powers, like the United States,

Thought untouchable they were, but got a rude

Shock.

They got real baffled by the bomb blast!

So why not live in love, peace and harmony?           

Be reminded, warned by Wangeci’s sad saga.

“When the deal is so good, think twice!”

Briefly, she was hospitalized

Which added his misery into a mountain size

Popping from work, hurrying to the hospital

While maintaining domestic chores

Suddenly, he had no time for himself

And could never avoid hurrying along like mad

Thinking domestically and personally was made in haste

She was dismissed; it proved no less difficult

Because the indecent seizures still confronted her

And he was made to get use …

Having a spoon in readiness all the time!

Not to mention the theory of changing her wet or soiled clothes

Or simply holding her, waiting for the demons to leave her alone

While she twitched, wiggled and wallowed uncontrollably and abnormally

He wanted to know why it had to be so,

Why his wife, why she was having such torture

Why life was so unfair, unfortunate to his young marriage

And frequently, the fits were increasing,

In spite of them seeking several most qualified doctors

Who, finding no forthcoming diagnosis

Associated her problem with genetics

Scapegoat, he would mutter within himself, dejected

He was paralyzed by the turn of events

And there was no time to sit and ponder constructively

ILL fate was souring up his dear marriage

She was advised to stop any hazardous job

But sit and wait for the ‘next’ bruising attack

Nevertheless, she couldn’t just stay idle

Counting her misfortunes and pitying herself

Dutifully, she engage herself into simple chores

That mostly reminded her of her once wonderful marriage…

Which ignited the next tragic bombardment,

His agony was given the thorniest, ugliest kick

Leaving him half mad, wild and displaced.

Upon all odds, he’d some how accommodated having to diaper her,

Gagging her with a spoon,

Waiting for her to surface up

Tolerating all the agony and pain involved

But what followed he couldn’t take

Prompting him to plead for the justice of death…

To cushion the despair that surrounded her

She, cushioning her worthless,

She used to cook for him when she felt good  – old times nostalgias

Though he frequently warned her against such risk,

But her cookery was enticingly seductive,

Eventually, he’d softened to welcome her kind gesture

Ignoring the risk… the risky risk!

Like always, he was hurrying home,

But the traffic seemed heavy, unmindful and lagging lazily

Something exciting was propelling him home,

Beckoning him wickedly, sweet home…

They had already mended up their small – time differences

As usual, revealing the truth and repenting moodily

He missed his wife so much

As if he hadn’t been with her that very morning

Despite the malady, she’d confirmed to him,

She was pregnant, how strange but wonderful,

On their marriage plans, they’d agreed,

To prolong their honeymoon for two years

Without having to start child brewing

It was almost one and a half years since their wedding

And she was pregnant! Sounded – O.K

On reaching his place,

A delicious smell of roasting meat wafted to his nose,

He remembered then how hungry he was,

Of course it was ages since he’d flung something edible in his mouth

Involuntary, he salivated like a hungry pig

He tossed his briefcase onto a seat hurriedly,

Lifted his nose, analyzing the smell methodically and meticulously

Roasting or burning? Burning!

Suddenly, a bolt of alarm struck him head to toe

He rushed into the kitchen with alarm bells wailing.

True to the distinct smells

Her face roasting, her hand was burning!

******     ******      *******       *******    ********

He stared blindly

Glaringly gaping “Good gracious!” he whispered

He felt a wild urgency to:

Scream,

Wail,

Run,

Sneeze,

Pee,

Defecate,

Or die.

Instantly, layers of sweat formed over his face

And started welling down immediately

 She’d been cooking when the cursed devils struck her

And she’d fallen close to the fire,

While she was being thrown about by the death like kicks,

Her hand was thrust right into the fire

Where it was burning into a blackened stub and smoking blackishly

Most anguishing, he was still salivating

For the presumed roast meat-awaiting meal!

He could have fainted there and then,

Were it not powers from above,

Not known to him the time he spent glaring, aghast,

But in a flush he’d scooped her,

Ran wailing like mad,

The confusion that followed was beyond words

His car was in front of the house- He’d forgotten all about it

He went screaming to the highest output of his lungs

All the way to the connecting road…

Confused neighbours, pedestrians and passersby followed

Some only eager to know what the fracas was about

Took some time to tame the berserk charged man

Relinquish the lady from his unyielding arms

And rush her to hospital

Not withstanding the shock of the magnitude of calamity,

He’d leaked in his trousers!

For hours, days,

He literally died, not knowing light and darkness,

Storm or sunshine,

There was no life in him and for him

He wanted to think so frantically

But, he couldn’t!

Wanted to cry so frantically…he couldn’t!

He strained his eyes, looking, gazing, and staring intently

His eye sockets pained due to the strain

But he saw nothing apart from a few floating merging images

More frustrating, he heard nothing from the many cacophonous folks

Who brought their condolences and ‘heart felt’ fortitudes

He wanted nothing, said nothing, felt nothing and heard less

Apart from sitting and dying…

Slowly, he surfaced,

It wasn’t the end of living

Though he looked lost, far away and passive

He tried holding up to ‘life….’ Hanging on!

Once, wanting to be close to God,

Enough to know why he was being penalized,

Went to church alone,

Sat on the front pew and looked about,

A tasty rostrum, colourful pulpit, solemn altar,

A huge cross with the knotty bumpy body of Christ

Pounding silence, painful silence, penetrating silence, panicking silence.

Reflexly, he knelt and closed his eyes.

His mind went into murky fathoms of torture

Arguing, lobbying, debating, appealing, beseeching and making promises to the omnipotent God

But one question prevailed,

“God, - what did I do that angered you to punish me?

Please tell me, PLEASE…         

Whatever you request, I will give.

Even my life I’ll give,

If at all you will, then tell me why

I love her so desperately – so dearly,

Why take her from me?”

He kept at it for hours, - not knowing what and why 

He so frantically wanted to know from the giver of life

He felt naked, raw and bruised - torn

Tears of frustration trickled down his eyes

In the end of the long emotional and desperate soliloquy

No answer came apart from the irritating, silence

His knees were numb and stiff when he sat again

His face was a twisted tormented mask,

While his head pounded until he winced.

A mouse came stalking from under the pulpit

 Rushing and stopping suddenly, sniffing about obtrusively

He looked at it, mesmerized

They said God could show himself in many ways,

The mouse came almost next to his shoes

Lifted its fore legs and stood on its hind legs

Sniffing at him,

Its tip of nose wiggling up and down

Like that of a rabbit

Their stares seemed to lock

He hated the rodent’s look,

Tapped his foot on the floor

And the mouse scurried and disappeared among the empty pews

God is a coward…he thought.

*******     *******       ******        *******

They tried tirelessly,

Tried, but her face couldn’t never be the same again  

One side of the face was horrible to look at

Full of twisted charred overlapping scars

Her ear had been burnt too

 Her cheek was but layers of scarred muddle

One eye had been spoilt too,

Adding more salt, pain and pepper to the injury,

She had lost her left hand

Which now looked like a crooked club

With no fingers but short stubs of bony protrusions

Her fire tragedy, mingled with the earlier fate

Had sadly doctored an early miscarriage

Doctors were having a rough time

Maintaining her face while taming epileptic demons

Several skin grafts were conducted on her face,

Face plastic surgery too, but the inevitable stood stubborn

Her face will never be the same again

Nor any pleasant sight to anybody’s eyes

Though he lived

He was long half dead, and completely dead spiritually

He was past the painful regretting stage

Having no guts to stomach all his bitter losses

He’d stopped thinking much about everything

Harmlessly floating and flying over obstacles

In a zombie-like non-thinking cocoon

Days came and went, weeks passed by,

He never cared how, when or where

When it was time to visit her, he did, vaguely

Though she was still unable to either see or communicate with him

He worked, but mechanically

Sometimes he spent time gibbering wretchedly

Things cared for themselves, so he wished them

He was ploughing right into the zombie world

Exactly how the next tragedy hailed,

He was driving home from work,

Which he wasn’t sane anymore to attend,

Work, which was no longer work but ‘hell and torture’

Words that hugged and kissed about every direction

around him

As usual, his mind wasn’t in the driving, or anywhere known

But in a knotty gloomy, puzzling, wondering turmoil

Where his mind dwelt,

There was mist, fog and murky haze

Rapids, falls and whirlpools…

He failed to adequately twist along a U-turn

May be he was over speeding, maybe he was absent- minded

Couldn’t be sure,

His car went crushing into a wooden fence

Which, upon the powerful assault

Curved inwards, breaking in bits and pieces

He became stunned and perplexed like a man woken sharply from sleep

Still flooring the gas pedal, the powerful car pressed ahead,

Chunks and pieces of wood came crushing through the windscreen!

Jagged, sharp wooden pieces pierced him, jabbed about him

Tore through his clothes and darted all over him

One harpoon – like piece swished next to his eyes narrowly

 But his ear wasn’t any lucky

Pulverized off the ‘same left’ ear his wife was missing!

One last huge piece came hurtling fiercely upon him

Ploughing right into his mouth!

Capsizing the jaws completely

And crushing down every rooted teeth

For unknown reason

His mind remained very clear

Feeling the warm flow of blood in different sections of his anatomy

He felt nothing more unusual,

Nothing but a humming engine somewhere far off

A hot – like sucking numbness and a funny mind drunkenness

A warm pleasing blissfulness

He discovered it was an accident, damned car accident

Wondered if he was dead or dying

He felt like laughing aloud – but

He had no voice, no lips, nothing to utter sound

He was tired and sapped

All auditory nerves had decided to stage a boycott

I’ll be damned, he cursed in his mind

He remembered the said Jim Reeves

Whom, while his plane was flapping and somersaulting in the air

Heading to an inevitable crash

The man was singing peacefully

“This world is not my home, I am just passing through…”

He wanted to sing like Jim Reeves

But what his entire mind concocted ruefully

Was, heaven, here I come

And the light was so much upon his eyes,

Blaring, glaring

He wanted to shield it, but his arms wouldn’t bulge

The noise of the thrumming pumps elongated into ear-blowing rumbles

“Turn off the light!”, his mind shouted

“And that damned locomotive pissed-up machine”, he wanted to add.

The light started receding, dwindling, dancing, and darting

But the pounding pumping increased

He wanted to feel, feel the leather-bound steering wheel

Feel his foot nudging the pedals,

He felt nothing; nothing within him

Apart from one funny feeling…

Most confusing, absurd and ridiculous

He was having the most throbbing hard-on he’d ever had in his life!

His phallus gadget was taut, stretched double and pulsating wildly

Throbbing...throbbing …thro…..

And he passed out still thinking hard about his hard thing!

*********      ******      ******      ********

The wood that was sticking on his mouth

Was written artlessly with bright but badly dripping paint,

USIKOJOE HAPA! (DON’T URINATE HERE!)

The good Samaritans looked horrified

Were it a different situation,

They could have laughed their heads off

But, God have mercy,

The lone poor man in the car,

Was mapped by piercing woods onto his seat

Pieces stabbing him almost everywhere

He’d lost an ear, his stomach and arms were grafted

And most horrifying, the one crushing his mouth into a watermelon was almost twice his mouth!

Thereby splitting his cheeks and crushing his chin

Stretching what once was a mouth into a sauce plate

They tried pulling the wood out…

They might as well had been pulling a train

Seemed the wood was lodged right into his skull

There wasn’t hope for the man,

But dutifully, they rushed him to the hospital

With the Usikojoe hapa wood pinned permanently in his mouth

The doctors seemed partially perplexed, even amused,

But work being work, they set upon him

He was in coma, for days, weeks, and months

Aided by a life support machine

Sadly, while he was in High Dependency Unit

His wife was fighting her battles in the Intensive Care Unit

On learning they were husband and wife,

A certain wag was suggesting they be put side by side,

She was the first to pull out,

Slowly, hesitantly and tentatively

Psychiatrists seemed in love with her from the very beginning

Encouraging her in tasty and colourful words

Not to give up hope, confidence or feel inferior

For her face would always be stared at with horrific looks,

Frowns, awe, fear, wonder and suspicion

Some would appear to run away from her…in panic!

Disgustingly, some would feel sorry for her,

They told her to brace herself up

For whatever challenges, attitudes she’ll face

Eventually, they’d somehowly given her enough strength

She was ready but first, her dear husband.

Months before she recovered

Doctors had reached an ultimatum

To switch off the life supporter from the man

They didn’t find the smallest speck of hope in him

The wood had punctured his skull fatally,

Damaging the nervous system, destroying his pituitary glands

Thereby, he was more of a sitting duck

Couldn’t feel nor control all his sphincter muscles

And most dispiriting, he was still in a deep coma

They felt enough – but the wife,

Who was the sole signatory for the life support switch off

Was wallowing in oblivion in the same hospital,

Fighting for an unsteady life that will be punctuated with misery

Looking at her terrible grotesque non-human face!

On recovering,

Their request she refused utterly, they wanted to kill her husband

She could never give her consent on that, never, no!

Bills soared high but no, he must not die

While the situation was being analyzed critically

By all family members – who tried to convince her to agree

Hammering the impossibility of hope and the possibility of bills;

He showed up – one fine humid morning,

The early attendant found him starring at the ceiling

With a breathtaking pair of most crystal clear bright eyes!

She’d witnessed much wonder along her life

But about this invalid, it was pure magic!

She’d long dismissed him dead already

Involuntarily, she felt warm guilt and appreciatory tears brim her eyes

While she gaped at him, mouth agape, eyes popping,

The lurid eyes shifted and fastened on her

Devouring, judging, nudging…

He was thinking very hard, so hard it pained

Why all the devils were chasing after his soles

All of them, their varied species and their extended families

Were screaming madly for his blood,

“Back off, off!” he growled

One withered grandfather demon,

Holding a twisted ugly looking forked jembe,

Was brandishing his scraggy hands at him, smiling devilishly,

And his scrawny neck gyrated demonically,

His face a mass of grotesque wrinkled ugliness

This horribly bony horror was leading the others

He fled like a scared rabbit

And the demons were hot in pursuit!….

Went crushing into a room,

Bolted it tight lock

Found a bed and stretched on it, panting tongue out

Just when the breathing returned into normal

And he was thinking about the freshness of the room,

The sparkling lighting, the dazzlingly white walls and ceiling

The door whispered open,

An angel floated in,

Similarly robed in sparkling white

She stood abruptly, starring wide eyed, dumbfounded

He looked back at her suspiciously, curiously

Was she an angel from the devil?

Were heaven angels prone to drooling dumb confusion?

Who are you? He wanted to demand

Where did the demons go, how…

She floated off as quickly as she’d appeared

Leaving him having unending theories of what was happening

And were, heaven, hell or Earth utopia?

Memories of the gang of ugly teeth-baring demons came

All howling like mad famishing jackals

Ugly, terrible and gut slicing,

Like the horror video he’d seen in college

Of ugly creatures that were bloodsuckers

With faces dripping with raw meaty wrinkles,

Horrifying abnormal eyes and teeth hanging out of the mouth!

Gut churning, mouth baking, eye popping, bowels-loosening terrors

While he was vividly seeing the grisly ghosts, -- in mind,

The door flew open and one similar creature flew in….

Having the same horrifying face full of freaky infinite scars

One good ear and a scrap skeleton counter part…

‘Devils!’ he wanted to scream, wail, howl and bawl

And the creature was extremely excited about him

Flailing its arms …heehawing at him like a donkey

One hand was a fork, the other a club with spikes!

The same blood sucking demons!

Ready to maul, devour and suck his blood!

He couldn’t scream, couldn’t wail or howl

Couldn’t rise up and flee for his dear life

Couldn’t defend himself in anyway

His legs felt like blocks of ice, arms like trunks of banana trees

Mouth felt baked block dry

The demonic creature was moving towards him

Its fork-hand and club- hand raised high ready to strike

Mouth wide, too full of ghastly bared tearing teeth!

He started sweating instantly---then

Chewed a spontaneous almost lethal blackout!

********       *******          **********      **********

The attendant who on seeing the man was conscious,

Had rushed to inform his wife,

Who’d made it duty to spend her time within the hospital premises

She was overjoyed, ecstatic and hysterical

On hearing her man was finally out of coma

She zoomed in supersonic speed, headed straight to his room

And her freaky face was swelling with smiles

Dimpling, creasing and forming more cataracts

Thereby becoming more horrible and ugly to look at

The moment his eyes had contact with her,

He froze, his eyes looking so frightened

She tried lifting her arms in a surrendering gesture

“Remember me, your wife, I am so glad you’ve…”

She tried moving closer to him…for him to recognize her,

His eyes nevertheless showed total dread, fear and shock

A thin film of sweat germinated upon his face…….

And he closed his eyes in a death-like finality!

She stared in disbelief at his statue-calm face

And her good eye let loose torrents of tears

When next he surfaced,

There were no hallucinations, no devils and daredevils

There wasn’t the unyielding faded memory

He was remembering almost everything

From the time his wife censored him,

Got a tragic epilepsy-related fire accident,

Her sad miscarry,

His fathomlessly sadness, depression and new madness

All wrapped up in his ghastly accident

He could even recall the last feeling before he faded out

Immediately after the accident,

That of- wanting  so badly to have it with a woman badly….

The men and women of the invalid asylum came,

One after the other,

Some in groups,

All congratulating him in varying degrees of praises

Witnessing his dramatic rise from the dead

His wife came again looking also like a gory demon

She told him he’d been in a coma for four months

Four damn months! Jesus Christ of Nazareth!

And she’d fought unendingly for his life support not to be switched off

He was looking at her intently, thoroughly,

Sinking and absorbing her new look into his memory

He thought of their marriage,

Two horribly ugly invalid cabbages--- gagging and choking each other

Who’d look after whom?

He was thirty-one, she was twenty seven, misery from then on…

What was predictable, an unbearable life lay ahead

The doctors had given him more tearing bombshells

His nervous system had been damaged

So was his internal muscle control system

Simply, he couldn’t feel or move any muscle anymore.        

Couldn’t control his bowels, bladder or swallow

Summarily, he was in a death jam, body prisoner

His mind was OK, his hearing superb,

His nose picked the septic smells associated with hospital

But never would he walk, smile, lift an arm, scratch his ass,

Stretch his lips in a smile or laughter

He felt so strange and lonely,

That the usual he knew had suddenly became unusual

Things he’d taken for granted- couldn’t have them any longer!

In every second you are healthy, be abundantly thankful to God.

He regretted the reason he hadn’t died,

Why the good Samaritans hadn’t left him to die,

Why the doctors hadn’t switched of the machine,

The doctors had showed him his fatal cause- the usikojoe hapa wood

Showed him how it had jammed into his mouth

Up to where, showed him the shoddy graffiti

Told him he had capsized jaws and chin

His tongue was nipped too,

Reason he might never talk coherently

Rather than making strange gagged guttural grunts,

Like some water gurgling about rocks

Sounds more stranger than those made by the deafs

Adding misery to all, he had no means of communication

Apart from his eyes-

Since his lids worked, they were teaching him

To wink when they used ‘no and yes’ question communication

God, he was a helpless immobile cabbage

Only waiting for the all-final ultimate death!

When? He couldn’t be sure

A stark of get-well-soon cards were piled onto a side cabinet

He felt sorry for the senders – they valued him, liked him and even loved him,

But he’d recovered into a useless effigy!

A dead weight block, a near statue,

Only his eyes moved freely and normally

Still on the side cabinet,

A glossy shot of his wedding day was propped up among flowers

He gazed at the snap with mixed feeling,

His beloved beautiful wife,

Her face swathed with vivid smiles and vivid joy,

Holding his arm – a happy wedding indeed,

He thought of the current look of his wife,

This same beautiful girl that he’d married

Now mono eyed, mono eared, half burnt face – one handed…

And he was mono eared too, a lifeless useless body to go by…

And she loved him more despite their state

He felt love, compassion and tears…

Slowly, he drifted into bitter sweet memories,

Memories of their fancy courtship, their spectacular wedding,

In that old missionary church,

Their forget-me-not honeymoon, enshrouded with untold joy

Finally unfolding into a happy marriage rejoinder

He recalled those exiting days of ‘newly weds’

When he used to rush home excitedly

Badly missing her cozy wonderful companionship…

Would find her already home from work

Busy about daily domestic routines

“Hi hot pants!”  He would quip excitedly

And she’d raise a tantrum, chasing after him contemptuously

Happy scuffles that mostly ended in bed

For final stimulating love poetry fight old as time…

And he’d find her in the kitchen

Fumbling with the matchbox, ready to light the fire

And he’d extend his kindness…

“Let me light your fire”,

She would pass the matchbox with a warm smile,

Priding upon his generosity

And he’d pass fleetingly soft touches upon her-

Over her shoulders, upon her back and down her waist,

Round her breasts and painstakingly over her lower abdomen,

And she’d stare at him – quizzically and a little apprehensively

To which he’d blurt, - “lighting your fires…”

While making suggestive hissing sounds

And she’d frown at him, grab a frying pan

And chase him out of  ‘her kitchen’…

He recalled her well-defined spirited fights,

Her never-give-up defiance, her strong wistful charisma,

Her moody swings – and he used to complain,

She was fussing and sulking like a broody hen,

For that, he’d receive cold war treatment for a week,

Still, he remembered their mutual marital plans

Their dreams, hopes and aspirations…

Her incensed discovery that brought forth all hell,

Culminating into a series of devastating catastrophes

That had successfully sunk their happy moments into a fathomless abyss

Drenching their lives in a pool of misery and regrets

And their marriage was no more than a painful prison

Laced with painful misery nourished by bitter sweet memories

Happy memories that seemed like a dream

Or something that happened long time ago,

But he was destined to live each day hanging and cherishing those memories.

Annoyingly, more people flocked in

Ironically, he wasn’t that cherished when he was all health

They seemed so happy, talking to him excitedly

Claiming how happy they were he was well again

He watched them sadly, appreciating their concerns grudgingly,

They were his friends, work colleagues, family members

All the people he knew,

But if only he could inform them to leave him alone

Never bring their appreciatory speeches to him

He didn’t belong to them anymore,

Suitably, he belonged in the dark,

If he could communicate, he’d plead for them to let him die                                                                                                                                                                                     

Stop feeding him 

After all, he would never feel hunger, or would he?

Moments after they’d left

His wife came lumbering in,

In tow with an impeccably dressed man

Who sat by, telling him of how wonderful life is,

And how God is Almighty, miraculous and merciful…

The man was clutching a leather bound Bible,

 Caressing it lovingly…

“God does a lot to show his majesty

He has wonderful and unknown plans for all people,”

The man went ahead magnifying every detail…

He was doing his duty well, but sorry religious man

I can’t stand to think anything about God

No, there is nothing – please go way

I’d rather die than listen to you about God…

I am not ready…I hate God!

Don’t know who the hell he or she is!

His head throbbed with pain and misery

Raw pangs of tearing bile rose upon his head

He couldn’t remember the last time he felt so painful

It was far intense than any body pain he knew

Frustrated to near devastation,

He blinked rapidly, shifting his eyes to his wife

Who sat by, listening attentively,

Upon his clumsy blinking communication,

The bible-wielding man misunderstood,

He thought he’d made a striking point

And the invalid was being touched spiritually…

Not knowing he was incensing his double

Notably, he increased his Godly teachings further…….

In his irate rage and frustration

He embarked on the only defense mechanism known….

Felt the feeling of weeping grip him

True to it, his vision blinded and swam with liquid buoyancy

He looked at his wife, pleading

His mind begging her to drag the man out

No amount of agitation was more bruising to him

Than any mention of God to him

She was gazing at him quizzically, curiously,

Wisely she pulled her hanky and wiped his eyes,

Decidedly, she told the man,

“Please leave us alone….”

The preacher looked surprised, staring from her to him,

He was terribly poor in reading expressions

The supposedly listener was flaming in the eyes

He wanted to scream some very uncouth ungodly words 

That would send the preacher on his heels

“Go, please leave us……..”

Her voice was firm but anxiously urgent

Reluctantly, he walked out disappointedly

She looked at her husband earnestly, told him to relax 

The relief was evident in his eyes

So grateful for her understanding

She took his lifeless arms, held them close to her,

Thoughtfully, she hugged him possessively while crying miserably

He was deeply moved,

He couldn’t ‘feel’ her closeness physically

But he was mightily swept and touched by her intimacy

He could pick out her unique smell

Strangely, within that ardent passionate hug

He had never felt so safe and secure

Looking at her wrinkled scarred face,

Her good eye wet with tears,

He knew she loved him more than life

Knew he loved her more than anything worth a name

Knew she was his life,

Knew through thick and thin, health or disease,

They’ll always stick together

Their marriage had stood the test of time and fate

Suddenly, he felt so happy

So happy that he had such a wonderful wife

She kept consoling him, declaring her loyalty,

She was real – his wonderful committed wife,

Physically tortured but spiritually the strongest,

Involuntary his eyes misted with more tears

Tears of joy, peace and love

He looked back at their spent times

The kind of mistakes their marriage had undergone,

What could have been done instead of what was done

That directly or indirectly, militated and groomed all that fate

He thought of his – out – of – wedlock – kid,

But Lord, he was just being mindful,

Lots of naughty born – buggers and bastards of men

They seminate girls all about and do absolutely nothing about it

You are pregnant, so what?

I had my satisfaction; you had yours, and that was that

Deep in thought or may be in memories

He wholeheartedly appreciated her deep maturity

He loved her, adored her, she was his wonderful queen

Now that he was out of coma,

The decision to move him out of hospital,

Was being discussed progressively,

The doctors had nothing else to offer him,

His sensory nerves was an issue they couldn’t help

Nor predict if he would ever recover

Each day in hospital, bills tarried

Promptly,

Arrangements were made,

A medical practitioner was employed

To be making occasional rounds on him

Ensure all was all right

Well, another surprise awaited him at home,

What was once a magnificent well-stocked mansionette

Was reduced into a scanty shabbily – furnished place

Most of their belongings had been sold out,

His cherished savings, his thriving business

And his youthful automobile – all gone!

To cover-up some of the hefty bills

Oh! Felt so much pity!

Surprisingly, he never mourned them

Life was most important and precious

And he was determined to hang on to his,

Despite the fact it looked so pathetic, grim and pitiful

Patience and positive thinking!  

About time he forgot all about self – pity

Revenge, loathe, anger and name it

He was focused on construction and reconstruction

There was no time for regrets any more! …

*******          ********         *********       *********

DAILY DYING DEATHBED

Once,

She was the proud owner of an immaculate voluptuous body,

Elegant, lush and glamorous,

It has taken a new face, phrase and shape,

Wasted away so rapidly and suddenly,

Shrinking into a bumpy size less lump

Her whole body keeps peeling off

While housing various counts of skin diseases

She is covered with wounds, rashes and blisters

Thriving and festering

 Occasionally oozing pus.

Once, she owned a round, rosy enticing face,

It has taken a new look,

Turning into a complex multiple combination of perplexing horrors

This once beautiful smooth face,

Now resembles that of a chameleon,

Rough, knotty with varying shades of colour,

With agonizing blisters and distressing acne breaking about

The eyes have sunken right to the brain

Leaving behind a skeleton-skull-like appearance

While eyeballs have lost colour turning hopelessly white

Corpse-like!

Her once luscious cheeks,

Have dwindled into flail haggard hanging chunks,

Leaving hollow cavernous depressions at both sides,

Her mouth and lips are no longer firm and adorable,

But have incarnated into a disgusting wobbly hole

And she spends the whole time,

Gnashing and grinding her teeth

Like one condemned to languish in eternal Gehenah!

Not very long ago,

She possessed the most desirable voluptuous tits in town

Bounty, bouncy and luscious,

They have taken a brand new look,

Appearing like a pair of old shrunken rotten cucumbers

Sagging and jostling loosely like untied shoelaces

Her tummy has sunken all the way to the backbone

Leaving on escarpment steeper than the rift valley

While her ribs, protrude mercilessly

Like the hackles of a cock,

Sharp and lethal-looking like the skeleton of a fish.

Her once glorious long hair,

Now resembles that of an immature foetus

Loose, scattered and flail, plastered on the scalp

It keeps peeling off and breaking hopelessly

Falling off together with the skin of the scalp

She looks deathly, gory

Her room is pulsating a hot thick stench

She pisses and defecates unaware

And I have to bedpan her all the time

Wash and change her anytime she wets or soils herself

The whole situation is knocking me lifeless

She has an offensive, incurable, distressing venereal disease

Her privates are oozing some milky slimy pus

That generates some terrible malodorous smell

I must wash, nurse powder and dress her occasionally

I have to cater for all her whims and wimps

She throws up a lot,

Puking some horrible nasty-smelling sticky horrors

Most sickening, she is diarrhoearing a lot,

Her anus has developed cracks and sore gangrene

So- so traumatizing but I just can’t help it, I must help her

She is feverish, sweating and shaking uncontrollably

The truth must nevertheless be told

That my dear sister, my dear beautiful sister

She is drying slowly, surely

Dying of the most dreaded, AIDS

Oh God, of all other terrible diseases and misfortunes,

She is dying of AIDS!

I thought AIDS was an unfortunate name

An experience, a disease for other unfortunate folks

But why God, why my beautiful lovely intelligent sister?

All her friends have fled

Wouldn’t want to be associated with her now

Even our relatives have kept some distance

I can’t help wondering how this world is full of hypocrites.

And the way they were such sticking friends then

They are nowhere when need is needed

But dear sister, I am there for you

Till the end of time

Most agonizing, distressing and traumatizing

I have to drag myself to accept my plight

I have to understand, stand the psychological condemnation

I have to bear the stress of dressing and undressing her

Seeing her ailing nakedness

Stand the test of attempting all nerving missions

Disinfecting her oozy private parts

She is dying soon but I’d die serving her

To the last breathe she takes

But sometimes only God knows how hopeless I feel

Only He may know the pain and the agony

Of watching, my sister moaning and groaning endlessly

With pain and misery, slowly dying away

Death gnarling her face into a death mask

Sometime, I am not courageous anymore

Knowing I would soon watch her die helplessly

Sometimes I am not strong anymore

Hearing her daily heart breaking whimpering

Please God,

Take her soul quickly and end this agony

Lately, she has developed multiple boils

Mushrooming at very sensitive places on her anatomy

Mostly the armpits, the private parts and over the buttocks

They cause her to scream with pain

Yells that freeze my blood

Causing my heart to palpitate wildly, almost rupturing my chest

The rashes and the moans,

They drive me to crawl on the wall.

But once,

She was the best person I ever know

The best giver of hope and kindness

She was a darling to all and a source of fortitude

Beautiful, caring and intelligent

She had gone far in academic heights

Life had a meaning to her,

And she had a meaning in life

And a firm resolution

But midways, she got carried away

Slowly, sweetly, within the busy hustles and bustles

She tumbled once,

And that once-in-a-lifetime fall mangled her entire life

Now, she is dying slowly, agonizing slowly

Like most of us, she was well informed

She knew exactly the way we do think we know

That AIDS kills and sex unprotected is risky

Knew so well about it but thought convincingly

That the person she got thrilled with was a ‘saint’

Just the way we do all the time!

His manicured titivated appearance seemed to confirm

Oh well, saints stopped existing long ago

She smartly made that common blunder done by many

Judge people by look, appearance and healthy looks

Prompting them to ‘take risks’

But no, AIDS isn't another kind of scabies on the face!

And I have vowed to speak about it openly

My sister and I have decided not to hide her status

Like what most folk do when their people die of AIDS

You’d hear them pronounce very boldly

He died of epilepsy of the heart…

She died of toothache

No, it was the T.B of the ears

Hiding the truth, bloody hypocrites, I say!

The truth will set the people free

I have vowed I will inform all and sundry brazenly

But I tell my friends to be aware of AIDS

And keep-off but they tell me

Oh man, do you have it also

They mock and jeer at me, telling me

We’ve heard this long before, many times

They say its no new news to them

So I better shut up if I got nothing else to tell

My -my, it wasn’t that easy

But there is no way I am giving up

They claim they have heard about it

Yet they are still dropping dead one after the other

Look at them; it isn't a reign of hens and cocks

Where the cocks go helping themselves to any desirable hen among the flock

I tell them, but they hear not, they change not

I invite them to come see and witness for themselves

But they have set their hearts stiff and rigid

But I pray for them too

To believe, understand and accept to change

I pray God to loosen their stubborn hearts

So they’d be willing to change and adapt

Most of all they be wise enough to make wise decisions

RESPECT MY BIRTH PLACE

Here,

In these close-knit filthy ancient slums

Brown with thick accumulation of dirt and dust

In this shaky shoddy slums with sagging roofs

Hanging precariously like the hanging gardens of Babylon

These haphazard webs of muddling confusions

Here, born was I.

Around these pathetic slum dwellings

Hugger-muggeredly constructed with higgledy-piggledy streets

Alive with un-matching piles and parades of sleazy debris and rubble

And meandering gutters oozing mucky slimy river lets

Filthy streams, dispelling hot dizzying nose stinging smells