New Podcast series

So, I have decided to begin uploading podcasts on SoundCloud. I will be speaking about my life, literature the books and music I am interested in and a few bad pieces which I will insist should be called poetry.

This is a sample. You can also follow me on SoundCloud:  for god or for syria

BECOMING BORN AGAIN

Somewhere in the distance, in the far end of the farm atop a rock, where the air was thin and farm managers often spent long parts of their day, White sat, pensive, observing the animals in the farm. As part of his plan to make sure the farm never returned to the dark, dull days of ex-farm manager Goodhead, White the wily wolf had initiated a process of identifying and punishing all the animals that colluded with Goodhead to plunder the farm. This was accelerated by the confessions of Goodhead’s former pet hyena, That’s Uki.

All of the animals who had eaten from Goodhead’s criminal largesse trembled each time White silently strolled past their quarters. Some followed him as he walked past, whispering that they would return what meat and yams they still had left from the plunder and asking if he would go easy on them if they did.

As White scanned the horizon, thinking of how best to transform the farm, the son of a pig who had been implicated by That’s Uki was struggling to climb the rock where White sat to make a case for his father who had been locked up by White.

“What do you want pig?” White shouted from the top of the hill.

“Just to see you White!”

“What for? State your business. I can hear you from here.”

And the piglet was afraid to say it out loud that he had come because of his locked-up father who used to hold the microphone when Goodhead was farm manager. So he said: “I just wanted to give you a gift. For good luck and health.”

And White retorted: “Leave it at the base of the rock with the stork. It will not go bad before I see it.”

And as the awkward stork collected the package, the piglet retreated from the rock, snout bowed.

One of the farm hands, a colorful parrot that was always at loggerheads with Goodhead named Mun Chi, was asked to fly all across the farm to make sure that the farm was safe and that birds and other flying creatures especially were able to fly to and from their destinations safely.

Mun Chi was one of the most outspoken against Goodhead. He was also in charge of a large stash of funds as he was once head of a union of flying creatures that included parrots, canaries, and jackdaws. Mun Chi got his name from his habit of eating the grains and groundnuts kept in his care. He used to be called Rot In Me as a child, because when asked what she was doing as she laid an egg, his mother joked: “I am spilling out the rot in me.”

Once, it was rumored, when Rot In Me was head of the parrots, the jackdaws had given the parrots precious stones to keep in trust. When they returned for it after a few years and it was gone. The leader of the jackdaws threatened to burn the feathers of Rot In Me for misappropriating their precious stones. Angered by this, Rot In Me said: “Do your worst! Mun chi! I say: We have eaten it! We have eaten your precious stones!”

This made the birds laugh so hard and so long that after that incident, Rot In Me was nicknamed Mun Chi.

Mun Chi now flew around the farm in his capacity as a newly appointed farm hand, in wings and feathers that were dyed white. He dyed them so well, that those who had never met him before believed he was born a white parrot.

The supporters of White hailed Mun Chi every time he flew past, affectionately calling him “White Junior”. And Mun Chi nodded, acknowledging their praises. They were so impressed by his feathers that no one mentioned the fact that, as Goodhead plundered the farm in general, Mun Chi plundered the parrots in particular, using some of the proceeds to support the take over of the farm by White. In fact, he plundered the parrots so much that some animals say, he was one of the few species leaders who contributed the most when White was trying to buy over the farm from Goodhead.

When asked if he did not feel any conflict working for White who was going after those who plundered the farm, Mun Chi declared righteously: “Therefore, if any animal, bird or mammal is in the spirit of White, it is a new creature, for old things have passed away and behold, new, white things have come.”

South of the farm, in the wetlands, the turtles were choosing their own leader. The incumbent leader of the turtles, who was installed by Goodhead, was so scared of losing the race, especially as every animal these days wanted something new and Goodhead was now unpopular across the farm. Every body wanted change. So he went round the wetlands telling turtles that although he was the incumbent and had ruled for many years, he had assessed his own leadership and found himself wanting.

“I cried when I looked inward,” he screamed, wiping tears.

“I cried because I asked myself why? Why am I treating my people like this? And I answered with the help of all the spirit gods: I told myself that things must change. Dear turtles, you will agree with me that a changed turtle is more fervent and zealous than a new turtle. I know your problems. I know mine. Choose me.  Let us change together.”

The main contender, a thuggish turtle named Gold, who had been turtle leader before, rallied all the idle thug turtles and tried to scare the turtles into choosing him. Right before the elections he dipped himself in white paint, wielding a white machete and telling the turtles what they needed was a new white turtle. (He had named himself Gold because the real name he wanted, Silver, had already been used by his sister.)

As White intensified his attempts at sanitizing the farm, Mun Chi patrolled the skies in his fake white feathers and new piety. Their supporters gazed above, squinting, and declared that both White and Mun Chi were righteous and good. The supporters told both of them that all the animals were happy and contented. “We stand by you,” they said, weeping. They said this even as they grumbled about the shortage of food. They said this even as it was impossible to take any food out of the farm.

And all the while the bodies of bats, recently killed by farm hand Dick-Tai continued to smell badly throughout the farm. And the supporters of White were so busy screaming praises they could not smell it. And White simply carried on, jumping over secret graves of dead bats, hands behind his back, silent.

Ps. As usual, no animals were harmed in the production of this story, especially not ones dipped in white paint. And any resemblance of these animal characters to persons, real or imagined is, I swear, a coincidence. 

[NOT] A POEM, ON STANDING...

I stand in a field 

of

excessively polite smiles that swear: I am not, cannot be racist

of people saving me with Africa tattoos on their necks

of pretty people on dance floors who only want to dance with me and

nothing more, 

nothing more (because their friends say black people can dance but perhaps, might turn out to need papers…or worse, a livelihood)

I turn to watch the video of our army massacring Shiites

under the watchful eyes of a community who hates them

enough to applaud

I am listening

Quietly

Because I dare not mourn loudly

our enemies

felled by bullets bought legally.

I am drinking myself

into shapelessness

turning from a Man Crush

to a man crushed by his own kilos

hoping I can shape this story I cared about yesterday

but which seems stupid today

Consciousness does that:

turns perfect nighttime ideas

into shit

"Over 2million books are published each year"

Google does that:

brings facts and figure to your finger tips

whether you know what to do with it

or are just an idiot with a social media account…

I am thankful that anyone is reading 

my damn novel

But now I have to write

another damn novel

that will not change the world

Just to prove 

that I was not a fucking fluke

And maybe prove

on that dance floor

that yes I am black 

But no, I do not need papers

And no, not all black people can dance.

THE DAY WHITE SPOKE

“In the name of the farm manager, the faithful assistants and of the holy White loyalists,” a pig prayed as he joyously announced that after months and months of walking around the farm, hands behind his back, silent, White was finally going to speak about all the things that were going on in the farm since he took over from former owner Goodhead.

As people waited, they enjoyed the confessions of Goodhead's former pet hyena as he was interrogated by White’s new farm hands. Goodhead used to patrol the farm with That’s Uki as they plundered and took what they liked, almost completely depleting the food supplies of the farm.  That’s Uki’s name came from his school teacher on the first day he was sent to a hyena training camp.

“What is his name?” The teacher asked.

“Oh, that’s Uki.”

And instead of writing Uki, the vacuous teacher wrote: That’s Uki. By the time his mother realized it, his name was on all his official documents and it stuck.

That’s Uki told tales of how he had distributed stolen cow meat to many animals loyal to Goodhead. Even animals who were not meat eaters took the meat and hoarded it, hoping to sell it eventually to carnivores. As the confessions rolled out of his mouth, some of the animals implicated began forming a queue to return stolen meat, each promising to return more in exchange for a soft landing whenever White would begin punishing animals for their role in Goodhead’s destruction.

All the animals looked forward to hearing White speak and they sang songs in preparation. White’s staunch supporters told everyone that they were sure when he spoke it would be full of wisdom and foresight and that by the time White would be finished, all the animals would shed tears of regret for ever doubting the perfect heart of White.

As White brushed his white fur staring into the mirror without a smile in preparation for his big speech, the crocodile swamp was bubbling with conflict. Hump had challenged the diminutive, beloved leader of the crocodiles, Sir Na, too many times. This time, people were fed up especially the kingmakers in the crocodile swamp. His gifts of fried camel meat to young crocodiles couldn’t save him when the kingmakers met and decided that they would banish Hump from the swamp for at least 11 months. “Let him take eat camel meat elsewhere on the farm," they declared. Hump on the other hand swore that his banishment would not stop him from making grand, self-righteous speeches about how a crocodile swamp should be run and the fact that once upon a time a long time ago, a farm manager had chained him for a short while.

“You cannot make me stop talking about my scars. I earned those scars in chains!”

As Hump screamed, White took the stage in the centre of the farm, immaculate, stern. And White declared that he knew all that was going on in the farm and knew what he wanted to do about it. He reaffirmed his commitment to not spending farm resources on personal comforts.

One cow then asked him about the recent massacre of bats on the farm. White licked his lips, sighed and said that he had set up an inter-species committee to look into the massacre that happened around the crocodile swamp. He said that in fact the leader of the crocodiles was looking into in. But then it happened - the crack in White’s armour, the stain on his impeccable fur - he broke down and said, “How can an excited bat, a bloody bat, hit the chest of my farm hand?”

He added that he was waiting for the inter-species report.

Then it happened again. He said that in fact, some crocodiles, unconnected to the crocodile leadership had made a press statement talking of how the bats had oppressed them for 20 years. He said that crocodiles had talked about being under siege by bats. His eyes were fiery when he spoke about bats confronting his farm hand, Dick-Tai. But each time his anger showed, he checked himself and said, I will wait for the inter-species report.

He refused to talk about the fact that hundreds of bats had been killed in premeditated rage by Dick-Tai. Or that Dick-Tai had buried many of the bats to hide the numbers. Or whether it was ok for any farm hand to settle scores by killing animals in such large numbers. He was worried only that as a former farm hand himself, any animal dared challenge a farm hand.

He spoke about a few other things but by the time he was done, the farm was back to its old divisions: supporters of White wiped tears from their eyes swearing by all the animal gods that it was the best thing they had heard from White and that they were filled with hope. And those who were still angry that Goodhead was no longer farm manager were filled with rage as they swore by all the animal gods that White was just a dictator covered in white fur and that his speech only showed how wicked he was. And all the unaffiliated animals watched as the others quarrelled, afraid that no one was speaking of the real issues: the hundreds of bat bodies; the scarcity of food; the long silences of White; the difficulty of taking one’s food outside the farm; lack of regard for the justice system…

The unaffiliated animals were afraid that this was like a little ritual, a chore that White felt he had to do. And that soon White would return to walking through the farm, hands behind his back, jumping over dead bat bodies, silent.

OUR BROTHERS THE BATS

The end of the year on the animal farm now managed by the silent, wily White had always been marked by fanfare. It had always held hopes of better things to come and provided an opportunity for a cleansing of deeds passed. It was a period for animals to hasten to finish their vices, swear never to do them again, and begin the process of failing in the new year.

Farm managers always increased food portions during this period. Yes, animals would binge and throw up, but what better time to indulge in excess than the end of the year, just before drawing up a list of things one would fail to do?

This time, however, White did not increase portions. There was still a shortage of drinking water and animals still had to walk and fly long distances and join long queues to quench their thirst. New rules about how much grain an animal could keep or take out of the farm were made daily and often without notice. No one knew what White was thinking or what long term plans he had for the farm.

While all of this was going on, while the silence of White became louder and louder, down in the northwest of the farm, close to the crocodile swamp, there was a loud group of bats. The bats rarely came to the centre of the farm where animals converged. First, because their way of life was very different. But also because all the other animals despised the bats. The birds swore that bats were not birds like they were and the mammals swore that they would rather die than be classed in the same animal group as the bats.

The bats called themselves flying creatures. But the birds denied this and said the flapping of wings did not qualify to make an animal a flying creature.

"Do you deny us our identity?" The leader of the bats asked the leader of the birds.

"Most certainly," the leader of the birds retorted, "you have the face and lips of a mammal, we have beaks, you hang upside down, we stand straight. You have skin and fur, we have feathers.”

"But the relevant quality is not the manner of flight, but the fact of flight. You fly. We fly.  Abi? You are flying creatures. We are flying creatures.”

The leader of the birds spat out each time the leader of the bats spoke.

The bats converged in large numbers and moved from tree to tree looking for fruits,  and food. When they did, they sometimes blocked the view of the sun or obstructed the way so that other birds and animals had to wait for them to finish moving. Everyone hated this about the bats. However when the animals moaned about this, they all forgot that they themselves caused similar obstructions when they had celebrations or when they had big intra-species meetings. Cows moved in herds during cow conventions, obstructing roads. Zebras and buffalos did the same. But they did not consider their obstructions as obnoxious as those of the bats. Because they did not consider themselves the same as bats. They did not understand what manner of creatures slept upside down and were neither birds nor mammals.

One day, a farm hand of White, Dick-Tai, was cleaning out one of the barns at the same time as the bats were flying out to feast on ripe mangoes. Dick-Tai hated his original name Dick because, growing up, every animal made fun of him. So he added Tai to the name so it would not sound like a human reproductive organ. At first he shooed some of the bats away and went into the barn but he was so irritated by the bats who would not stop to let him do his job that he went into White’s office, took out a double barrel and came back to fire randomly into the flying bats, killing hundreds of them. He had been waiting for this opportunity to stop them from always interrupting his work and he went into all the ceilings where the bats hid and blocked out all the holes that led in there. Any baby bats he found there he crushed. He took the leader of the bats and smashed him to the ground knowing that a bat, once on the floor, would find it almost impossible to fly by itself.

When White asked Dick-Tai what happened, he said that he was attacked by bats, that he was so overwhelmed by their numbers, that he had to kill them, that he had no choice.

“Even the children?”  White thought to ask, but didn’t.

And when people asked White, he said, that was a matter purely for Dick-Tai to handle. He had no business in it.

The animals, while finding the massacre of bats horrific, could not hide their excitement that finally the bats had been stopped from flying in and out of ceilings. Especially the birds who maintained that bats gave all flying creatures a bad name. That, in fact, bats were simply not flying creatures and had no place on the farm.

And Dick-Tai swept away the corpses and continued cleaning the barn like nothing had happened.

And the animals blamed the bats for interfering with the work of Dick-Tai.

And the birds said it was about time bats were halted.

And the cows who had no idea if bats were birds or flying creatures, said that if the birds said they were neither, they didn't know enough to question birds.

And the crocodiles were afraid that perhaps the surviving bats would come back to cause trouble near the swamp.

And the bats cried out as they counted their dead, saying that all they wanted to do was live separately in ceilings and fly out every so often and that Dick-Tai had just used the excuse to wipe them off the farm as some other farm owners had also tried to do with bats on their farms.

And food became harder and harder to get. And water became harder and harder to get.

And all the while, White walked around the farm, observing, hands behind his back, silent.

PS. No animals were harmed in the production of this piece of fiction, except bats, whose deaths no one cares about. And any coincidence to persons living or dead is what it is: a fucking coincidence.