Ko di roboting (KO Die Robot[thing])

(i)

[…now really how you can say ‘you got a call waiting’ When I am calling you at a public phone… come on… how stupid do you think I am…]

//it’s not that, it’s just that you make me nervous when you driving and talking on the phone, you know//

[You don’t even have to go to the bathroom, you just worried about my driving and talking on the phone… Come on man… Look! If it makes you feel better, I’m following all the rules of the road; I’m buckled up, following the speed limit, stopping every three hours, only drinking light beers… and… uh… I’m talking to you on the handsfree…]

//that’s what worries me, you know you talk with your hands and from the frequency of the wind sheer you are way above the speed limit//

[The frequency of the WHAT!?…that’s bogus and you know that man… All that’s trivial, because you want to hang up on me, for no reason, because we’ve been talking for two hours and now you get concerned about safety… you taking me for a fool…]

//Forget about it!//

[About what]

//Never mind//

[Hmmm…Where was I before I was so lucidly interrupted?… Ah yes… The reason I believe the archaeological study of burial rites will better demonstrate… aah, fuck it , even I’m bored with it… uhm… is it safe to smoke in the car with the windows up and the A/C on? I mean like, will the vehicle implode?]

//How should I know//

[You the scientist, you know, and we artists are bums asking for a little change from the machine…]

//Whatever man//

[What’s the name of your new thing… your newest invention the universal transgender]

//universal translator//

[Explain that shit to me again, that’s some astral shit… wait, wait, I want to wake up C___ up for this… no scratch that… he’s out of his mind… he’s not coming back anytime soon… OH FUCK, the lens Cap is on! That’s so fucking awesome; we got two hours of the trip with the lens cap on! C_______ you, you, you… Genius, you…]

{*}

//Maybe the mic is on and in that case, all is not lost//

[do you always have to think like that]

//Like what? //

[Cold, calculating, fixing all the time – can’t anything stay broken for you?]

//What’s this about?//

[You know what, you won’t see it for yourself! Just forget about it, tell me about your Frankenstein]

//I’m starting to get the feeling you are mocking me//

[Why would you think that?]

//I’ve explained my work to you on three separate occasions… though there’s no sarcasm, that I can detect, I can’t shake my gut feeling that you get some kind of kick from getting me to go over it again and again//

[No, no, I find it interesting really, it’s just that when I try and put it back together myself, it just doesn’t work… I just want you to put the pieces together for me]

//this is the last time//

[It can’t be I’m driving I can’t take notes]

//then I’ll tell you, then, when you can//

[Come on now I’ve been going on and on about “Ice-lollies Triangle”]

//Which I still have misgivings about, I mean you use at taped lecture of mine on the most banal of mathematics, chopped to pieces to explain the gradient of a melting ‘vanilla ice cream’//

[I told you I never meant that, and it’s not my fault that you saw it that way, my theme is always children and I told you how it all came about]

//that story of your young nephew, listened to the lecture and he plomped his ice cream on the floor and studied it melting is – a little too coincidentally symbolic//

[Your reading too much into it]

//I can also disassemble your symbolism premise further, isn’t your nephew multi-racial and how you wished that for your nephew’s sake he didn’t get the ‘white liberal’ gene from his father… it all adds up man//

[You are paranoid, I can’t control what you see… It’s all those accolades… they taking up too much space in your head. I told you not read the reviews… You were best new comer for which installation?]

//’Density: threadbare destiny’//

[That’s the one. With the projection of your creation of a synthetic reality]

//I guess you can say so//

[I really liked the vocal dub, the voice artist was on point]

//She was a professional, she had the perfect pitch octave ratio//

[Man that’s so inhuman – was she hot?]

//You took her home that night//

[That was Zip?]

//Yeah//

[You sound disheartened… you’ve piqued my concern]

//Nothing really, it’s like you used her, you know… that’s what people saw//

[What the fuck! Who is people? - - are people saying I shaved her head, I got her strung out on some counter culture trip]

//Basically. You must admit she wasn’t the same after dating you//

[Fuck you and fuck them man, that’s what really ashes my knuckles. Y’all don’t know shit and draw conclusions. I was hardly with that girl two weeks. Two weeks out of the twenty two years she’s had on this planet - - and I was the one thing that damaged her]

//It’s easier this way! I don’t really see it that way, but I can’t stop thinking it’s my fault, it’s irrational, I know, but it’s there//

[Fuck you and Fuck them]

//Did you hear that the Cape model who was at the Marius auction on Donny’s arm is going to marry some wrestler from that American mock-wrestling TV show//

[Hero or Villain]

//a second string neutral//

[Ouch! I knew Donny had to have had paid that girl. It didn’t have to come back and bite him like this… what’s your source]

//Calum & Kgopotso’s blog//

[They know their shit, that’s no rumour - - I need to stop for gas, stretch my legs,  have a cigarette… let me let you go until we connect later]

//Cool//

TO DO the TUDORS

                                                                     
                                                                     
                                                                     
                                             
Klip Rivers and anti-rabbit-hole theories in practic/se

07h00
1. Today I was an upright and productive citizen. 
I played my part, I upheld the values of the constitution, 
did my civic duty, and in my own little way 
helped to make my country a better place for everyone...
"I voted in a referundum to allow a petition to resubmit Appendix 1 .point 1 of 
our sworn affidavitas leading evidence in our constitutional court bid 
to have the possession of a kiwi declared unpatriotic
along with kangaroos and living room calender pictures of a bayside opera house
as well as our request that the use of "barbecue" instead of "braai" in a sentence 
be declared hate speech

14h30
2. I single handedly discovered a yet unbeknownst root for a coomon part of speech:
"...and hence it is my conclusion Machipichu is the great great great great grandfather 
of tjovitjo hence proving Mayans transversed the atlantic and traded everything with Africa,
swapping everything from architecture to figures of speech, I thank you"

"Like Ice Cube said it was a good day"

The Undisclosed Century Behind the Eye

The Owl

And

The Pussycat

The Owl and the Pussycat went to see in a beautiful pee green boat. Nearing the end of their journey, the Owl turned to the Pussycat and said:
“May I have your hand for marriage?”
“?” she says with a wrinkling of her brow. “Do you not mean have my hand in Marriage?” 
He rotates his head several times adamantly. “No, No, No. I ask for your hand in order to get married. You see the one I intend to wed has stolen many a heart and has been punished by having her hand taken from her. So I ask you give me yours, so we may marry in peace. Do you now understand?”
“!” She says with daggers flung from her eyes. The stars in the sky blink in shock and remain silent in their voyeuristic vigil over the night.
She sighs and moves her hand over her shiny coat, glossing over her sadness with the involuntary gesture.
A cross wind rocks the boat as she shudders and speaks:
“It won't be a marriage sanctioned by the heavens, for I have blood on my hands from performing open heart surgery, massaging the egos of men such as yourself.”
His eyes grow wide. “So you shall, you shall?”
“I Shall! Only know this much I have always played my cards close to my chest because I wear my heart on my sleeve, and I wouldn't let a soul know where to look. However I owe you this much: from the hand you take I shall raise my child in its place.”
Not understanding what she implied, he pulled a cleaver, that was waiting in the wings and severed her hand, in a hurry. Her heart having no place to rest, slipped from her sleeve and fell to the boat's floor and shattered. She discovered she was the only one witnessing the tragedy when she looked up to see his silhouette take flight deep into the night.
She looked at her stomach growing slightly with a new spirit and hummed a lullaby to her soon to be born.

1.

My mother was feline, supple and graceful. My father had huge eyes; my slighted family were scant on the details. I am a bastard. My name is Majasane Audrey Lehadima. I am my mother's only child. I was born after an eighteen hour labour, that saw me expeled from my mother after she shuffled through bouts of vomit and deliria. A healthy boy at five point three kilograms - my legend: I was born with my eyes open and wearing my placenta. Hence I was refered to as Rajasinyane, little man with a coat or more explicitly; man with a small coat. Through a broken telephone of relatives; from the most excited, to the spiteful, all the way to the older hard-of-hearing matrons, my names were whispered and confirmed, finally recorded on my birth certificate as Majasane Audrey Lehadima. Audrey was as a result of a dunce of a clerk in the births' office who misrecorded the name Aubrey. I am a child born out of wedlock, my parents seperated before I was born – correction – my father left my mother to marry another woman, before she could tie him down with the guilt of a child. Till recently, I knew very little of my father, just a few minor details... he had big eyes, he worked at night he's street name was Redi... I was raised by my mother and her family

--

Scuse me. That was Comrade. He was going on about how, now that he could afford a little roof garden he realised what the dealers were doing. “e Charlie these people. They want to keep the crop to themselves there's no seeds in their bankies maan! I bought from Freddy for a hundred and fifty. Daai maan gave me some good shit but there's no  seeds maan! How am I supposed to plant!...”
Comrade is excitable at times, less than before, but he's doing fine now.

Where was I?

--

My mother was strong-willed and hauntingly beautiful. She was feline in appearance, had a predatory gait, meticulous grooming. She was distanced from the rest of the community by boundless will. She knew what it was she wanted, and didn't have any qualms in spurning the communal spirit of waiting for charity. She was envied and disliked. “who is she to think she is speshal?”. She was followed by sideway glances and rumours that got more and more detailed daily. Her reputation was steeped in scandal. Me the illegitimate child, her refusal to wed and then “where does she get the money for those clothes, she never told us where in Joburg she works, won't even help getting my daughter a job there, when I asked her, phela hhe manyeo there are those places in the city that make women whores...” 

My first years were spent at my grandmother's house. My grandmother who had birthed nine children. Six of whom survived the middle passage from the womb to the world. She then suffered through burying two who never transcended to middle childhood – dying in their infancy. My mother was the sixth born and by her fourth year she was the eldest surviving sibling followed by her two sisters and younger brother. 

In the early years in my grandmother's care and under the patronage of my grandfather, I had a lot of uncles, there always seemed to be a constant influx of young men who would be housed and fed in the family's four roomed domicile, for periods on end. Some coming and going, other's permanently fixed on the couch, or planted in the garden cleaning up after the tidying they had done. The garden was seasonally styled by who came when.

Despite the constant contact with the male example, I was close to my mother, I always had the feeling that it was me and her, despite the fact that we lived intimately with family – two aunts with their combined five offspring and the in and out uncles, it was always me and her. I heard the gossip they directed at my mother, and suffered the taunts of being a spoilt brat, who clung to his mother's petticoat, a “mama's boy” – they would exclaim with a jeering leer in their faces. I would survive the day and live happily through the evening once my mother returned from work. 

My world was boxed in my grandparents' yard with its knuckle-dry peach tree and oil-rutted backyard autoshop. My only friend was Keke from diagonal back opposite, we'd talk – she'd tell me what she saw on TV at night, I'd listen and try and picture it – all the while, perched on the rusted support frame of the diamond-link fence, that demarcated the boundaries of my grandparents' abode. Her parents owned a shebeen and she was mainly babysitted by TV and – lucky her – video games. I remember wandering when my dad would come and bring me a video game – a black Golden China, with red buttons. On days when it got too hard to listen I would pout and tell her how Redi was delayed in America and would be back soon to bring me my Video Game and nice clothes. She never pointed out how my threat was worn out and was yet to become true.

In my grandparent's house the TV is only on for the afternoon soapie and the news, because we must save the tube. Things were kept in this house. The radio couldn't be played louder than eight on the thirty six point volume dial, so as to not damage the speaker. The trays were arranged in categories: daily use, special occasion, society visits, uppity friends visits, display. All things from tablecloths to curtains were mended by the industry of women in the house, charged by grandmother. My grandfather would busy himself with the paper and with the manly work of pruning the kinks out of his Peugeot. Me and my cousins would have to entertain ourselves between chores, armed with curiosity and mischief. They were brave enough to venture into the street, but for a while I was too mature a social foetus, awkward and unsociable  to join the others. My birth, there, had to be induced.

Ous' Mame seemed to be my mother's only friend. She was nice to me and always enquired about how I was getting along. She was a nurse and when she had to work night's or had her days off, I was allowed to go over to her house and watch television, while she rested. In my gratitude, I watched only things she approved of. I was inundated with edu-programs and school going childrens' revision sessions.  It was an intensive swatting marathon. I'd acquire and process information without knowing its importance or relevance. I'd latch onto ideas influenced by the passion of the disembodied teacher's presentation. I remember how undulating became my favourite word after a science tutor used it to explain a series of sound waves. My late morning to noons were a school day, then I'd have to switch channels to avoid the soapie repeats and informercials and watch the business news or CNN, while preparing and eating lunch. I would be rewarded at the end of the day with cinnamon biscuits (that had a slight salty taste) and a watery lemon squash coolade, as I watched  the after school cartoon binge. I'd leave giddy with the exhaustion of a secret affair and still manage to run back home before my relative's worry would earn me a tongue lashing.

2.

The evening before my youngest aunt's wedding I had straddled at Ous' Mame's house. Mulling in the kitchen waiting for a pie to cool. I ate quickly, I knew I was late, but I still made an effort to recover time lost by sprinting the distance. I arrived and was greeted by people sizzling with mirth. Distant relatives who arrived for duty from out of town before me pestered me with enquiries of where things were or belonged. I was sent from pillowcase to postbox on frivolous tasks. I felt like a beast of burden, quietly sulking, wandering as to when my mother would arrive. 

She arrived, all buttoned up against the cooling of dusk. She put her things in the bedroom, and to my disappointment didn't slow down to ask me about my day, but instead picked up an apron and joined the cackle in the kitchen-cum-henhouse, busying herself with the splitting of heads of cabbage. I felt displaced because the corner I would have sulked in had been earmarked as the slaughter area, and was rank with death. I ran round the side of the house, to sit under my grandparent's window. The night seemed to stretch itself as I fidgeted to find the most comfortable position, balancing against the wall, resting on my haunches and eventually resorting to cramp inducing squats.

I woke in the morning from a compost heap of sweaty bodies, the deposited children of aunts, cousins and relatives of relatives. I was in a foul mood and was not afraid to show it. I shuffled about and pretended not to hear my name being called by some or other blood-stranger. I lingered in the bathroom locking myself in as the line of cousins lengthened outside. I took my time languishing in the bath, soaping myself thoroughly, drying myself to a point of dehydration. Then walking out with an air of impenetrable casualness, I sauntered into the bedroom to moisturize and dress – making sure I hid away my grooming kit and leaving the crappy aqueous cream, for them to smear and streak their skin.

I spent the rest of my morning loafing about in my formal best, so as to avoid duty. I couldn't be sent on endless errands wearing my finery. I was left alone and scorned by the working class. “Oh look at our little prince” they would snigger. I ignored them and avoided the gaze of my mother, who didn't seem to attempt to admonish me in anyway, making me feel a touch of shame. I occupied myself with parading in front of the working kids and rating the venom in their silent cusses. One, the one who was too old to have a snot nose, but had a mucus tap above his cracked lips - went so far as to scrunch their nose at me – an outright cuss, I would've ran to my grandmother, if I was remotely close to even being a marginal scribble in her good books. So, I just walked away and waddled to Ous' Mame's, stepping in a manner that would not put a crease in my leather shoes. Even before I arrived I knew she was not home, she had told me the day before to tell my mother that she would be arriving in time for the evening clean up.

Once back at home after my pedestrian paddle, I had stamped out all hostility and wasn't looking for any trouble. I was blind sided. Snots came over to me with confrontation in his eye. He was younger than me but he was no child when it came to squinch, revenge – he was not one to sit on the bench when it came to the game of one up-manship. He walked up to me. I hated his vindictive ass. I was seated in the empty tent where there were plenty of empty chairs  for him to sit his empty-headed ass in. He said that he wanted to  sit in the chair I was sitting in. I couldn't believe this, exasperated I mouthed: “Why?”. He said he wants to sit in the yellow chair. I suddenly noticed that in the bleached arena of white chairs and tablecloths, I was sitting on the only coloured seat. I was floored by the request, but I wouldn't let the pipsqueak walk over me. I grunted him off with an I-don't-want-to. He shuffled forward and by reflex I shoved him – not hard at all – he collapsed to the ground, dramatically, and threw in an epileptic tantrum, to  boot. His wails caught the ears of my grandmother, who although strained to hear you in conversation, could hear a child crying from anywhere in the world. She bull-ran out in her concern, enquiring as to what was the matter. The little snot-nosed runt, who grew more and more vulnerable with each sniffle and shudder, pointed at me and reported that I had pushed him around. My grandmother turned her head toward me and I saw fire and brimstone in her eyes. I was not apologetic but she put the fear of god in me. I attempted to plead my case, with as much humility as possible, but could not deter her righteous wrath. She brought down her judgement with a heavy hand and then a switch that miraculously appeared and excorcised the pain from the hide of my bottom to the seat of my soul. Let me mention amongst all my grandmother's children – her own  offspring and their offspring, her nieces, nephews, and their children – I was the only one to be bequeathed a beating.

I was sore, humiliated and furious. My mother was no where to be found – I felt it was so typical of her to conveniently disappear when I was abused at the hands of this family. I huffed and puffed my way around the yard, kicking up dust and scratching at the cuts I had received. I then jumped over the fence looking for Keke, something I'd never done before for good measure. Distracted by the lascerations and claustrophobia, I had forgotten that Keke had a guard dog in her backyard. The beast charged at me like a hellhound as I grated myself trying to get back over the fence, posturing in frightened poses, offering prayers and outright demanding heavenly intervention. As my acceptance of my mauling cooled my temper, the dog was savagely yanked back in the direction it came from. Relief. Before I could thank my guardian angel for lassoing the devourer and delivering me from death, I noticed the Monster was chained to it's dog box. I gathered myself together and crept along to the room where Keke bided her time, my eye firmly fixed on the dog.

When I didn't find Keke in her room, I went and knocked on the kitchen door. Her father with his long face stuck his torso out over the top half of the sectioned door and demanded to know what I wanted before he registered who I am. When he calmed down to annoyance, I greeted and informed him that I was looking for Keke. He must of seen or smelt my terror as he looked over at his pet terror that was testing the length of its chain by walking the circumference of it's reach, and then looking down his nose at me with my leafy tremble and kneading hands. He told me casually that he had sent her to the shop and... that... I could stay out front in the tavern if I wanted to wait for her. As if I'd refuse. As I stepped and gratefully watched the door close my bladder relaxed and didn't seem to be all that full anymore. I sat out in the tavern on a crate and watched the sun wrestle the glare off the steel gutters through a broken window. I was dosing off, exhausted from my morning ,when I was disturbed by a hand on my shoulder. More accurately the big hand palmed my shoulder, thumbed my back and had fingers monopolosing my chest. I turned to face this giant, expecting to come face to face with a biblical Goliath, only to be stared down at by some gum popping, thug who was huge, even looked like he had muscles in his jaw. My brain had a cotton wool filament that would not even allow for dim recognition. He was saying something to me. I suddenly felt afraid and wandered why was today a day of fear, is this what they mean by balancing the scales. My aunt's day of joy becomes my day of torment?

As the day settled and after I was chastised for delaying the family portrait I met Senatla. He was leaning against a car, with a smile on his face, looking over (or maybe after) the proceedings. Before I reached him an uncle pulled me aside and shoved a note and coins in my hand and directed me to go purchase him a few more beers. I was apalled by his audacity and his wish to consume any more alcohol looking at the pageant of bottles at his feet. I withheld my protest and was gathering the bottles when my mother appeared at my defence heckling the drunken uncle for sending her angel to some god-beknownst hovel. My faith in her was restored on the wings of relief. I skipped over to Senatla and he asked me where I'd been, I told him I was taken a picture with my family – he noticed that I had a sullen look on my face and asked  what was the matter. I said I was never sure if I liked the way I came out in pictures, that there was no way I would ever want to be remembered in some or other comical face. He asked how I'd want to be remembered – I replied that I didn't know. There was an awkward silence and clumsily I asked him why he was so fearless. He chuckled and said that there were things he was scared of, looking down. First time I noticed the freckles that speckled the bridge of his nose – the characteristic brought him closer to human. I fumbled my way through trying to explain an idea that was becoming more and more vague to me. He calmed my increasing panic, by saying he understands. He mulled it over, looking around like he was about to give me the real secret to his strength. He carefully asked if I believed in god. I was taken aback and by reflex, with denial in my manner, I nodded look down and mumbled yes. He assured me I didn't have to lie, it wouldn't change me in anyway. I looked up at him with a dogged look scared that I had disappointed him. He asked me If I believed my mother was my mother, and was I sure she loved me. Offended I answered: “Of course!”. He said that with the same belief that I believed in my mother he believed in god; that there's someone bigger than everyone else, who cares. And that, that someone, was always there and there was nothing to prove to anyone. After a thoughtful silence he said that he'd see me around, I asked him when, he promised that it would be soon.

That evening, when people were packed away in the slivers of spaces available in the four-room, exhausted from exertion. My grandmother came over to me in the privacy of a corner littered with children. She came and said she was sorry, I pretended to be asleep, she said she loved me and she wanted to make me understand. I thought to myself understand what, that she loved me but not as much as Snots – the resentment that had receded, came flooding back and I tucked myself deeper into the little pocket I had on the floor, closer to the asbestos heater. I felt wronged I was not allowed to sleep at my mother's feet, under blankets I knew intimately instead of these pissy rags. My tolerance for family events was leaving with the remains of the day. I received a sharp kick to my gut from a stray dream had by one of the snoring hoard. I received it like an affirmation and vowed to stew in my indignation till this herd of invaders went home. I avoided dreams, kept awake by the nocturnal rhythm of a wall-clock, tapping out a metronomic march towards the coming morning. I hadn't been awake before at this time, I had imagined that this would be a time filled with magic and secrets, not an orchestra of gastric snores and nasal/gastric farts. Now the sleep blatantly refused to come to my rescue, I felt irritable and abandoned, a bloodlust festered through my veins and I wished that a foot from the pile of bodies would once again attack me, so I had a reason to thrash out, or maybe, I thought, I aught to feign sleep and go on a footloose rampage. Time was moving too slow for my liking – it was like the lost battalions march across the desert – the hope to reach morning was making me hot and my throat dry. The walk to the kitchen was a mine field littered with slumber bombed torsoes limbs and heads, too hazardous to negotiate without a good enough reason. My throat tightened, I was suffocating, and my survival instinct took me by the neck and yanked me to my feet. I tip-toed through the minefield and made it to the kitchen without injury (mines or theirs) or detection. I chanced upon a washed glass on the sink and drank successive gulps of water without any cause for alarm. On trying to return to my place amongst the dead-living pikinins, a figure appeared from around the corner of my eye. I froze and wandered if by wishing for magic I had accidentally called on witchcraft. Sincere prayer did not come easily, what else could one expect from a second-hand bible instinct. Before I made any failed attempts at saving my life I wanted to see the face of my persecutor so that I could tell on them to God. I knew I would see god, because god loves children and I was a child. I turned ever so slowly preparing to stare into the eyes of death incarnate, mustering what courage I could to keep my bladder from watering my pyjamas. When my head had turned as far as it could, I discovered that my imagination had made a witch out of an uncle who slept snoring to the heavens upright in a chair next to the coal stove. I skipped back to my place in the pile with relief and a new appreciation for life and settled too hurriedly to check my spot. All settled and ready to engage rest, I felt a wetness along my side – to my horror one of these related-strangers had spilt their piss into my sleeping nook. Too tired for despair and too spent for revenge, I dived into a reservoir of mindless sleep, and hoped to never wake up.

3.

“eh baba, I just figured it out, nne – no, before you assume, I am not high, I just had a beer - “
“it's 9 in the morning jo” 
Comrade is fired up again, he kept calling till I answered, guilted into believing it could be an emergency, from an original state of irritation.
“ja mare the point is I ain't high this is one of the truths”
“sho ... ah...” I secretly welcome the break, it's getting hard to go any further, remembering is overwhelming. I would love to quit, but I need to this for me and you.
“o da, buddha? Hhe?”
“ ja sho”
“What was I saying? ...eh? something about eh di-election, nne, ... shit maan!”
“Joe I must get back to work, can I call you later?”
“-” I can hear the musing hurt in his silence, and held breath.
“Not like anything, I just need to...”
“I understand, maan. You don't need to baby me with explanations. * “
He may be pissed now. I'll pass by him later after your mother comes home. Mother! I can't register this...

--

 Gin makes good company for grief. I learnt this from Twosly. It was the morning after my aunt's wedding – expecting to run to my mother with an explanation as to why there was a mildew-yellow gold stain on her favorite pyjamas. I could not manage to find her anywhere. I was tugged aside as I tried to leave the horse stall door. Why wouldn't they let me leave!? Why would people whisper knowing fully well I could understand the good English!? “Day kilt him for no reason” - Uncle Boxer. “Who Sen...” - Aunty Reso “shhh that child might hear you” he said throwing her eyes in my direction “why haven't they removed him from the gate?” - Uncle Boxer “It was the constable's son who did it...” - Aunty Reso “Moren...” - Unc... “No blasphemy in the place of ghosts” - Aunty Reso. 

As seen on TV “What the fuck is going on here?” I'm too young, too stupid to save myself. I get to the front of the house Senatla's shoes are by the post box by the front gate. That says it all. People take shoes off the dead. Boys should not cry. I did. Out of sight of everyone. I thought; Twosly managed to find me in my hiding place – and found my trembling left hand. And put a bottle of Old B___k gin in it. Without knowing what I was doing half the bottle steadied me – somehow I still didn't manage to forget by now it was noon.

“the son of the cop has been killed”

I don't know, Yet I listen. And I  listen well.

--
"Will you ever finish this story, my friend?"
"Not yet"
"Not ever?"
"Maybe"

War of Words -a Poem

Mind over matricide 
Word to mother
The words of men kill
... it was the generals who specifically called for the infantry
(((the babies with the guns)))
((Their Aquamarine lungs squeezed life imto the battle CRY))
(It was hanger drawn out -- wrought iron clad -- mortar shell placenta)
It came out kicking and screaming 
-shrill -riddled with the shrapnel of the mortal recoil

Once the smoke was snuffed by the collective catchment of the breath
They lay -- stunned
phantom limbs splayed on the crosswinds 
lying spent and whithered at the foot of golgotha 
column after column down through the centuries
here  lies your mighty corps

Art(if)act of man, 
Berthed to forever hold a peace of the world
but instead chose to
elope with men whose talk is only of war
To your left is the messengers shooting gallery
To your right is the military pageantry of the jingoists
dressed as civil engineered linguists

"guns don't kill people they said like they meant...
Words don't talk to people"

-- Written with the idea in mind that children running into war nowadays, feeing like it's their birth right thinking it is easy because they were raised on a diet of RPG's, by RPG's I mean Role-Player Games not Roket Propelled Grenades

Unfinished AKA I am finish

Gun Barrel to the Thought Control Tower Cantata

Down the cruise missile assembly line; I was recently returned from my smoke break feeling healthy. I went about my work, but for my own satisfaction on the job, I’d set a screw loose in the odd warhead. Hoping maybe one day it would ‘accidentally’ go off in some stockpile destroying it and its fat-boy cousins: putting an end to all this madness. If I am really lucky it would also take out all the self important men of war, in the vicinity, on some inspection parade, parading their inspection skills; all brass and tassels. Maybe the three Johns from the Human Resources Department and Ghandi from the Standards Control Bureau would get taken out too. Of course, naturally, I wish that, by some fate, Pluto would spare every last private and the public (although some of them don’t deserve it).

My new favourite word is chthonic – the cryptic crossword puzzle told me so.

Pulling out of the parking lot, not wanting to end up a pillar of salt, I don’t look back. Here I am east bound. The few remaining horses in my engine’s stable gallop with the fury of glue factory survivors, it occurs to me that I wish that all the others that have bolted since 1988, by some phantasmic rule of justice, would end up as meat filling in a steak and kidney pie. I’m in no rush, I’m running late. Maybe I should call ahead. Then again I shouldn’t, it would ruin the surprise. Just passed the Denver off-ramp; down that dead stretch of road I’ve been hijacked twice giving hitchhikers lifts, It never really bummed me out because what I know that they don’t is: my car always comes back to me… it is a ghost car… with super powers

“if you understand that fear is THE medium of instruction, kill yourself right now, spare us the trouble of having to do it ourselves”

I never have to use the lavatory at the filling station. I just go to the third stall to see my favourite piece of graffiti. To be honest I’ve never used a lavatory in a garage, for all of my conscious life, I find the places disgusting, however some of the secreted messages I find refreshing. It all started with “I am Delve Syrum AKA Delirium Self xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx                             xxxxxxxxxxxxx                           xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx simply put I’m synonymous with serious idioms… After reading this please contact your local publisher and tell them to give me an advance, I can’t support my beer habit on my disability grant”. I was confounded. What could it mean? Why was it there? Since then I was hooked (my local publisher didn’t give a shit). I went about scouring shit-holes for the messages people leave behind. Noting quotes, referencing if one thought was original, if one idea was different from the other and on occasion allowing myself the guilty pleasure of calling one of those ‘for a good time call…’ numbers. I don’t do boys

Forgive me father for I have skinned

Today I eat chicken. A whole chicken! Roasted Chicken stuffed with all the meats I can find. No vegetables. My vegetarian girlfriend left me for a salad bar somewhere out in the desert –the Klein Karoo to be more accurate. This is my revenge on myself for thinking it could have been some other way. This is my pound of flesh for seven years; all potatoes and Soya faux meatloaf. I was going somewhere in the butchery – oh yes. “the chuck please.” -- I don’t want to stress him anymore but it looks a lot like lamb. From then on the conversation goes as follows: “Did you see the game last night?... Do you care if I stick three industrial nails in my head?... pass me the yoghurt and a steak and kidney pie… did you see that?...pass me the arsenic” etc, etc, etc

I like my mind like my bottles all over the place

Centimetre-ing my way down Commissioner, because if you think about it what’s inching, to a metric man? It’s obvious I forgot my exit, ran over a stop sign whilst trying not to; but at least I remembered to leave the gas oven burning. I hope the house burns down. There’s no better way to toast to this evening. Is it just me or the radio just said loan sharks have no jaws. I just remembered I have no radio, so it must be me – I am so cool. Pulling over to take a look at the graffiti alongside of the wall; )sigh( sadly it’s not ‘pipi’. It reads ‘ipip’ through my designer reflectors, by reflectors I mean California cop Aviators. DESIGNER! They are for when I look in the rear-view mirror; I see not only me, but the turned out guts of what I’m leaving behind. Now I’m pissing on the back porch of the magistrate’s court along what I still call West. Through my looking glasses, what I just saw, now, is an old mielie lady running to the cops. I should be going back towards Fox. Who needs to zip up in these crucial times? God bless all the beautiful women and maybe the children for not being around. Soon as my door shuts button my fly, fish for a cigarette and try to remember if I oiled the barrel correctly.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I told you so

He welcomes me introducing me as Felix. Must remember I must leave no witnesses. Ease a fictional tension. Some pretty girl with locks like… she says it’s the second time we meet and that means we aren’t strangers anymore and she’s still wants to go home with me even after all I said. I’m tempted. But I tell her FUCK OFF. Hoping she’s gets hurt enough to leave. Second complimentary beer, it does… correction… it will do nothing for me and definitely do nothing against me. Three poets all talking about love in a plastic bag. Is that ambiguous enough for you – I know you are reading my thoughts. I’m on my sixth beer and my quota is running low, but I still remember what I have to do.

Last Cab -- from the itexi tu context

"'There's no use scraping at these walls no more' said the writer to the wall"

_{Last Cab}

23:57 two uneven circles of lights approach the drunk steadily. He heaves his heavy head upright on his slouching shoulders. There’s crackling of gravel, on a sloping bend along Noordgesig’s main road. A whirling dervish encircles him and his coat flaps like a raven – alive. Brushing dust from his eyes he steps inside instinctually finding a place to sit, beside a man with a gun in his lap, blood on his hands and a tear in his eye. The drunk ransacks his inner pockets and pulls out a bottle wrapped in a crossword puzzle - drinks.

22:48 bending to brush a streak of dust from her navy blue nurses uniform, Sweety-Pie pauses to listen a little more intently to the night sounds that eerily sound the same in their menace. A swirling howl of a siren greets the night sounds and dances off the sleeping walls of the houses around her. Two shadows in the near distance draw closer. She presses her purse to her breast and turns her head to see if a texi is anywhere in sight. She looks longingly and hard. There’s no answer to the question her eyes ask - quiet.

00:16 the man in black with a gun in his lap remembers it all. She wasn’t supposed to fight, she was just supposed to hand over her bag and that would be that. It was supposed to be that simple. Yesterday his friend and he had beers together and rejoiced in the terror they were – wolves.

22:51 bending down, pretending to fidget, she picks up a nearby stone and waits. Something didn’t feel right to Sweety-Pie, sweet little lamb. The moon is full rising high and the air is still. She could hear their conspiring laughter wash over her like a warning tide. Her mouth spells out a prayer, strong and quiet – honest.

00:21 the drunk, thrown about in a rickety seat with a gun-man to his side, thinks about nothing. Missing the camaraderie of the tavern he extends a smile to the man in black. The man grips the handle of the gun tighter. The drunk unshakeably inebriated passes his bottle just as a severe pothole is ridden over. Not a drop is spilt. He smiles with gaping holes at his own talents. The man in black looks at him and the bottle and looks away – sniffles.

22:53 bending her knees in struggle. She clutches the straps of her bag and grits her teeth. The man with a gash across his forehead, with an eager grip pulling at the leather purse, digs his heels into the ground and shouts that his friend should take care of the wench. She leaps forward knocking him of balance, he staggers backwards. She goes for his eyes. He howls blindly at an ominous red moon high above his head. The gash bleeds, furiously. He falls to the ground. She grabs her purse and sprints away. The man in black hesitates seeing his friend squirm about on the floor, his blood caking the dust. She runs for her life. The man with the gash across the face leaps to his feet, just in front of the man in black as he squeezes the trigger of his gun. The man with the gash across his forehead falls to the ground once again. Sweety-Pie runs in the distance with flailing arms and turns the corner and disappears – Saved.

00:27 the drunk, obviously ignored, makes conversation with himself. The man in black sighs and blows his head off.

23:10 the man in black, tears streaking his cheeks, saddles his gun on the small of his back. And pushes his dead-friend into a small thicket in the shadows, he’s been crouching in, where the invisible eyes behind the windows of the houses couldn’t see him. He crosses himself as taught by the nuns at the catholic primary school he attended as a child. And stands and waits. The sirens were far off. The texi got there first. Not an eye was raised to him as he entered he slouched into a seat and was driven away – noisily.

23:50 the man in black, wakens to a road that doesn’t seem to end. Uncomfortable, he pulls his gun out. Other passengers pay him no mind still. Just how he likes it. A screeching patrol car passes the taxi going back where they come from. One cannot help but wonder. He sits there not knowing what to do – blank.

23:57…

A Future Pasture

I woke up fifty years into a near-begotten future. <God what did I drink!!!>
I know this much: The city still kind of looks the same… kind of looks like it has aged… kind of like what Maputo looked like, Christmas that 2009… Jesus Chriiist  what does Maputo look like. …nooow

This is what I know __This place is dead. The people are dead. There is no soul. It’s like watching countless hours of home video of a 50 click trek across the karoo with only the grainy/granny texture keeping you glued. Empty stares, empty store fronts, empty stair cases… empty gestures all mechanical … accepted with grace… going through the motion… one flew through the cuckoo clock

At the Old Bar… where I had shared drink (at least twelve hours or 50 years ago) with old shifty men, uneasy in their skins, sweaty and refilling their drinks <every Tuesday two for the price of one>  Then: They were human; going about their business, with a decent hesitancy in their vibration. They’d go to the common girls every 45 minutes (at the most) in 5-6-7 slots and some would even come down afterwards to stare at themselves in the mirror, down a few drinks, ignore their cellphone…
But Now: it’s the same men but they’ve lost their edge somehow, they got a touched up aura. It’s a great facsimile, but just doesn’t read the same. And that mirror is cracked and ignored, and things are warped; all out of place. The beer tastes different somehow too… Man, this world has gone mad. Now when they come down from upstairs (after 10 at the most)  they look all processed, hardly shifting out of line, waiting their turn at some vending machine that gives them cigarettes and a free AIDS test. High fives and mumbles of congrats if you pass and condolences and grunts of sympathy if you don’t (and sad talk about ARV treatments, behind newspaper beards) <this happens more often than not>

“At least you are not a politician” I hear this everywhere. I don’t know if it’s resignation or irony. This city is numb, the people are numb. There’s no feeling it’s like watching a constant looping reel of static, with no way to tear your eyes away, till you’re all teary and overwhelmed by the inability to comprehend.
I know what’s wrong with this town. They’ve taken away all the madness. And by madness I don’t mean the hawkers; their still everywhere, the louses; on every corner, the holes in the pavement; at everystep… I’m talking about the colour. Everything concrete is beige, everything else is one unwavering frequency of the spectrum somewhere between tan and rawhide. They can’t blame it on the dust in the air. The dust from the industrial grade residential complexes that they’re building, just out of town, just out of mind, on what used to be a city of tombstone high rises and crucifix-shaped antennas; a place called Avalon. NO. This colourlessness runs deep… it’s all in how everything is automated, mechanical just going through the motions…

At the mobile public phones: there’s no more bootleg foreign music DVD, with gogo girls suffering from severe cases of hip displacementia - playing on the tube. No here! All the portable TV’s are tuned to the same twenty-four hour telethon channel, because every hour somewhere in the world a natural disaster was fucking up some tourist’s holiday. Earthquake, Flood, Runaway fire, Atomic Dust storm, Eiffel tower syndrome. After calling a number that I didn’t expect to ring, but rang, and got a voice that wasn’t the person I wanted it to be, I hung up. The Vendor tries to peddle me some donation voucher to save the orphans of those killed by Somali pirates, instead of giving me the credit I still have on the meter. Some people never change. The voucher will make for a nice souvenir…

…Walked into a cinema. It played strange foreign films that were modern touch ups of European movies from the silent era. They’d been re-coloured, with vocal dialogue, re-shot in the latest 4D technology, projected onto three storey high walls. I must have been there 5 minutes but I got to know the whole history of how this came about… it was terrifying how there was no way to stop what is happening from happening.
[--Looked at the time--]. Headed back to the landing strip. Must lie down… all… hope… is fading…

“S h i t  m a n ! !  Y o u  a r e  b a c k !” <What the fuck where am I> “Ha, ha, ha that’s what chasing a Warrrp with mescaline gets you my man; a real barefoot spacewalk” “we recorded some of your subliminal broadcasts whilst you were in transition, exit and entry” “What heavy static you got man” <oh shit yeah, where… where… are we> “oh we are… should be… uhm…” “Page: 23-04. Section: 20. Point 11.” “Ah, yes thank you… In your article: In the Defence of the Perpetually Evolving Struggle...” <alright, alright, I know where we are – Roll Camera-->

“In your article: in the Defence of the Perpetaully Evolving Struggle, could you explain what is it you meant by we should rue the day we here the words the struggle is over…?”

<
< - - cigarette - - >
< - - cigarette - - >

<well you are still following me from the whole human fault being the mechanism that makes us the perfect being, right… nice… nice… and the idea of the limit of questions… cool… Now the day you hear the words “the struggle is over”, know that then we would’ve stretched the very limits of our dimension and it either shatters or we’re trapped with little room to manoeuvre… how I can best explain this is…
…just now


I woke up fifty years into a near-forgotten future. <<God what did I drink!!!>>
>

#My slang is editorial explicit material

Brief case yo live in stereo flow

Feel me donna realtySet the black people free#

"My mouth smells like a used colonoscopy bag"

"Do you have anything for me?"

"Yeah it's a whole play about parents using children as puppets you  know - and we show it literally you know, with child actors attached to rigs"

"Sounds great, so when can I get it?

"Soon, I just need to fullly realize the idea"

"Whatever. Have you signed the contract yet"

"aaah, the ink ribbon on my fax machine is finished, so I really wasn't able to read it"

"I've never heard of an ink ribbon fax machine"

"Well mine is. And talked to the stationer it's going to cost about R300"

"I'm wiring you now. We'll speak later..."

"Hello"

"good day sir"

"Yes" 

"well sir my name is charles and I am calling from..."

"No, thank you. I am uninterested"

"sir, i just..."

"I am hanging up, now please don't call again"

"sir if i may..."

Fridge.

Wait twenty minutes

Cigarettes. 

Lighter.

Notebook.

Miswak.

Keys?

Keys.

"Gentlemen of the jury. Salutations and benedictions. Of what matters of great importance do you deliberate over, today?"

"The Rugby"

"None of my concern

...

 Ahhh Ruth daughter of Eglon the son of _____ as always the prominent display of your ebmonpoint mammaries is a welcome dab to the eye. May I have a tall glass of your finest swill, and may I bother you for a pen and my little book of big words

... 

Ah I thank you. now if you will excuse me I will retire to my corner, to try and realize my lofty ideas"

Pen.

Notebook.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Is this it, god?” he asked No answer that's answer enough

Picking a cigarette from behind his ear looking down Teflon street 

Earlier he said “I think I’ll stick around” But since then he’d slipped into doubt

Littering the pavement with cigarette stubs and regret

Euthanizing new born ideas to save them from a world

Of incredible mad men and flaccid stagnant sages 

Who would molest the shivering children of missionaries

As they clung to the eaves of a shell shocked city Fishing for meals of lungs and kidneys from kitchens Along Rat boulevard from inside the chimneys of sewers or when offered In the music boxes of awkward strangers

With skin disorders and heart pump attendants

The music of his own childhood lay drunk in the gutter He only stopped to listen once

By the record store which had been boarded up and seamed, deaf, unintelligent

The dead friend who busked on this corner had asked If he would play violin at the funeral He had promised but forgotten

Things didn’t seem to be worth remembering anymore

Perhaps he’d keep an eye fixed firmly on the needle in his arm

And learn to ask the right questions “Careful they might be listening”

“Who said that?” “I did”

He put a hand to his temples and felt the unease 

Of seven days on the road And eating leftovers out of bowls fashioned from dead wood The road left him standing on a strangely familiar corner

It continued, nonetheless, its journey towards the abortion clinic

Where babies were borne everyday And interns would lose their lunches and minds

Vomiting in the alley behind the primary school 

On his corner the old conjurer gestured with a pleading smile Inviting him into a smouldering bath house for the evening matinee Instead

He scowled and skewered the lock into his house politely ignoring the old man

And sat practising politics with his inanimate imagination 

Picking at the last cigarette behind his awe-full ear Tracing the puncture marks

Between his wrist and elbow along make-believe cuts Wrapping the entrails of the day around a crucifix He had stolen from an anonymous bus seat somewhere between

Consciousness and a faraway destination

The telephone jabbed his ear knocking a cigarette off .She was on the other side screaming at him “How could you see something happen and do nothing!”

As he reached to where the cigarette had rolled under the tea coloured coffee table

He could only presume the suicidal girl had died and there was no use in this conversation

He lit the cigarette and looked out his window

Cold with a fever and malcontent 

Pissing into a bottle beside his bed he fell over deadened by having to wake up the next day and do it all over again

'Why am I here' No answer No use asking a user

There's no getting away from a funeral of a suicide girl buried under a glue factory. The meat boys are here and their ladies as pretty as butcher-flies .She was still screaming at him he wished the effort would ride her hoarse and get her the fuck out of dodge. As per the deceased request the priest was thankfully drunk he didn't mind her screaming at him too I would have, if I paid her, it, him, them any mind

Back on Teflon Street

I am afraid of the men in white coats. Now the fear is more urgent than ever, because I don't know if they'll be sent for me from the asylum in the cul de sac next to the orphanage or they'll be coming from the abattoir

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I thank you for your gregarious company and your sympathetic absence of interference as I went about my toil, now I will take my leave"

"You forgot to pay your tab"

"Don't I always, if not only to weasle a sentence out of you even if it is one of bored complaint, however, it is only with great joy that I give unto Caesar what it is Caesar's -- Adieu"

Telephone?

Telephone?

Telephone?

Port. Follow Cord. Fridge.

I think: I hate cold calls

"Hi, Hello. I didn't wake you did I just wanted..."

"Oh it's you... Honey it's him

...Hi are you okay? I was trying to call you. I was getting worried. I was about to come over"

"No, no, I'm fine. I was going to call in the morning but..."

"Did you get the ink ribbon?"

"Ink ribbon? No. I threw out the fax machine, and you used the money elsehow. Look I need a favour."

"That was the last R300 I had on m..."

"No I need you to switch on the recorder"

"Oh wait hang on a second

...

Yeah! Is this the play?

"No file it under untitled"

"Alright go"

"

'Is this it, god?' he asked

There was no answer 

that's answer enough

He picked a cigarette from behind his ear and looked down passed his footwear at Teflon street 

Earlier he said “I think I’ll stick around”

But since then he’d slipped into doubt, littering the pavement with cigarette stubs and regret

The music of his own childhood lay drunk in the gutter 

He only stopped to listen once, by the record store which had since been boarded up and seemed spelt s-e-a-m-e-d 

deaf unintelligent

The dead friend who busked on this corner had asked

If she could play violin at the funeral. She was told he could. 

She had promised she would but had forgotten and killed herself instead

Things didn’t seem to be worth remembering anymore, for her and everyone else

He instead would keep an eye fixed firmly on the needle in his arm

And learn to ask the right questions

'Careful they might be listening'

'Who said that?'

'I did'

He put a hand to his temples and felt the unease of seven days on the road and eating leftovers out of bowls fashioned from driftwood

The road left him standing on a strangely familiar corner; one way it continued, nonetheless, a journey towards the abortion clinic where babies were borne everyday

And interns would lose their lunches and minds

Vomiting in the alley behind adjacent the primary school 

On his corner the old conjurer gestured with a pleading smile 

Inviting him into a smouldering bath house for the evening matinee

Instead he scowled and skewered the lock into his house impolitely ignoring the old man

And sat practising politics with his inanimate imagination

Picking at the last cigarette behind his aweful ear

Tracing the puncture marks between his wrist and elbow along make-believe cuts

Wrapping the entrails of the day around a crucifix 

He had stolen from an anonymous bus seat somewhere between

Consciousness and a faraway destination

The telephone jabbed his ear knocking a cigarette off.

She was on the other side screaming at him 

'How could you see something happen and do nothing!'

As he reached to where the cigarette had rolled under the tea coloured coffee table

He could only presume she knew the suicidal girl had died and there was no use in this conversation

He lit the cigarette and looked out his window

Cold with a fever and malcontent 

Pissing into a bottle beside his bed he fell over deadened by having to wake up the next day and do it all over again

...That's it"

"Okay, I'll transcribe it tomorrow and send it to you for proof"

"Thanks"

Cigarette.

"Goodnight"

Lighter.

Inhale.