Mother's Cake

Come here, my daughter. Sit down and listen to me carefully. Today it’s Mother’s Day. Did you know that? Okay that’s fine. So now that you know, aren’t you gonna wish Mommy a happy one? Thanks, love. It sounds so sweet coming from your mouth and makes me feel proud to be your mother. You know that I love you, don’t you? Great. And you know your father loves you too. Why do you shake your head? Say that again louder, angel, I didn’t hear it. You’re not sure your father loves you? Come sit on Mommy’s lap now. It’s okay, come, come. Ahh, look at that little smile! Sit on me and hug me tight. Ooh, so heavy now – ten is such a heavy number. Now listen to Mommy. Daddy isn’t always around because Daddy is a very busy man. But that doesn’t mean Daddy doesn’t love you. Do you understand, my Love? Good. Daddy is a very loving father and he loves you as much as I do. When he comes back next week, look him in the eye and ask him, ‘Daddy, do you love me?’ He will tell it all to you.  I’m always here with you. I’ve always been with you even before you were born. That is why I’m your mother.  And let me tell you something very important about Daddy. Daddy has always been with you before you were conceived. That is, he’s been with you before you became a part of me. Worry not, you’ll understand, one day. Look how grown up you are now.  Remember yesterday you said to me that teacher taught you how to bake?  Wonderful. Now, let’s get into the kitchen. You will bake Mommy a Happy Mother’s Day cake.  

Grey Suit and Red Suit

“You need not argue nor protest. This is an order,” the man in a grey suit says and stands up. They were only two in the high-security room. The man in the grey suit walked towards the man in a red suit. “This is the only solution,” he insists and the red-suit man nods, almost reluctantly. “Just go ahead and cut down your civil service. It’s the right thing to do. Forget conscience. Its money matters here. It’s your economy at stake here.” The grey-suit man continues and places a leather case on the table. The letters IMF are monogrammed on its sleek side. He snaps the case open, plugs out a capsule and hands it to the red-suit man. “Swallow this,” he says. His lips curl with a sly, mirthless smile. “This will give you courage and insensitivity – so you can carry on with your mission.” The red-suit man snatches the pill and throws it in his mouth. His eyes roll as he swallows the bitter bill. The canopy of his hair seems to stretch bigger from the effects of the pill – like a pitch-black cauliflower.  The grey-suit man nods in satisfaction. “Good boy,” he says. “Remember, the guys at Wall Street are watching you. You don’t want to wind up like that stubborn old nimrod across the fence, do you?” Red suit shakes his head. “Do the right thing and your country will remain in our good files. Find reasons to cut them down. Anything. When they strike, cut them down further. Accuse them of 'financial embarrassment' and cut them down. Just find any reason, logical or not. We want them reduced.” 
The red-suit man nods, firmly this time. “Can I have another pill?” he asks.

“Sure! Why not?” Grey suit says and pats red suit on the shoulder. “Swallow as many as you can and slash them. It's our New World Order.”

The Value of X (Poem)

The axe chop came without any warning whatsoever

Pronouncing him yet another axe victim
Ex-soldier, ex-lover, ex-husband
Extricated and considered extraterrestrial
Expelled and flung into the explosive world of extreme expenses
Experiencing exploitations and explorations
Through expeditions against which he felt exhausted
His own expressions
Threatened to extinguish his very existence

Nails dig deeper to exhume and extract without exception
An exact explanation of this extraordinary exhibition of these extravagant axes
Excellent
It’s an extra examination extended right from those excommunicated exercises
Exotic yeah they are
He turns around feeling the exigency
Lethargic as he is
Exuberance is but a dream
Maybe for someone else
Not an ex-officio in exile
Threatened with execution
Minds alike facing extinction instead of expansion

They say he exasperates them
Although they cannot explain it
So they call him expatriate
Feeling so excited that they can finally exchange him without any excuse
They know he excels
Something they cannot extol
Accused and facing a number of charges
They consider him explicit, excrement, exasperatingEtcetera, etcetera
He just have to sit down
Solve the equation and find the value of X

The Value of X (Sample Track)

Courtesy of Wired Productions, Botswana, The Value of X is a sample track from my upcoming album Poetic Meditations, due for release soon. You can listen to it on this link in YouTube. Feel free to download and share. Any feedback is welcome.

And here is the YouTube link

http://youtu.be/_ABjIGUI-XE

ENJOY. 

Can't Stop Reading and Writing

One thing that amuses me about reading is; it doesn’t matter what kind of a book it is that you’re reading, by the time you finish reading, you’d have learned a few things, or more. I’ve come to realise that contrary to popular belief, there really isn’t a bad book and a good book. Or maybe, if there is such a thing as bad and good books, all these books have something to teach or show or tell - be they fiction, factual, or faction. I’m just about to start reading a motivational book titled ‘You Can If You Think You Can’ by Norman Vincent Pearle. It sure seems like the right stuff to begin the year with. I intend to kick up the new year with vigour and spirit that I know will unleash the fullness of my potential. The instigation of a new season, I believe, should be embraced with not only hope for the best but a determined and head-on launch of oneself towards achievement.

But before I can start reading this book, I need to finish off the one I’m now reading. It’s a Stephen King called ‘Hearts in Atlantis’. Yes, it’s fiction. There’s this twisted and uninformed belief amongst many that fiction stories are baseless and not worthy of reading. You’ll hear someone saying, “My days of reading fiction are over, I now read ‘serious’ stuff,” or “I don’t read fiction, it’s a waste of time.”

Well, I don’t purport to know all, nor pretend to be a wise man. But what I learned over the years is that fiction books or novels aren’t about lies and non-existent characters and plots. Novel writers go through intensive research and dig out a lot of information which can be very beneficial to the reader. Through their stories, they take the reader on an expedition the reader would have never travelled and expose things previously unknown to the reader. The characters may be fictitious, perhaps the happenings (storyline) as well. But the backdrops against which the stories are told are, in many cases, very real and revealing and teaching. Although the characters are fictitious, they are, in a way, genuine. They have real behavior and real responses to the environment. In Stephen King’s Hearts in Atlantis, I’m learning a lot of historical facts, told, of course, through characters and some events that probably never happened. But the crux of the matter here is; I’m learning a lot.

King is, without doubt, one of the world’s greatest writers. I’ve read him since high school but in this book of his, he’s taken me by full surprise. Somehow he has veered away from his trademark horror stories and weaved gripping tales that tell stories of life in the sixties. I enjoy the light hearted approach in storytelling and the humor laced through his airtight writing technique. His characters jump out of the page and stay with me right in my room. Even after all these years, King is still the king.

Whenever I read, I feel a surge of energy gushing through me; like bright floodlights of wisdom. After reading I always feel an overwhelming urge to type the keys of my computer and fill pages with a series of words. It looks like I’m not going to stop reading and writing any time soon. If anything, I’m going to type even faster and write more than I did before. I want to write until my computer runs out of pages. I want to write until the curser can’t blink anymore. 

I just don’t want to stop writing.

Fasten Your Seatbelts

In this new season, Dredd X comes forth will fulfillment of promises made ages ago. Some people had, in fact, given up on some of these promises, perceiving them perhaps as farfetched folklore. But in a few days to come, Dredd X’s album, Poetic Meditations, for which many had been awaiting with enduring patience, will drop like a bomb shell in shop shelves. In this 15 tracks poetry album, Botswana will experience, for the first time, musical poetry that nourishes the soul and fills up the heart. Themes in this album are widely varied and every head out there will surely have their favourite pick. Right now Dredd X is shooting a video for ‘Womankind’, one of the tracks in the album.

This isn’t all. Dredd X will come with even more surprise packages in this new season. Currently at Live Wire Recording Studios, he’s voicing songs over reggae ‘riddims’ produced by giants in the international reggae industry. If you thought Dredd X is just a poet, and not a singer, well, you’ll be in for a surprise. Well, let me let you into a little secret; Dredd X was, some ten years ago, a member of a mushrooming band called The Ambassadors in Johannesburg. He was the band’s song writer, rhythm guitarist and lead vocalist. These were days long before the art of poetry and spoken word consumed him.

When 2012 ended, Dredd X lamented that the year was quite rough and tough and brutal in many realms and numerous facets of his life. Now when I ask him about what he anticipates this year, he flashes his timid yet densely touching smile and says, ‘2013 is my year. Ask God. Sometimes the adage that good things comes to those who wait can be true.’

So please, fasten your seatbelts and ready yourselves. Here comes Dredd X