Chronicles of A Quiet Voice

He visits me. A doomed apparition, he materialised out the dark Transfixed in horror and disbelief as I met him With my swift indiscriminate metal and might. We promptly unmet to an aftermath Of bones broken and blood spilling. From birth, forty four years ago, I journeyed through time and space; From birth, twenty nine years ago, Also, he journeyed through time and space; To a spot, a stretch of tarmac, nondescript and mundane. I recollect, with shudders as I do, How bones and flesh sound; How wind howls through splintered windscreens; How a seemingly ordinary night without moon, Enveloped in eerie silence all around, Can give birth to my play and his play, Unfolding in our pre-ordained drama. I mean, think about it. What are the odds that we should have met so; At that precise moment, that black place, In such an unfair manner, both horribly surprised, If not that ever since, we had been converging, With our bags of mistakes, towards each other? And so, that dark night we unwitti...

(This is a rap verse I wrote back in 1998 when I had delusions of grandeur, immersing myself in day-dreams of being a hip hop artist! But Life happened!) T he tide of Life flows like blood through the artery; A deluge interlaced with despair and fantasy. The Survival Rush transcends all boundaries Amid disorder, chaos and corruption maladies. But you're a beacon, so go light up a torch; When you peep a man in need, step up and support. We're in African streets and the poverty rules Receiving handouts because beggars can't choose. The primitive foundation is prevalent all over; Under modernized tenements strewn all over; Sprouting concrete jungles, eroded old cultures Eaten like carcasses perked by vultures. Ancient ways and creeds seep into the sands, As time and chance cruise across the motherlands. The changing of times is so unstoppable, Like the process of dying, so unconquerable. I got beauty divine, standing up, I’m proud, Gone wild since they wounded the African chil...

In the business of money or fashion where the cutthroat life of touch and go roars; in the prim societal circles we have set up where etiquette is an in-vogue, idolised set of behaviours to treasure; in the gossip halls of fame and infamy where cruel giggles and sneers are deployed to castigate; it is said fervently that the rule is FIRST IMPRESSIONS ARE KING. But you, my child, are in the transcendent business of Him who lives. And in this business, it is FIRST VISIONS that count. You must look a murderer in the eye and see an evangelist in five years' time; or, say, an indifferent wealthy woman and all you see is a person who needs hope. First impressions don't live here because then mankind would be doomed. After all, your Master himself on Earth was not worthy of a second look, being a nondescript, poor, humble man...

Woe is me for God spat me out. For, being neither hot nor cold, I was lukewarm.  And spit, where it falls, is inert, It gets trampled upon, And dust coats it and dust soon it becomes. It gets assimilated back into Earth.  Yet God still remembers His spit And deigns to look its way always, Hoping that, because now it is Earth, It will soon spring up in splendour To surprise Him with delight and joy. So He throws seeds its way still; A woman, a marriage, children, Life, health, occupation....  And spit receives and is glad and is happy  And is content. But Time is not on spit's side....