Category Archives: life

by

run-a-tum

 

Since I was young

I am on the run

Now, more old,

I am still running,

so I am told

 

I ran away from that,

that ran towards me

Upon reflection, I can see

how I was getting lost

in loneliness and fear

and rejecting even that,

that was dear

 

Running is my freedom

from the prison of my fate,

and the buried past

which keeps a live debate

and reminds of something

which stayed behind

Now I speed along malaligned

 

Running is my surname

Loss and pain, a restless brain,

a song  in minor

with a sad refrain

Sometimes a tear in private

often I am running with disquiet

 

A constant fear to be too late

Imagine dreams thus escape?

The death of me is any wait

Therefore, night and day

I follow and obey

Running is my way,

bluffing also is okay

 

I run even though

my running days are done

But,

some say it looks like tumbling now

’cause all my pose is gone

 

The further that I disappear

the happier I be, — I think

But, there are teardrops in my ink

as happiness runs too,

from the one who runs

from you

 

Running, — my escape

towards a destination called ‘Away’

Tumbling, a persuasive way

to stay and not forsake

 

*Picture credit: The Emoji Movie

 

by

of did and didn’t do

A few times he did
Many times he didn’t
He doesn’t know why
He had his cry

A grown-up kid
Oh Lord forbid
Still doing what he didn’t
and what he did

Reading this stirs me to choose
This is what I want to do:
Change my old pair of shoes!

Do better
and less of what doesn’t matter

Look ahead, ’cause looking back
always puts me off track

Express what I think
so it doesn’t make anyone flinch

Know you some more
Move on from before

Dance in your joy
Be your happy boy

Embrace your love
Treat you like a dove

Listen when you call
Stop playing only my ball

Understand your pain
Empathy doesn’t shame

Feel your need
and not misread

Explore your dreams
Bathe in your light beams

Unite against your fears
Pioneer your frontier

Join you in distress
Help clear away the mess

Be your other side
A backup on your ride

Return your touch
My senses never get too much

Explore your passion
Confession beneath layered fashion

Answer your questions
Provide some suggestions

Disperse your pain
like blades of a weathervane

Sing along your song
professing loud and strong

Taste your tears
The sweetest salt is here

Treasure your laugh
with full measures, not half

Smile when you smile
mile after mile

Take your hand
Together we stand

Hold you close
Let other’s say “look at those”

Watch you dance
Your movement is my trance

Kiss you to sleep
That’s so romantique

Scent your hair
Stoke this affair

Catch you looking at me
Crazy, like the sting from a fairy bee

by

egging around

Life is about sitting on an egg, — partially.

When you’re sitting on top of an egg,
– and be honest, I think we are all trying to hatch something, –
and nothing happens for too long,
there is something wrong with the egg you’re sitting on.

Nothing is wrong with you, — of course not.
You did your time and probably more than was necessary.

No bird sits on an egg longer than they intrinsically know they have to, and neither should we.

If you want to bring something about:
manifest something,
change your circumstance, change your beingness.
If nothing happens,
get off and find another egg.

If you water a seed or seedling and it doesn’t grow,
you don’t continue indefinitely, do you?
Cui bono?
There must be a benefit; else, what are you doing it for?

Maybe herein lies the problem:
We are the egg and the hen.
Between being both we get side-tracked.
We hen around when we should also egg around.
And both hen and egg have a best before date too.
Or, perhaps our egg got swapped while we were inattentive or in cloud-cuckoo-land. We might be sitting on a dinosaur egg that takes epochs to hatch,
and we only have a human lifetime.
Another more sinister reason could be that there is no egg for us. A hiccup in nature, an oversight, or perhaps a deliberate message of:
“You are wasting your time here, you should be somewhere else, sorry (hu)man, internal error, – reboot.”

I don’t think sitting on an egg is that much fun,
especially when the dream of what that egg was supposed to become has lost its verve.

In the process of incubation and brooding, you have probably also attracted a severe bout of eggshaustion.
Rest is advised but time is limited because it is now already ‘time minus one egg’.

Time and eggs clearly have some agreement.
Maybe ten time units are one egg unit, or who knows?
And, you are entering into major guesswork as to how many time and egg units are available to you.

At this stage of disillusionment with reality and eggs, you might want to run away to an island and just hangout and relax.

When that escape starts feeling like another egg, is it now the right egg? There’s nobody really around that could answer that question. Eggvisors are few and far between, if not entirely mythical. And, other islanders egging it out don’t strike you as the right reference model.

It is not inconceivable that at this moment you might decide,
“WTF, I’ll just grab an egg that looks nice and sit on it and see.”

The point is that when that first egg doesn’t hatch
and we finally decide to move on to another egg,
unless some inbuilt direction finder kicks in
and sets our compass pointing north again in our life,
we could become abandoned eggs or hens without a head.

Now, the second (nth) time around,
we have to apply extra amped-up effort and employ every ounce of skill and wisdom to bring our life together and make sense of it,
— and not accept a watered-down make-believe or a shortlived fake brochure version, —
so we can find that satisfaction which is inherent when our right egg hatches.

by

Rechtfertigung – Justification 

Sometimes thoughts use another language.
English translation is a few stanza's down.

Der Gräuel der Rechtfertigung
Wahnsinn und Unsinn
Unser Schweigen
 noch mehr Dunkelheit
 belastet mit Schuld

Ich bin dabei
 mit Augen nur, nicht mit Herz
Abscheuliches reißt an meiner Seele
 und doch stehe auch ich mitten drin

Ich schaue zu und baue Worte
Auf dem Grund fließt das Blut
Schreie wie damals
Die Schatten der Rache
Erbrechen von Säure und Hass
Gestern mit Messern
 und Schwertern und Gas,
 heute mit Kugeln
 und jetzt mach ich Dich tot!

Weg mit Euch allen!
 Unmenschlichkeit!
 Teufelsbrut!
Niemand ist Farbenblind
 und doch ist alles schwarz-weiß
Mein Gott sagt dies
 und meiner sagt das

Wenn Du, dann Ich auch
 wenn nicht, dann trotzdem
Vernichten, Alle und das System

Gelehrte Insassen
 reiche getrieben bei Macht,
 sie erobern uns
 wie das Vieh auf dem Weg zur Schlacht

Ich kämpfe zurück
Meine Stimme erbricht
Ein Leben, ein Wunsch,
 die Freiheit, ein Land

Ihr nehmt von mir
Aber ich habe doch nichts
Ich flehe
Besinnt Euch
Wacht auf
Meine Kugeln sind Tränen
Meine Bomben das Wort

Streck aus Deine Hand
Lass fallen die Axt
Es geht um die Menschheit
— nicht Gott, Ihr tapferen Krieger
 und nicht um den eigenen Akt

+++++++++===========+++++++++

The disgrace of justification
Insanity and nonsense
Our silence
 creating even more darkness
 loaded with guilt

I am part,
 with my eyes but not my heart
Horrid forces tear my soul
 while I stand amidst the turmoil

I watch and build words
On the ground the blood flows
Screams of the past
Shadows of revenge
Vomition of acid and hate
Yesterday it was knifes and swords
 and gas,
 today it's the bullet
 and I will kill you!

Cease ye to exist!
Barbarians!
Devils disciples!
No one is colour-blind
And yet all is black and white
My G_d says this
 and my G_d says that

If you do, then I will too
If you don’t I will still do
Annihilate all, and the system too

The learned
 and those driven by power,
 they conquer us,
 like livestock destined for the abattoir

I fight back
My voice breaks
One life, a wish,
 freedom,
 and a country of my own

You take from me
But what do I have?
I plead
Please rethink your actions
Wake up
My bullets are tears
My bombs are words

Reach out your hand
Let go of that axe
This is about humanity
 not the kingdom of G_d,
You are all brave soldiers,
 no need to fight
 and this is not your final Act
by

eternity + 1

DSC_5002.JPG
Here is another day
Yippee!

I see some more
I hear
I feel
I think
I smile
I love
I give
I am

Perhaps today I learn
and understand
the real reason
why I’m here?

And if I find it,
would it change me
or
would I change it?

What is ahead
along my way?
Why am I still here?

Another sunrise
and an evening with you

Another melody
to this song
of my life

Another elegy
to the time
of me and you

Eternity plus one day
That is the present
of today

by

twice to die 

Who I was then...

  has not brought me here.

I came by some accord
  the voice of which
  is difficult to hear.
 
Footsteps lost in dust.
History with the past.
Nothing really lasts
  even with an iron grasp.
 
A quick creation.
Fleeting salvation
  followed by soul starvation
  and incessant rumination.
 
Who I am now
  was impossible to see
  in that seed
  whence I came to be.
 
Inside this human shape,
  — someway, somehow,
  there was a plan
  I could not know.
 
Searching did not reveal.
For years the genuine seed
  remained under seal.
No matter how deep you dig
  or high you fly
  that seed wants you to die.
 
One day the dice rolls on.
And while you aren’t aware
  that seed becomes your swan.
It turns your life right around
  and lifts you off the ground.
 
See,
  Second life
  comes from a story
  written in your book.
Regardless what, 
  it will weave its way
  to glory
  and give you 
  what the first life took.

Until the ink runs out then,
  I shall define my life
  through the pen...
by

Defrost

pain-smoke-death

My heart screams. My brain finds no rest.

I have to speak out, and simultaneously I condemn any ridiculous arguments that attempt to justify harming even ONE human being in the process.
(i.e. It is absurd to assume that everyone nearing the fence in the Gaza strip is a Hamas terrorist?)

I see mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters and loved ones in hellish agony. All of this has found echo in my head. Images of the affected in this progressive hate saga between Israelis & Palestinians continually interrupt my whole stream of consciousness when awake and asleep.

The future is for the young first, and only then it is for the rest of us. Alas, there is no future in this case. There is only hate and pain and segregation. Known also as Apartheid, this system forcefully singles out a group of people in the most demeaning, derogatory, insensitive, insulting and inhumane way. As is proven once more here, such systems are upheld by the powerful and the victims are depicted as the villains, who one has to be protected from at all cost, even by murder.

The world is mostly ruled by the old and stubborn who don’t waver from their stance and who continually garner support for what they think is the rightful cause, bending the ear of those who elected them.

When rulers bring war and destruction and hate instead of wisdom, love and peace, then you know they are the wrong leaders.

My roots reach deep into two countries: South Africa and Germany. Both have experienced the worst of humanity. The rainbow also doesn’t shine every day in our rainbow nation but the rainbow will forever be in our minds when we remember the atrocities of the past.

An answer can never be found in war, fences, concentration camps and human abuse.

Also, no answers are found when these leaders sit together because they will never agree as long as they insist on playing chess.

The solution lies with the young and innocent and the dreamers, thinkers and innovators.
They have to sit together and define what they want because the world belongs to them, and not to the warring, dead of conscience fanatics tainted with the brush of history, self-righteousness and other ills.

Analysing history, as we are known to do, should teach us how to deal with the future. Why don’t we get it?
All naysayers out there have a closer look at the miraculous, peaceful transformation of South Africa.

Where there is a will there is a way!

What is immediately required is a human bridge, an influx of support from all nations to stand with the oppressed, confused and petrified.

“Bring the future back to those who have lost it.”

I call on all in the world, young and old, to do this for those who suffer.

The promise of life only exists if you have a future.

“A denied future is dead life.”

Could any conscience live with such a thought any longer than a moment, let alone decades?

Let there be a human curtain made out of every living fabric that says: ‘Stop and change.’
Dismantle the barricades, the obstructions, the walls and fences and melt the ice of the frozen.

The time to forcefully exclude and deny has no space in the 21st century.

Here is an appeal to the big operators, profit-machines, life-changers, innovators and altruists and philanthropists, to dedicate a paragraph in a chapter of their book in their life to aid in solving this human catastrophe now. The affected parties can’t solve it: the UN can’t, and other nations can’t but the people of the world can. Some things are beyond governing bodies; they are in the individual hands of humanity across all and any divide.

This is an appeal to all the young and spirited and compassionate, — who cannot sleep another night just like I at 0230 this morning, — to create a tsunami, an avalanche, an eruption of change through their presence and their voice.

Let the airlines offer free tickets for this human cause. Let the food companies and all industries that make huge profits provide shelter and food for those heeding the cause.

Let it be a humanitarian evolution. Call it the Sunrise of Humanity. Let all nations congregate where weapons currently decide human fate. Let the flags of 190+ nations stare down any aggression from either side.

Will you shoot my flag?

May every soldier with a weapon become aware not only of the responsibility to his country/people but also the responsibility to humanity.

Could you bear the burden for the rest of your life of being a traitor to any one of them?

Let us be part of this movement lest we want to be judged for non-action when our conscience faces its last breath.

Do something. Anything. Everybody, do it. Make music, write, paint, go there…,we have to roll that drama over and bring those, who had the unimaginable happen in the life of their ancestors, to the realization of their inhumane actions. History is wagging a very irritated finger.

My old Zulu friend Jameson ‘Umkuhlu’ Mthembu speaks from deep within his wise soul when he says,

umkuhlu1

 

 

“Don’t put a fridge by your heart,”

 

 

 

…not for longer than a few hours or at most a day or two.

“Everyone:  your time is up,”

that is quite obvious to all and yourself.

One of the critical human lessons and actions towards progress is that you have to put ‘stuff’ behind you in order to move forward. — Do it!

It is time to defrost.

*Picture from AFP on http://www.spiegel.de