God's Storyboard.

Artist looked at the blank pages. Plotted a storyline, a storyboard of a life. In pencils he draws an outline of the way the story should go. In inks and paints he fills the images in. He starts with the background; the figure in the painting is still in shadow. He lovingly fills in the scenes making them come to life, making them burst into color.

The character is painted in, from birth to present. The future is still penciled in, but no inks and paints yet. The storyboard has been written but as every artist knows characters can be stubborn and sometimes story scripts have to be changed. Some subjects don’t know their place; they want to break free from their storyline. They wriggle and giggle. The artist knows what’s best but sometimes the story has to develop on its own, to be natural you see.

The art of life is a painting. God is the artist and I am the subject in the painting. This is my storyboard. I’m living my story, trying to live it the way he wants it. Although I sometimes challenge and change the storyline the artist is still there for me. He wants to color beauty and grace into the painting. The artist has a plan for this comic strip; from birth to death he has set the number of blank scripts.

The artist’s plan is the ultimate, to make me a superhero, conquering situations and foes, creating allies to get me ahead. Now that this character finally knows her place in the story, she is content to let the artist colour in the scenes, to complete and script the storyboard that is her life.

Mirage

Love is a mirage. It looks good from far, a lake in the distance. A drink for the desperate, simmering in the sunlight and making one hope for good things. Love is an illusion, a magic trick that tricks the heart that life is all romance, flowers and candy. Love fools the wise and the foolish, making a mockery of us all. Love makes the heart expand like a ballon then as a trick of fate it makes the heart burst with too much pain. Love is like a rose thats so pretty you want to have it but when you get it there are thorns that make the heart to bleed. Love, a mirage for the dying in the desert of loneliness.

The voices in my head

Bubbling, like the sweet taste of bubble gum and the way it blows up like a balloon. Words, thoughts run across the brain and ink drops form words. Imagination runs wild, running away from the nets that try to catch it, cage it and study it. Its like the animaniacs driving the brain wild, those that cant understand they break under the strain and the psychiatist couch they fill trying to understand the meaning of life, and why they are depressed and why are all these people talking in their heads. I listen to the voices in my head. The ghosts of past, present and future. The voice of experience says not to tread that path again. We got burnt there. The voice of character talks to me now. Let go of the past and build for the future. What you want for tomorrow must be established today. The voice of promise speaks of tomorrow and shows brief snapshots of tomorrow and where I may be. Yet I stand wobbling on today, torn between my past; its mistakes, successes and their consequences, my present; its uncertainities and opportunities, and the future; with its twisted paths and kaleidoscopes of hope or despair. The voices in my head call, should I listen or ignore?

When the cradle falls

I can hear your laughter echoing,
Bubbling as it does when a child laughs.
Innocent, you cling to your mother,
A shadow following her wherever she went.
Your world was secure, until death struck,
In an instant, a heartbeat, Daddy died.
No understanding had you,
“Where was Daddy?” you cried.
In your childish babble of unfinished words,
A language of babies, you wanted Daddy.
Your heart ached because daddy didn’t come back,
And you clung tighter to mum, not understanding why.
Your laughter was quieter, more reflective.
A blow had been dealt,
Though you didn’t understand, you understood.
Four months later, my heart aches,
Breaks, unwept tears burning in my heart.
In the twinkling of an eye the death angel took you.
Disbelief.
Mind can’t take that I will never see you again.
Gone too soon at 2 1/2 years of age.
No more laughter and bright spark.
No more babble of childish speak,
Giggles, greetings and good byes.
No more, the cradle has fallen.

For Mwangi, a little angel friend of mine who went to sleep last week and awoke in Jesus arms. I will remember you always.

Dear God. Thanks for the grace period here on earth!

Hey there Daddy.

Thanks for not coming on Saturday. I was prepared to go but I do have very many loose ends to tie up. And you know I need to work for that mansion. Now that the rapture didn’t happen I could use your help. I need a favor, a miracle actually. Could you multiply my remaining salary just like you multiplied the fish and the bread?

Things are crazy with the rising cost of living. Sometimes I feel like am working to transport myself to work and then back home. It seems I am working for the matatus and not my employee. Then there's those other bills electricity and water. God do you get the feeling sometimes that we may have to go back to being a candle and firewood economy? Our electricity provider has raised their rates. Never mind that half the time electricity is a ghost in our homes appearing and disappearing like apparition. It’s a shame the company makes billions off of people like me yet they don’t give me value for money. The water company well the water only comes between 2pm and 6pm and it’s a trickle which makes me wonder whether that’s my second job, waiting for containers to fill so that we can have water.

It’s like everything has gone haywire. The food prices have gone up, actually everything has gone up. The only things that haven’t changed are my salary and politicians. That’s not a comforting thought. I wonder what planet our politicians come from. They seem to speak a different language and they seem to be seeing yet blind. They are so caught up in trying to vie for elections a year away yet they can’t tell me what they have done for me so far. Our MP's are just white elephant projects, Good on paper but cant or wont work in the field. Maybe you could touch my employer’s heart and we could get a raise, based on inflation. You can’t see it happening well neither can I, but I can dream and miracles happen right?

Actually when I think about what’s happening I get depressed. Maybe it’s not a good thing that we are still here; maybe Saturday’s exit would have been a plan. But it’s cool. I know I can survive anything as long as you’re with me. You make everything bearable because otherwise I might go mad. Help me get through this rough time and get me to the other side.

You know Jeremiah 29 is a gift for me, because it shows me that you have a plan for me. I may not understand it. I may not see where it’s going; its kinda like those thriller movies with a surprise ending where you say wow well I did not see that coming. I believe it. I know a lot of people don’t but I do. After all the stuff you’ve gotten me through the rest will be a piece of cake. I’m hanging my whole life on that verse that you know the plans you have for me, plans for good and not for evil, to give me a hope and a future. God make my future so bright I got to wear shades.
Later,

Rayhab.

P. .S. Kisses and hugs to Jesus.

Dear God - subject: End of the world

I hear that you’re coming tomorrow the 21st of May at 6 p.m. You’re so punctual. You know I never believed in that prophecy seeing as to how Jesus said that no one knows the hour of your coming. But just to be on the safe side let me be like the 5 wise virgins and keep extra oil. I am confessing all of my sins right now.

It’s been nice knowing you here on earth. I know I have been like a rebellious teenager but look I think am actually maturing. It would be nice if you didn’t have a little black book with my sins when I get there, ok, volumes of black books. I hear you show a video of someone's life and what they did while they were on earth. I have just one request; don’t let my mum be in the room. She would kill me. I know you understand these things.

Anyway I wanted to know since I am going to have my own shack, am still working on getting a mansion, can I choose the color? By the way will it be like a hotel where I can order from the menu. Do you have ice-cream and crisps in heaven? It wouldn’t really be heaven if it didn’t.

Am really excited to be meeting Jesus in person. I know alot of people will be shocked to find out his black and not white with blue eyes and blond hair. Well they will get over it. I know it will be the best fun ever. Being in your presence and hanging out with you.

Anyway I know you’re busy. You’re getting heaven sparkling clean for the visitors tomorrow so I should let you get to it.

Love you and see you tomorrow, if that’s when your coming to earth for your loved ones. If not we are still cool. I would love a chance to work on getting that mansion you know, now that I have sowed my wild oats.

Later.

Rayhab.

Jumping without a parachute (for Wamathai)

Fear should be studied as a disease,
Being as to how it cripples the vision,
And paralyses the brain.
Fear blinds,
Makes grown men quake and shiver.
It makes alcohol and drugs a medicine to chase away the nightmare,
But causes addiction instead, a crutch for chasing fear.
I must admit its gripped me,
Held me in its claws,
Made me doubt I can make it.
But I’m gaining strength,
Fighting fear with courage and determination.
You taught me not to be afraid,
Pursuing THE DREAM is worth the fight.
I'm jumping without a parachute,
Jumping in faith that a trampoline shall find me,
Bounce me back up.
Life's too short to live in fear.
Take courage, hold my hand
And let’s take a leap.

(To my first book, I toast, that in December around the time I celebrate my birthday I shall have a brand new baby, a book with the working title of "reflections of the sun").

My Nairobi

Nairobi;
City in the sun, the city of dreams.
Of skyscrapers and glass that reflects the sun.
Where dreams come true,
With a quick deal or two.
Where education is priceless,
But it is only a door, kimenyano is the key.
A place of jobs aplenty, you can make it you see,
Of streets of tarmac, where well polished shoes tread,
Looking for that job or that deal,
Each day looking for that golden chance to become a millionaire.
Those roads that support Mercedes, Prado’s, Lexus and
The ever faithful Toyota.
The city with millions of worker drones,
Walking and driving to work,
White collar, blue collar and t-shirt types.
The city that never sleeps,
Bars, dens and hotels open 24 hours a day,
A place of fun and laughter.
Where crisp bank notes, plastic money and electronic money,
Magically pursue anything that the heart desires.
A place of blended cultures, and blended children,
Of mixed marriages, and accents from different lands can be heard.
The place where different communities live in harmony,
And where languages flow like water and new language is formed,
Blended into new tongues that only the young can speak.
The city of uniforms: suits, overalls, school uniforms and work garments.
The Nairobi of dreams.

Nairobi;
The city of broken dreams and nightmares.
Where degrees are worthless, and their owners are pounding streets,
Looking for that elusive dream they were promised,
Go to university and a great job is guaranteed.
The city of corrugated iron sheets houses.
Of broken families, where alcohol is god.
Where sex is a commodity, sold for what’s in your pocket,
As low as 20 bob to as high as thousands of shillings,
“Honey, come I will show you a good time, How much you have?”
It’s all in the packaging,
And some have marketing degrees,
They know how to package the goods, and services,
They know the seven P’s of marketing,
Dear Marketing manager, they could teach you a thing or two.
A city where rural transplants dreaming of a glorious life came,
Hoping to make good, to live the golden dream,
Yet 3 generations later, all descendants still living in the slum.
A city of potholes, the stench of sewage and urine perfuming the air,
Mounds of garbage and rotting vegetables create artificial hills,
Phlegm on sidewalks, and puddles of murky water that stink and refuse to drain.
A city with corrupt cops and even more corrupt city council askaris,
Who will put you in if you don’t have money for tea.
A city that breaks dreams and shatters hope,
Leaving only walking, talking and working zombies,
Strangers with lifeless eyes, empty pockets and stomachs.
A city with gangsters with guns fake and real,
With pangas that pierce vital body organs,
And leave bodies, bleeding, lifeless on the street,
As people watch not helping, passive spectators.
A city of vice and lice,
And not all things are nice.


Come visit with me, my Nairobi!

NAIROBI – MY REALITY

Reality for me,
A house in the leafy suburbs
Lush grass, 2 storeyed building, bungalow they call it
Sufficient room, compound with trees especially banana trees.
Paved roads and iron gates to keep out riff raff, hawkers (mari mari)
And thieves who come to steal with guns,
Watchmen who doze instead of keeping watch or seducing the housemaids.
Running water paid for electricity and look no running sewage,
We can’t have that in the suburbs.
Well fed children, posters of health and wealth,
Playing with technologies and watching cartoons,
Ben ten to be exact, and wearing with the t-shirts,
The watch and having the bag to match.
And the obesity lets not talk about that,
It’s a rich man’s disease you would not understand.
Oh my is that a cough,
Remove a medical card, hospital charge it to the account.


Yet I travel,
To shacks of tin, timber and mud,
Rusted, painted to hide the shame.
Houses are multi-purpose,
One rooms a shop, the other for sleep.
Children see what goes on at night,
In the iron bed behind the thin curtain that separates mum and dad.
No compound, no grass, just weeds,
And plants planted in ditches, and squatter land,
And in sewage I beg to not go there.
There’s thieves who come to steal with only pangas,
Stealing life savings all held in fast consumer goods for sale.
Children play outside, with not a care,
Mucus running down noses, but there’s no money for medicine.
They run in tattered clothes, some of them, young running
Without bottom clothes, free to the wind they run,
As they moon life and their situation.
They play in groups and sit out on the ground,
Happy as happy could be.

But this is where hope runs deep,
That one day we shall make it out of here,
And into those mansions and bungalows.
Some shacks hold millionaires,
Who wear dirty tattered clothes,
And who walk, or take a matatu, no Toyotas please.
But they are rich, get more than I,
Overeducated fellow shall probably ever see.
Yet we look at area code,
See only the large suburb house.
Our dreams is to have a car, a big house, 2.5 children,
Yet somewhere in a tin house, somewhere they laugh,
They have more money then you and me,
Use their money wisely, buy land and build.

In 20 years, broke because the bank mortgage bleeds,
We shall look at them in envy,
They shall laugh, in their beautiful houses,
With shops and properties to their name,
All debt free, no bank vultures hanging over their heads.
So who’s laughing now?

NO DEFEAT, NO SURRENDER

Did I say I would love you until death?
Meant it, meant to keep that promise,
But when you said you loved me, you lied,
And I heart broken I cried.
Now am like steel,
Made strong by the forge,
Heat or hate, makes the spirit strong,
And emerged I, strong and cold.
Before I was like ore,
Soft, malleable, easy to break into pieces,
Things have changed,
A sharp blade I am,
Dangerous, not to be played or toyed with.
Be sure of this,
If we meet again
This shall be no spurring match, no friendly war,
Or mushy banter.
I shal'nt be kind,
So keep away,
Keep hiding in your denial,
Keep thinking that you’re still a knight.
If you come near,
I will run my blade through your lying heart,
Watch you bleed, and walk away.
No defeat, no surrender.