So Many Good Things

The weekend was perfect until I dared – and
oh, HOW I dared – to lend my credit card to
Nici my daughter – whom, mind you, I’d
trust with my life

You were angry and mean, and afterwards
didn’t think to apologise as it was RIGHT –
lecturing me on never loaning my credit
card and teaching my kids as much

I corrupted Nici utterly, I see it’s been the
ruin of your life & kids; I’ll spend the rest
of my days in mourning for everything I’ve
taken from them – or deprived them of

Like my working when I should have been
playing with them when they were small and
impressionable – I plead Guilty your Honour
to every accusation made against me

But let me add – I’ve been trying my best and
so have they, to keep you in a good mood –
because if a benevolent dictator is of a positive
disposition – so many good things get done…

8 June 2013

Friday Afternoon Anecdote (REVISED)

I wander into the kitchen to find you busy with
soup, wonderful soup, we should dance a soup
quadrille as the crying Mock Turtle stated in
Alice in Wonderland – but I brought home
work and don’t want to start just yet … thus

Like a cross between Henry VIII and Hamlet,
an effect of grey leggings and my all-purpose
black camp top while being short – Henry VIII
is me; filled with enthusiasm for a few Arabic
lines to be translated into English, each letter

Scrutinised to determine in which of its forms
five each appears, every expression like ‘ter
marbutha’ carefully analysed and finding
the ‘m’ the easiest letter to recognise, I’ll
adjourn in a Friday afternoon anecdote

8 June 2013 Friday Afternoon Anecdote

Feast On Each Other’s Flesh (REVISION)

Angola’s people live in shanty towns without clean water
and mothers and children suffer while natural resources
needed to fight poverty and unemployment are stolen by
the rich to be avariciously squandered for personal gain

Forbes magazine notes Africa's first woman billionaire –
worth $2-billion, as Isabel dos Santos, daughter of Angola's
leader; African politicians keep begging for international
aid while feasting on the flesh of their countrymen

Laughing disdainfully because donations further enrich
themselves while small percentages, if any, reach the
civilians who’ll be likely fodder for another civil war as
soon as politicians loose the plot, becoming even more

Gluttonously greedy – insane enough to start fighting
one another to feast on each other’s flesh …

**************************
Angola - $750-million missing from treasury in a debt repayment
deal with Russia facilitated by a Swiss bank and a shell company
$263-million --------------for Russian and French arms dealers
$36-million ----------------for President José Eduardo dos Santos
$400-million went into deals between bankers and shell companies

$40-billion from oil production 2011 enriches a small group around
Angola’s President, the population is living below the poverty line;
the missing $750- million was meant for Russia in repayment of a
1.5-billion debt which had originally been obtained by promissory
notes on oil shipments but which had been appropriated by shell
companies, $36 went to front companies through the President

This Angola-Russia deal shows the EU Parliament how money is
siphoned off to criminals, more than $50-billion a year transferred
from Africa where it should be used to construct infrastructure as
the need is high, yet it is a terrible fact:

African countries lose THREE times more money to tax havens
………………than they receive in aid…………………….

mg.co.za/‎
The Mail & Guardian Online South Africa's oldest quality
news source on the ... Some $750-million is missing from
Angola's treasury from a debt repayment deal ......

http://www.cw-uk.org/angola-russia-report/

“The deal with Russia was facilitated by a Swiss bank and a
shell company registered in Britain's Isle of Man. Russian
and French arms dealers got away with $263-million, Angola's
President José Eduardo dos Santos reportedly stashed away
more than $36-million, and another $400-million is unaccounted
for, according to Corruption Watch UK and Angola's Clean
Hands association of human rights lawyers. The Angolan exposé
is the latest of a slew of reports on corruption, its cost to
development, and how it is aided by bankers and shell
companies that keep secret the identities of owners.”

5 July 2013

ALL The Above (REVISED)

To seek pleasure I ate everything I love – in following
my guru’s advice I have a hard-as-nails headache &
a desire to hibernate – but I’m NOT a bear, cannot
slink into a cave for a season’s sleep – another

Favourite fantasy that gives me pleasure; I should
find a desire for feeling thin and athletic, writing
down the ideas in my head that might vanish like
chimeras if their existence  is not honoured by

Clear expression; right now after non-stop munching
to fulfil my desire for pleasure discomfort is teaching
me to value the straight and narrow ascetic path in
order to do my work, to stop dreaming

Of being somebody else living a different life – Tiffany
Case in James Bond’s Diamonds Are Forever or Tiffany
Aiching in Terry Pratchett’s  Diskworld series or
Anastasia Krupnik in Lois Lowry’s books

Definitely not me, a covert deep-sea diver, mermaid
mother whose merman son swept her along with him
during excursions to our underwater kingdom diving
in Cape Vidal – okay; definitely being ME since

Being me – by default – entails ALL the above!
5 June 2013

Unseen Magic (REVISED)

Beat the drum of truth the way you want it to be and
you’ll feel good immediately. Influenced by my guru’s
inspiring words, I buy as many chocolates and wafers
as I can find, return to the office to chew and suck on
them in the best frame of mind – thus this is truth the
way I want it to be

A Chinese shop across the street and artificial flowers
calling me – I cannot make up my mind which to take;
this frugal attitude is amply rewarded by scrumptious
chocolate spread; as soon as I am seated the feast
begins – beating the drum, beating the drum of truth
as I want it to be

This I can do with impunity as happiness works its
unseen magic to leave me pain-free after eating –
so beating the drum of the truth as I want it to be!

4 June 2013

Thoughts Soar Free (REVISED)

Routine messages, ever-increasing headache;
you say your friend suffers cancer pain in the
brain – I think about alleviating things, music,
funny films, books ready if it worsens – works
for me when the allergy causes such pain I
cannot think

Watching my favourite movie, reading a book
I remember from childhood, laughing out loud,
a stimulating subject lifts the pain – amazingly,
thinking of ideas for your friend my headache
eases, suddenly I’m safe in the cathedral
of my mind where thoughts soar free

A quiet happiness suffuses my being; so your
friend’s suffering gave me opportunity to offer
solutions, her illness already serves an un-
expected  purpose – if she thinks about pain’s
advantages, she might find such too, just like
I did thinking about the allergy

Realising without it I would never have tried to
write, translating other people’s words would
have been quite enough

For Ronel Oreilly and her friend Rina Marx

4 July 2013

A Fir Tree Cathedral (REVISED)

Home after work, License To Kill on TV, daily James
Bond showing eases my feelings – 007 always in the
background; I made a mess of today, after watching
fishes in the sea, staying in a log cabin under fir trees
sighing, walking in sacred silence to the beach under
this tall green canopy – living in a tree cathedral for
the weekend

Tried to forget the beauty, concentrate on routines,
heartbroken - returning to intolerable documents
after glimpsing heaven beyond my ability, suffering
upon leaving perfect marvels, returning to boredom,
impossible to remain calm; if only I could be a secret
agent like Bond and bureaucracy a façade to simply
hide my true ability - but I had to be impassively

Ensconced behind my desk helpfully doing my best,
yet except for making a list I accomplished nothing
because the wonderful visit to a wild-life sanctuary
bordering the seaside still holds my heart in thrall;
I cannot see anything around me…

Monday 3 June 2013