Chickens on bikes

Things like boiling water, lizard watching,
mosquito nets, thorns in my shoes, wearing
skirts and t-shirts all the time, waking at
five AM, seat feeling sweaty, hearing
spoken Swahili, admiring cornrows,
dirt tracks and colourful markets and snacks
that all seemed so new when I first arrived,
now just feel normal. Glass pop bottles, old
Tsh notes, mud brick houses, chickens on bikes,
Karibu, men at bus stations, heat, dust,
colourful buses and dala-dala
and colourful clothes, rice and beans, insect
repellant, hot showers heated by the sun,
watering the garden morning and night,
African singing, mangos and pawpaw,
taking antimalarials, buying
green vegetables for the girls low in
iron, frogs, owls, feeding chickens … I got
that challenged feeling again today,
of having practical skills to offer.

For those of you
expecting a blog
on South Africa,
well, what can I say?
They did show G.I. Jane
twice in four days.

(Sarah’s post from Tanzania, then her husband’s article from Johannesburg)

He loves me?

BOY:
That’s what I’ll do!
This’ll really cheer you up!
I’ll clip a clothes peg
to your tail!
And put rubber bands
around your ears!

DOG (looking up with sad eyes):
I’d rather be hurt
by you than loved
by anyone else.

A blog post on Faith and Theology, 4th September 2011. Submitted by Marika Rose.

Always

It is always okay
to paint the sky orange
and give cats six legs.

From the blog post What Should a 4 Year Old Know? The first line is one syllable too long for a proper senryu/haiku but close enough. Submitted by Gabriel Smy.

Not The Tiger

Begin by not thinking about a jungle
at dusk, then don’t think about a bush
rustling behind you though there is no wind.
Then don’t imagine turning too late, your
helpless shriek cut short by the rushing
onslaught of a powerful stripy carnivore
hurtling at you, its jaws agape. There
are about 3,000 tigers in the wild,
so if you follow this procedure once
every day in a little over 8 years
you’ll have not thought about all of them.

From Smoothies of Good and Evil, and Unconsidered Tigers, 31 October 2010. Submitted by Marika Rose.

On Utility

Philosophy is not
meant to be practical.
It is not meant
to have a use.

It does not exist to
make us more productive
girls and boys. It is a
diet of words to feed
our soul by way of
stimulating our mind.

It is not a roast-beef
sandwich, but more the
substance of an
ethereal longing.

Taken from a Lost in Technopolis post 13 May 2009. By Marika Rose.

Masque

When CARINE ROITFELD
invited me at VOGUE PARIS
90th Anniversary
party on the september 30 in Paris,
I was so thrilled, but when I knew
that was a BAL COSTUME
inspired by EYES WIDE SHUT,
I was worried.

Why?
Cause if CARINE ROITFELD
invites you to her party,
she expects to be
surprised by your look.

All the guests are form creative environments, than are supposed
to be creative even about themselves.

How to think of a dentist who hasn’t
the most white and beautiful teeth?

Anna Della Russo’s blog via the Guardian. By Marika Rose.

Hepaticous

And then you’re in an operating room,
Staring deep
Into a stellate smash of livid liver.

It oozes discontinuous destruction.
Fragments of hepatic mush are strewn
And coddled among clots of blood,
Stained with bile and mixed with stool.
The beauty of the enzyme pathways is nowhere to be seen;

Dr. Krebs is not in the building.
Weak indeed is the capsule holding it all in,
split apart like broiled bratwurst.
How little it takes!

From Dr Schwab’s Brittle Beauty. By Jim.

Sawbones

I will reach in gently and caress the liver,
the stomach and spleen.
Slide over the top,
into the recesses,
curl the fingers enough to sense the texture,
the fullness.
The bowels move away and under,
and over the top as I direct my hand.
I can describe your kidneys now,
I’ve circled the top of your rectum,
held your uterus,
measured your ovaries between my fingers.
Part of you is gone at the moment,
but I’m here,
I know you now.
You trusted and let me in,
you opened your belly to me,
and I entered with force.
I’ll stay until it’s right.
It’s what I must do.
You think you’ll never touch me so
intimately as I’ve touched you.
But you have.
You have.

From Taking Trust on Surgeonsblog, 7 October 2006. By Marika Rose.

The seven years invasion

I was in a brothel in Valencia,
on honeymoon (long story).

Drunk on a cocktail of champagne,
orange juice, and possibly gin.

We were there for the Fallas festival,
and mistook the news footage of the invasion
for televised fireworks.

Where were you when you heard about the Iraq invasion? on deeplyflawedbuttrying.

Sex and dirty dishes

Jana offers the following assessment:
You know, I wouldn’t say you
doing the dishes for me
is better than sex…but it’s close.

I laugh and laugh.
I understand, I say,
You know,
I bet if we called all your friends tonight
and asked them the question,
‘Would you rather have sex
with your husband tonight
or have him wash the dishes?’
that 100% would say
‘Wash the dishes.’
She agrees.

But I have a crazy idea.
Let’s put this to the test! I say,
Let’s call your friends and pose the question.

So Jana starts making calls.
Asking wife after wife the question:
If you could have sex with your husband tonight
or have him do the dishes
what would you choose?

The results rolled in.
Like election night.
And the verdict?
100%

Do the dishes.

From the blog Experimental Theology, 2 August 2010. Submitted by Marika Rose.