Monday, November 22, 2010

A Holiday, with Un-Holiday thoughts

I sit in a window. Back to the sun, warming it.

Where I am, the sun plays hide and seek. I thirst for what it is at home, where it shines and shines, to be interupted now and then by brief bursts of rain.

It is out, and bright, and hot on my skin. So I sit in an apartment window, back out to the whole world, looking in, feeling the pleasant hot touch and caress of the wind, and I look in.

Morning has been beautiful.

Late, but couldn't sleep much more. Though I came in late. Thoughts invade the privacy of sleep, chase it away, make it impossible to be alone.

Breakfast, a cup of tea with milk, no sugar. Slice of bread, and, my book of poetry.

Edwin Morgan, 'Tram Ride', 1939. I opened it, read through, impressed. And I stopped, thoughts wandering. Wrote a poem, frowned, filed it- and read Edwin Morgan again.

The mind is unsettled. I cannot concentrate much, though Morgan organises my thoughts. I still have to write; still feel the need to pour them on the white sheet of paper- the screen. Smudge it with what I think.

Buturo. He is on my mind. Unsettled.

But, what can I do?

Somewhere I read that he was once a witchdoctor. Maybe he is, because he manages to unsettle me, when I should not be. When I should be relaxed, sunning myself, on a very beautiful day. Holiday that I should have taken long ago, had to be bullied into taking.

He is far away, relaxed, at least so I think.

But, I am thinking of him. And his pride in bullying us. Using his bully pulpit to literally terrorise us, the undesirables of his world.

I am thinking of that in the last post. How he stopped a sex worker conference, where they were going to talk about HIV/AIDS. Yes, the guy is a bully. And, me being his whipping boy, I feel it.

And, the last word to that article in the Monitor, when Buturo said he was confident that the Anti-Homosexuality bill would become law.

Yes, it is that bill that gives me nightmares.

I know, it is aimed at us. That bill. Last night, talking to one of us, a kuchu, I told her that she shouldnt be worried. Of course I knew she should, but what can I say? I told her, first on the lists will be us. Because we are the 'militant' homosexuals, spreading homosexuality through our blogs and writing and activism. Prison, maybe the hangman for 'repeat offenders'.

A bully drives me into a corner. I cannot sleep. I cannot rest. My mind is in overdrive.

I must sleep. And use my energies well. Because, the bigger fight is coming.

If, as Buturo prays, hopes, [Why is Bahati all of a sudden giving up-beat interviews?], if as Buturo seeks, the bill becomes law, and he comes after me, I will need all my resources at hand.

A game of cat and mouse.

Oh, I aim to be the mouse that bells the cat. Nasty little creature, bullying with its presence, and absence. Determined to force its will on us tiny little mice, driving us to death with distraction.

It is a short while...

a week, a day, a month...

It is too short, and by the end, when the session of parliament closes, and the bill is law or not, I will still be alive, taking stock.

Meanwhile, the sun is too hot on my skin. I have to move off, out of the window. The pleasant caress became a blistering touch, chasing me.

Love and life continue, repressed, closeted, but real, living.

Have a beautiful day.



gug


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