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| Bit by bit, | ||
| OR | ||
| 1 0 1 0 | ||
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| 1 1 1 1 | ||
| Word by word, | ||
| 02 B0 D1 E5 | ||
| A5 00 00 01 | ||
| We’re connected | ||
| ― B | ||
![English Wikipedia user Jshecket [GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons](https://bryanswritings.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/tuku.jpg)
English Wikipedia user Jshecket [GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons
So, this is an unusual post for me – not that I’ve posted a lot – as it detours from my typical poetry or rare prose. I was listening to a little PRI tonight via NPR and heard a story about Oliver ‘Tuku’ Mtukudzi, a Zimbabwean singer/musician, that I wanted to share. It talked about his road back to a new album after a couple year hiatus due to grieving for his 21 year old son who tragically died in a car crash. His son, if I’m accurate here, also played sax in his band. One would guess the obvious that getting back into music was therapeutic and necessary for him to “move on”. But it was something else he said that resonated with me and will undoubtedly do so more with someone reading this that has lost someone close to them…God forbid a son or daughter. Its simple, not profound, yet, to me anyway, powerful. Hopefully a couple passersby feel the same way.
“…at times bereavement is part of life, it’s not the end of life…”
Check out more at this link from the article/interview by Alex Gallafent.
Along the road of life she rides shotgun,
Ne’er a backseat driver
Admiring the landscape through side window
Yet always at arms length
Helping steer when the path curves dangerously
Navigating the course when the destination’s unclear
On the beach of life she strolls alongside,
Ne’er shouldering the burden of anguish, sorrow or defeat
Tracking another set of footprints in the sand, always
No matter the distance traveled
Stopping to rest when legs need pause
Holding a hand when comfort desired
In the book of life she cherishes the cover,
Ne’er an over-the-shoulder reader
Appreciating the story’s twists and turns
Despite its unedited rawness
Dog-earing a page so not to be forgotten
Advancing a chapter when the plot starts to suffer
Within the ocean of life she wades nearby,
Ne’er a life preserver
Welcoming the ups and the downs
Of its perpetual waves
Soothing a stomach when seasickness arises
Providing companionship in a lonesome world
She does not direct, carry, judge or save
Her spirit is ever present
To guide you
To move you
To motivate you
And in the end,
She is your champion
For you, and you alone, conquer all
― B
I stroll my finger along your hip,
Caressing your olive skin
Inviting goosebumps to give rise
For things to come
It circles … and circles … your navel
Tightening muscles in its wake
Each ring, rings anticipation
So exposed, so defenseless
A lone pilgrimage attracts four others
Settling in the valley of your waist
Perfect curves adored by hand
Building pressure unreleased
A twin glides amid your breasts
Coaxing utterances for our ears alone
A puppeteer to an arched back
Rising higher with each stroke
The pair unite at destiny’s end
Where fingers see for closed eyes
Red, damp, full, and athirst for affection
Your lips embraced for a kiss
― B
Bring it on!
Muscles bulged
Fists clenched
Head teeming with rage
Chalk up another victim
A battered trophy,
For public display
Spawns fodder for the babble
Oh the target
Puny
Soft
Bleeder
And a low threshold for pain
Better yet
Nerd
Skittish
Loner
And too yella to rat
Licks the lips
Blood thirsty hound
A loaded gun
Ready to rip
―
Laugh it up!
Grin curled
Presence mocked
Core crackling with fury
Insane sanity
Seeded survival
Nurtured by fear
Blossomed with madness
Oh the aggressor
Brash
Cocky
Instigator
And a short fuse to boot
Better yet
Ungainly
Insecure
Meathead
And bravado unbecoming
Waits in the shadows
Outfoxes the hound
Brings a knife to a gunfight
Long odds to be beaten
― B
Body pressed against mirror
Reflect closed eyes – souvenir
Passion seeps in mouth agape
As sweat beads, atop the nape
Arms outstretched, unprotected
Hands clench hands, intersected
Melded hearts beat syncopate
Ecstasy to satiate
Unleashed tempest visceral
Brush inside body mural
Torsos buckle, breaths release
Souls united, love gives peace
― B
― B
Tonight my love…
Nick opened the front door to his small cabin isolated in the woods and peered out into the darkness. The previous night covered the ground with fresh fallen snow. Freezing wind burst through the entryway carrying snowflakes that scraped his face. It felt good, invigorating. “Better than a cup of coffee”, he thought. He scanned the woodlands surrounding his home, when he noticed something odd; a set of footprints leading away. His calmness transformed into confusion, which gave way to anger. Immediately, he slipped his bare feet into winter boots and investigated.
Nick was actually Nikolai, a Russian-born immigrant who lived the American dream, struck it rich with his Internet-based company, and retired young. His cabin did not reflect in size or stature the wealth he accumulated throughout his life, but it sadistically reminded him of his childhood home in Russia. Located in Siberia, temperatures averaged in the teens, making cold a way of life. At four, he witnessed his mother die of hypothermia. His father, stuck in an earlier time, chose to live off the land and forced Nikolai to do hard labor in the middle of blizzards and blistering winds. Indoor plumbing did not exist. To counter the cold, Nikolai used the steam from his piss to warm his hands in the outhouse. “Eto delayet muzhchin iz mal’chikov”, his father would say. “It makes men from boys”. To Nikolai, it made boys into psychopaths.
Nick’s heavy boots relentlessly crushed the pristine snow as he followed the tracks into the thickness of the woods. Draped only in a robe, frigid air chilled his nude body underneath like probing fingers drenched in ice water. It was cold, but nothing compared to Russia. “What rat trespasses on my property?” His fists clenched in anticipation as he brazenly marched forth.
The cold in Siberia did evil things to men, and Nikolai’s father was no exception. Winters suffocated the daylight, leaving only three hours to enjoy the sun. The darkness and isolation made vodka his best friend. Drunkenness released his rage, and in turn, he released on Nikolai, beating him bloody for sport. When possible, he bartered for whores with furs and unabashedly slept with them knowing full well that his young son could see and hear everything.
Nick stopped. In the distance stood a dark figure, dressed in a long coat and fedora hat. Breath, chilled by winter, seeped from the stranger’s mouth at a staccato pace. “Scared,” Nick thought malevolently. “Who the hell are you?” he shouted. Without response, a gloved hand rose and pressed a button on a device. Lights flickered behind Nick, and a cacophony of voices spoke. He abruptly turned and saw a montage of computer-enhanced pictures of former employees projected onto the back of his cabin. All quieted but for a lone familiar voice from a man centered within the pictures. He delivered a morbid soliloquy – a visual suicide note about his wife forcefully having sex with his boss and neither able to stop it. The man hopped off a chair, hanging himself. Nick smirked.
Nikolai welcomed his father’s death. He escaped to America carrying only the baggage of his past with him. He immersed himself in technology and discovered a passion for entrepreneurship. As CEO, he was ruthless, preying on employees’ fear of his power. His social life was absent, and he avoided relationships. Instead, he hired only the beautiful. With men, it ensured an equally beautiful spouse for his pleasure. With women, it afforded a late night office tryst. In either case, it was forced by physical abuse and threats of termination or worse.
Nick’s callousness turned to agony. His back arched and his hands reached backward as a piercing pain shot through his body. He glanced toward his chest horrified as blood oozed from the front of his robe. He fell to his knees. His vision blurred, but he saw the figure walk around to face him. The fedora was gone. A beautiful woman stood before him with long brunette hair. Fire burned in her eyes as tears streamed down her face. In her gloved hand, she held an icicle.
“I’m so … cold,” Nikolai sputtered as blood dripped from his lips. The woman bent down and grabbed him by the front of his robe and drew him near her. “Nikolai,” she whispered into his ear, “take it like a man.” She plunged the icicle into his chest, ending him. “Eto delayet muzhchin iz mal’chikov”.
Alone on a knoll surrounded by endless plains of tall yellow prairie grass a tall oak tree stood. Its wide trunk stretched nearly the circumference of the hill’s crest and its thick surface roots sprawled from its base like legs on a spider. The branches rose strongly upward to form the crown. Nature’s transition from summer to fall had stripped the tree of its leaves and left it bear. Near the tree’s top a man, dressed in mere rags, clung to a branch. Chiseled and rough with stubble, his face was weathered beyond his age. His swollen eyes spoke of sorrow and desperation and the gray of his skin matched the hue of the surrounding skies and the tatters that draped his body. The sun did not privilege the man with its warming rays on that day, for they could not pierce the steel curtain of clouds. Instead, ice cold winds blew, carrying with them the smell of rotting wood and decaying leaves.
Bryan
Bryan's Writings 
