Manuela Cardiga's Blog, page 41
June 18, 2015
JOHN HAGEE EXCLAIMEDTHAT GOD CAN'T BE BLAMED!John HageeGo...
JOHN HAGEE EXCLAIMED
THAT GOD CAN'T BE BLAMED!
John Hagee
Got his knickers
In a twist
Cause he heard
His neighbour's wife
Call God in bliss.
Acording to him
There's no greater sin
Then taking
God's name in vain,
'Specially in a moment
Of "shame".
I betcha his problem
Is not being Mormon
Or Baptist or Catholic
Or such...
I betcha his pain
Is hearing complains
That his wife
Never "came"
Cause he's just
A fuckin' bad lay.
MC
THAT GOD CAN'T BE BLAMED!
John Hagee
Got his knickers
In a twist
Cause he heard
His neighbour's wife
Call God in bliss.
Acording to him
There's no greater sin
Then taking
God's name in vain,
'Specially in a moment
Of "shame".
I betcha his problem
Is not being Mormon
Or Baptist or Catholic
Or such...
I betcha his pain
Is hearing complains
That his wife
Never "came"
Cause he's just
A fuckin' bad lay.
MC
June 11, 2015
Ode to Sweeney Todd
WHERE MY MUM GOT HER PIES
Remember
That barber-guy
The one who was
A bit too shy
To kill quick
And dice the bits
Like friendly Jack
And leave them poems
For the Police
With the left-over bits?
(Ye I know
I used "bits" twice
But this here
Is a jail-house rhyme
And I ain't the most
Edicated guy)
Well, he lived
With me Mum, for
Both bizness and fun:
He rented a room
Upstairs for two bits
Harvested beards
And played with her tits.
So one day Mum
Says to Todd:
"Listen here, Sweeney,
Ain't no bit of kidney
In this whole
Damned City
To be had
For a penny:
Not for love
And not for money
I even promised
The Butcher
I'd flog his dog
But he cried
And admitted
He had no hog
To supply that
Prime kidney
I need for my pies."
"The truth is,
Sweet Sweeney,
The Swine Flu
Killed every piggy
So I guess we is done.
I cain't keep doing
The pork pie-gig
And your barbering
Aint turning the trick
So we gonna be
Out on the street."
Now Sweeney weren't
The kind of guy
To lie back and cry
When life pokes him
In the eye -
(Not like some
We could mention
Who cried in detention
When Turn-Key Mike
Poked him in the arseWith his stanchion)
So he thinks
And he ponders
And he finds him
Some answers
By dicing
And slicing
His ethics
Along with a few
Of his clients.
Not to cut it too fine-
(Mum said you should dice
kidney in half inch slices
No more and no less)
He kept my Mum
Supplied with kidneys
And long-hog on the sly,
And even that uppity
Police Commissioner
Used to come slumming
To East London
To buy me Mum's
Special Sweeney Todd
Steak and Kidney Pie!
As for the how and the why
I'm in the slammer?
I followed the family
Into a life of crime
And wielded a hammer
When I got nostalgic
For my Mum's
Special Recipe
Steak and Kidney
With that brown sauce
On the side...
MC
Remember
That barber-guy
The one who was
A bit too shy
To kill quick
And dice the bits
Like friendly Jack
And leave them poems
For the Police
With the left-over bits?
(Ye I know
I used "bits" twice
But this here
Is a jail-house rhyme
And I ain't the most
Edicated guy)
Well, he lived
With me Mum, for
Both bizness and fun:
He rented a room
Upstairs for two bits
Harvested beards
And played with her tits.
So one day Mum
Says to Todd:
"Listen here, Sweeney,
Ain't no bit of kidney
In this whole
Damned City
To be had
For a penny:
Not for love
And not for money
I even promised
The Butcher
I'd flog his dog
But he cried
And admitted
He had no hog
To supply that
Prime kidney
I need for my pies."
"The truth is,
Sweet Sweeney,
The Swine Flu
Killed every piggy
So I guess we is done.
I cain't keep doing
The pork pie-gig
And your barbering
Aint turning the trick
So we gonna be
Out on the street."
Now Sweeney weren't
The kind of guy
To lie back and cry
When life pokes him
In the eye -
(Not like some
We could mention
Who cried in detention
When Turn-Key Mike
Poked him in the arseWith his stanchion)
So he thinks
And he ponders
And he finds him
Some answers
By dicing
And slicing
His ethics
Along with a few
Of his clients.
Not to cut it too fine-
(Mum said you should dice
kidney in half inch slices
No more and no less)
He kept my Mum
Supplied with kidneys
And long-hog on the sly,
And even that uppity
Police Commissioner
Used to come slumming
To East London
To buy me Mum's
Special Sweeney Todd
Steak and Kidney Pie!
As for the how and the why
I'm in the slammer?
I followed the family
Into a life of crime
And wielded a hammer
When I got nostalgic
For my Mum's
Special Recipe
Steak and Kidney
With that brown sauce
On the side...
MC
June 6, 2015
GOOD MORROWthe tickle fickle sickleof morning l...
GOOD MORROW
the
tickle fickle sickle
of morning light
slices me awake
after a long day's
short night.
MC
the
tickle fickle sickle
of morning light
slices me awake
after a long day's
short night.
MC
June 3, 2015
From my NEW NOVEL - "GODDESS of WAR"
He turned with an embarrassed smile, one arm around the horse's neck, the other draped on the saddle horn, his foot caught in the stirrup. Ridiculous. She could see that in in the midst of this terrible moment he was young enough, silly enough, to feel ridiculous tangled on that stirrup, hopping on the one foot...
He turned that peach-face towards her, the skin so perfectly young it was utterly flawless in this hard light. His lips were parted, moist rose-petal lips; his eyes wide blue, glistening. His helmet had fallen off somewhere, and his cropped hair showed dark at the roots, sun-gilded in tiny stray curls at his nape.
He was so young.
He looked past her at the silent circle: the zulus with their shields and tall nodding feathers, the boer-boys on their restive horses; impassive faces overshadowed by their hats.
He looked at her, taking in her height, the scarred face, the bare speckled breasts above the kilt; and he blushed. He looked her in the eye, fighting to keep his gaze from drifting down to the pale broad nipples.
"Ma'am...Do you speak English?" His accent was flawless, precise. He was one of the precious boys they rarely let out of the drawing-rooms, and never out of the barracks.
She drifted closer, and he tried to back himself and the horse away from her.
"I am Napoleon Eugene, Ma'am, Prince of France, and I demand you take me to your chief, or someone who speaks English..."
She laughed that delicious girlish laugh. “The Imperial Prince of France, no less! Why, we are honoured, Your Grace...” She laughed again and turned to address the silent circle. “This man is of the line of Napoleon, like you, Dabulamanzi, are of the line of Shaka. This is history! Come my Dabu, come here to me!” and Dabulamanzi stepped forward to stand beside her, staring at the young man with unabashed curiosity.
“A Prince of France and a Prince of the Zulus...Charming!” That light silvery tinkling laugh,and Napoleon Eugene looked at her with a dawning alarm.
Her tones, so appropriate to the ball-room; her voice, mellow and supremely cultured, so at odds with the ferocious savagery of her face, her stance. She smelled of blood, sweat, rancid fat and madness. He was afraid, and so made his mistake. Precariously balanced, clinging to his saddle, he sketched a gallant bow “My Lady, I am charmed to meet you, and His Grace, the Prince. Might I ask My Lady's name?”
The face bent towards him went dull, the mouth gaped open for one long moment of deadly silence, then a scream erupted. She tore the assegay from Dabu's hand, pushed him back and away, struck at that pure and prissy hated face.“Don't call me that! Don't call me that, you bastard!” And the blade rose and fell, rose and fell, and the blood gushed out from the gaping mouths opening at random on his protesting flesh.
He lay supine, face turned up to the blazing sky, and still her madness and her anger were unsatisfied. Again and again, she thrust, screaming, screaming. She stopped, fell silent and met the stunned blindness in his dead eyes. Those pale still-shimmering eyes. She drew back the assegai, thrust it into his skull, tore out one offending sapphire eye.
She turned triumphant, painted in blood, assegai held high. “The blood of Napoleon! I take his blood, I take his face; I take what was taken from me. Their precious boy for mine; his eye for mine, his life and his death, MINE!” And she took the eye - the blue astonished eye on the end of her assegai - between her lips.
She took it, swallowed it, sucked up into her twisted lips the dangling threads of nerves and leaking veins. She stood in barbaric splendour, the high golden grass stroking her thighs, the breeze lifting the scarlet general's cape that was her tangled hair from her shoulders and smiled, victorious, exultant.
And they saw. They saw the dead boy, hanging upside-down, foot in the fatal stirrup, hair tousled: head dragging on the ground. They saw the blood, the hate, the madness in her. They saw devouring death in her.
Every part of life and joy and love in them rejected her. They stepped back. The Zulus,shuffling backwards in the tall grass; and the Boers, pulling on their reins, backing away from the furnace heat of her face.
She raised the assagai again. “We take this land! Together, we take this land. We break them and devour them, until there is none left. Even the children in the womb we shall take, until they are gone even from Port Natal; until we have cleansed this land.”
She smiled and they saw the blood of a young man on her lips, in her mouth, staining her teeth. They saw the blood of Nations dripping from her tongue. They saw; and they were young, enough, tender enough that the best part of them was still alive; and so they saw the spirit of War and were repulsed.
"GODDESS OF WAR"
Manuela Cardiga
He turned that peach-face towards her, the skin so perfectly young it was utterly flawless in this hard light. His lips were parted, moist rose-petal lips; his eyes wide blue, glistening. His helmet had fallen off somewhere, and his cropped hair showed dark at the roots, sun-gilded in tiny stray curls at his nape.
He was so young.
He looked past her at the silent circle: the zulus with their shields and tall nodding feathers, the boer-boys on their restive horses; impassive faces overshadowed by their hats.
He looked at her, taking in her height, the scarred face, the bare speckled breasts above the kilt; and he blushed. He looked her in the eye, fighting to keep his gaze from drifting down to the pale broad nipples.
"Ma'am...Do you speak English?" His accent was flawless, precise. He was one of the precious boys they rarely let out of the drawing-rooms, and never out of the barracks.
She drifted closer, and he tried to back himself and the horse away from her.
"I am Napoleon Eugene, Ma'am, Prince of France, and I demand you take me to your chief, or someone who speaks English..."
She laughed that delicious girlish laugh. “The Imperial Prince of France, no less! Why, we are honoured, Your Grace...” She laughed again and turned to address the silent circle. “This man is of the line of Napoleon, like you, Dabulamanzi, are of the line of Shaka. This is history! Come my Dabu, come here to me!” and Dabulamanzi stepped forward to stand beside her, staring at the young man with unabashed curiosity.
“A Prince of France and a Prince of the Zulus...Charming!” That light silvery tinkling laugh,and Napoleon Eugene looked at her with a dawning alarm.
Her tones, so appropriate to the ball-room; her voice, mellow and supremely cultured, so at odds with the ferocious savagery of her face, her stance. She smelled of blood, sweat, rancid fat and madness. He was afraid, and so made his mistake. Precariously balanced, clinging to his saddle, he sketched a gallant bow “My Lady, I am charmed to meet you, and His Grace, the Prince. Might I ask My Lady's name?”
The face bent towards him went dull, the mouth gaped open for one long moment of deadly silence, then a scream erupted. She tore the assegay from Dabu's hand, pushed him back and away, struck at that pure and prissy hated face.“Don't call me that! Don't call me that, you bastard!” And the blade rose and fell, rose and fell, and the blood gushed out from the gaping mouths opening at random on his protesting flesh.
He lay supine, face turned up to the blazing sky, and still her madness and her anger were unsatisfied. Again and again, she thrust, screaming, screaming. She stopped, fell silent and met the stunned blindness in his dead eyes. Those pale still-shimmering eyes. She drew back the assegai, thrust it into his skull, tore out one offending sapphire eye.
She turned triumphant, painted in blood, assegai held high. “The blood of Napoleon! I take his blood, I take his face; I take what was taken from me. Their precious boy for mine; his eye for mine, his life and his death, MINE!” And she took the eye - the blue astonished eye on the end of her assegai - between her lips.
She took it, swallowed it, sucked up into her twisted lips the dangling threads of nerves and leaking veins. She stood in barbaric splendour, the high golden grass stroking her thighs, the breeze lifting the scarlet general's cape that was her tangled hair from her shoulders and smiled, victorious, exultant.
And they saw. They saw the dead boy, hanging upside-down, foot in the fatal stirrup, hair tousled: head dragging on the ground. They saw the blood, the hate, the madness in her. They saw devouring death in her.
Every part of life and joy and love in them rejected her. They stepped back. The Zulus,shuffling backwards in the tall grass; and the Boers, pulling on their reins, backing away from the furnace heat of her face.
She raised the assagai again. “We take this land! Together, we take this land. We break them and devour them, until there is none left. Even the children in the womb we shall take, until they are gone even from Port Natal; until we have cleansed this land.”
She smiled and they saw the blood of a young man on her lips, in her mouth, staining her teeth. They saw the blood of Nations dripping from her tongue. They saw; and they were young, enough, tender enough that the best part of them was still alive; and so they saw the spirit of War and were repulsed.
"GODDESS OF WAR"
Manuela Cardiga
June 1, 2015
RENAISSANCE
Today I am pondering change:
Oh change unchains us
From our old pains
Frees us from
Bad sad choices
Let's us be ourselves
Reinvented
Reborn
Resurrected.
And still
That moment
Before we step away From that failed task/
Past mistake/
Comfortably Familiar pain,
We hesitate.
Naked
AfraidAshamed
MC
Oh change unchains us
From our old pains
Frees us from
Bad sad choices
Let's us be ourselves
Reinvented
Reborn
Resurrected.
And still
That moment
Before we step away From that failed task/
Past mistake/
Comfortably Familiar pain,
We hesitate.
Naked
AfraidAshamed
MC
May 15, 2015
PROLOGUE and CHAPTER 1 of my new Novel "GODDESS OF WAR"!
PROLOGUE
I saw a goddess die, suspended from the sky like some hovering angel.
I saw her die, but I don't remember if I saw her face.
I remember her feet. Her feet, hanging straight. Those caloused feet, coarse soled, as she was coarse souled; heels cracked and burned black by the heat of our native soil.
I saw it, those long in-turned toes scrap-scrap-scrapping to and fro, to and fro. And I saw them smearing dainty strokes of blood, trails of pain; the pendulum of her madness marking our holy land.
CHAPTER 1 The Pilgrims
The Memoirs of Johannes Jacobus Kemp
I write these down now, but I never want to tell this story.
I am going to die. I want to die peaceful with my God. I don't want to tell this story, not to Predikant, not to my son. It is my crime, my sin, but I must make my soul clean with my God. I tell it here, where no one will read, no one will know.
I write to confess to my God my sin of hate, lust, murder, and idolatry. This last one, I think, is the greatest sin. God is a jealous God, Predikant says, and I worshipped another.
Ireland - County-Mayo September 1877
British Empire
The Captain watched them charge. A rag-tag wave of poverty and stinking rags, and at the forefront, high as foam on a storm breaker, was the biggest woman he had ever seen.
"Shoot, Sergeant, shoot to kill," he instructed, and lifted to his lips the glove clasped in his hand, inhaling the faint scent of lavender clinging to the pearly satin.
He winced at the screaming thunder of the rifles, as the stench of cordite and hot metal overwhelmed the delicate perfume of the glove pressed to his mouth.
In the street, it seemed, indignation had run out. Panic, fear and doubt overwhelmed the crowd; they were pushing back, trying to escape, to take cover behind each other's bodies.
"Reload! Aim! FIRE!"
Another clap-clap of disjointed sound; another wave of bodies jumping, tossed back by the tiny impact… It always astounded him, that sight, that something as slight as a lead ball could throw back a body as if hammered by a giant.
In a few minutes they were gone, or mostly gone. In the dust and smoke of the street few things moved, stood upright, offered themselves to the rifles' sight.
One small boy tugged desperately at a dead man's leg, trying to drag him away, leaving a stuttering trail of blood from where the back of his head used to be.
Oh, but in the very center of the carnage a scene of particular pathos caught the Captain's eye. On his Grand Tour -when for one night he’d surfaced from between the heaving breasts of a Florentine courtesan - he´d been dragged by a friend enamoured of the Arts to see, by torchlight, Michelangelo’s Pieta. He had though then the purity of pain expressed on the Madonna's face would be unsurpassed. He would not see its like for the rest of his life.
But now! In the very center of bedlam, a woman cradled to her breast a child.
No...Not a child. a man, but such was her size, his stature seemed reduced to infantile proportions. Every curve in her body was a scream of agony, the desperate arms, the rocking of her shoulders...Exquisite. Quite exquisite.
He stepped forward, over the tumbled limbs, towards her. Closer, he caught the merest glimpse of her profile perdu. The woman heard him. Some notion of his presence impinged, tore through the thick veil of grief. She raised her head to look up at him.
No beauty this. Her face was a set mask of stolid features, drizzled with scarlet freckles to match the scarlet hair wound in a coronet around her head. Her eyes were a dull pebble-gray, her lips thin, colorless.
She gently set the man down on the ground and unfolded herself before him to her full height.
"You killed him, my husband, my love." The voice was soft, the eyes quite dead. She raised her hands. "He is dead, my boy."
The Captain stepped back as she advanced.
Her voice raised to a scream: "Dead! My Seamus dead!" Incoherent sound erupted from her, soulless screams shuddered her form as she moved towards him, her mouth torn open in a black square hole of hate, exploding sound.
"Sergeant!" He screamed, and a rifle-butt smashed her down.
***
Zululand - November 1877
Southern Africa
In the flickering firelight Dabulamanzi felt the weight of the King's stare, saw the threat of the King's loving smile.
"Dabu, brother's son, finally you are blooded, a fine warrior, a good nephew." And the King smiled.
Dabu had seen that smile many times. Many times had young men of the King's blood been singled out for praise, young men for whom the sun had risen for the last time...So Dabu smiled back:
"Baba, you honor me, I am dirt at the feet of the King..."and Dabu lowered his head even further. He stretched his lips into a wide, inane smile, and knew that sometime in the last weeks, somewhere; somehow he had made a mistake. A flicker of his native intelligence had shone through; someone who had the ear of the King had whispered the truth...
Dabu was by birth, by blood, by right a "man who could be King"; and the King watched such men carefully, least the people start whispering his name as "the man who should be King".
Dabu knew they would come this night. There would be no delay. So he smiled and smiled, laughed and bowed his head, wobbling it from side to side like a man who'd had too much maize beer, and he saw from the corner of his eye Cetshwayo gesture his dwarf forward. He saw the grotesque man's eyes fix on him, then lower to the King's shoulder. The order was given.
Dabu laughed louder, then choked, gagged, and to the general disgust and hilarity started to spew from his mouth the large mouthful of beer he had just gulped.
"OUT! Out, Dabu!" cried his cousin, "You shame yourself before the King!" Dabulamanzi rose and ran to the exit of the great hut, to jeers and pokes and pushes. One malicious hand tugged at his kilt, leaving him naked, and the laughter redoubled. With a drunken lurch, Dabu exited the great hut.
He was out - sober alert and afraid in the cool night air. He stalked silently past the sentries, walked away through the multitude of huts in the royal compound. At an empty hut, he stole an assegai, and a water gourd.
Dabulamanzi, of the line of Shaka, nephew of Cetshwayo - the King of all the Zulus - and himself "a man who could be King", turned his face West to the mountains of the Dragon, and ran for his life.
Naked, afraid as only a wise man is afraid, Dabu ran.
***
Trasvaal - December 1877
Territory Annexed by the British Empire
He was a dead man. He rode in the middle of the silent riders, as he had always dreamed he would, since he’d been a small child.
And now, now that that ambition was fulfilled, Johannes Jacobus was going to die. He was seventeen, and he was as good as dead.
It had started so quietly, his dying. It had started with a Christmas lunch. A celebration, as Predikant said. The birth of Christ, God's promise of salvation made flesh; but for Kobus Kemp, it was a feast of death.
They had gathered at the Vermuelen farm, six families, nearly seventy people, more than he had ever seen together before. They had been there a week, and his family would stay longer. His brother, Wilhelm, was courting Sanie, the Vermuelen's eldest daughter.
Kobus knew it was a mistake. He knew as soon as he saw her, that Sanie Vermuelen was an evil, wicked woman, a soul destroyer.
He saw it in her round, slick, cat face, and the way she peered at Wilhelm sideways under her prim bonnet. He saw it in the way her plump flesh strained the buttons of her high-necked blouse. It was written into her pale skin; in the golden freckles on the inside of her slender wrists.
Mostly he knew it by the thrumming second heart beating at his groin. Sanie Vermuelen was the Devil's Daughter, one of the Jezebels Predikant had warned them about, but Wilhelm was blind.
So they all sat at the long trestle tables for the Christmas lunch, the women serving the men, and Sanie has brushed against him as if by mistake. Her arm had brushed his cheek. She was smiling at Wilhelm, that sly smile. Kobus could smell her, her dense woman-flesh. The ripeness of it mixed with the aroma of the meat-stew made his mouth overflow with saliva, made him gag.
After lunch, the women took the smaller children inside the house, away from the hot sun, and the men cradled their pipes. The younger people wandered away, to sit under the trees, or play some skipping games, with ropes and stones. Kobus watched as Wilhelm and Sanie quietly walked away, heads together, towards a ridge of scarlet rock jutting out of the yellow veldt.
He followed them, saw her run ahead, turning, laughing, luring him into a narrow canyon between the two long spurs of striated red stone. Kobus clambered up the ridge, lost sight of them for long minutes, then came up to perch high above them, a birds-eye view of their embrace.
Their heads were close together, he could see a confused entanglement of limbs and shadows. Their voices - low as they were - were funneled up to him, as distinct as if they panted in his ear.
Wilhelm moaned," Let me Sanie...Just..." Kobus could see him fumbling at her, hear her answering panting cry.
"Will...No!"
"Asseblief, Sanie, 'sseblief?" His brother was begging, pleading, and SHE was making odd little noises, little cries. Wilhelm was pushing her back against the rock wall, pressing into her.
"Touch me, Sanie, please?" Then Willem made an odd strangled sound, and Sanie cried out.
"Sies, don't you touch me! LET ME GO!"
She was pushing Wilhelm away, running between the spurs of rock, her blouse open, her bonnet hanging by its ribbons, running towards the velt, and Kobus found himself scrambling down the rocks after her.
He wanted to catch her, take her back to the house with her buttons undone and her hair falling down so they could see her for what she was: the Whore of Babylon.
And he caught her. He grabbed at her arm as she exited the canyon, swung her round. She was gasping, blinded by tears, her teats half bare, and on her skirt was a glistening smear.
Kobus could smell it, her sweat and his brothers' spill; and suddenly he was tearing at her, pushing her down, scrabbling at her skir,t baring her pale legs. Sanie screamed, a high keening sound, and he threw her down, fumbling at his own crotch, tearing at the buttons.
Sanie fell, fell flat on her back, and her breath wooshed out. She was dazed, and in a second he was on her. He poked at her frantically, trapping her flaying hands, and she screamed. He hit her then, punched her. He punched her as his flesh sank into hers, and in that moment he could not tell which was the greatest pleasure.
Kobus Kemp slammed his fist again and again into her face as he thrust into her body, shouting out his pleasure, his rage.
Her flesh yielded, her face a wash of blood, and then something, someone tore them apart. Harsh hands were ripping at him, pulling him off her, out of her, even as he spilled his ecstasy with a protesting scream.
He scrambled to his knees, and the first kick smashed into him. He was surrounded by a forest of legs. Men's legs. Another boot connected with his chest, rolling him over, and a man's voice screamed: "My Sanie! Look what this animal done to my Sanie!"
Fists hammered him breathless, then a sudden respite.
Someone had pulled Jan Vermuelen off him. A huge hand lifted up his head, and a dark face swam into view. Dark eyes examined his face, then his head was dropped. Swart-Piet Ferreira spat on him.
"Don’t kill him, Jan. Take him to Johannesburg. Let them hang him there for what he did to your girl. If you kill him, it's you will be hanged, and Anna and Sanie and the boys will be alone. Take him to Johannesburg, let the English hang him there."
Kobus Kemp rolled onto his side, drawing his knees up towards his belly, cradling himself, and felt the soft stickiness of his shrinking man-flesh in his palms. Sanie Vermuelen was the Devil, and for her evil, Johannes Jacobus Kemp was going to die.
Manuela Cardiga
I saw a goddess die, suspended from the sky like some hovering angel.
I saw her die, but I don't remember if I saw her face.
I remember her feet. Her feet, hanging straight. Those caloused feet, coarse soled, as she was coarse souled; heels cracked and burned black by the heat of our native soil.
I saw it, those long in-turned toes scrap-scrap-scrapping to and fro, to and fro. And I saw them smearing dainty strokes of blood, trails of pain; the pendulum of her madness marking our holy land.
CHAPTER 1 The Pilgrims
The Memoirs of Johannes Jacobus Kemp
I write these down now, but I never want to tell this story.
I am going to die. I want to die peaceful with my God. I don't want to tell this story, not to Predikant, not to my son. It is my crime, my sin, but I must make my soul clean with my God. I tell it here, where no one will read, no one will know.
I write to confess to my God my sin of hate, lust, murder, and idolatry. This last one, I think, is the greatest sin. God is a jealous God, Predikant says, and I worshipped another.
Ireland - County-Mayo September 1877
British Empire
The Captain watched them charge. A rag-tag wave of poverty and stinking rags, and at the forefront, high as foam on a storm breaker, was the biggest woman he had ever seen.
"Shoot, Sergeant, shoot to kill," he instructed, and lifted to his lips the glove clasped in his hand, inhaling the faint scent of lavender clinging to the pearly satin.
He winced at the screaming thunder of the rifles, as the stench of cordite and hot metal overwhelmed the delicate perfume of the glove pressed to his mouth.
In the street, it seemed, indignation had run out. Panic, fear and doubt overwhelmed the crowd; they were pushing back, trying to escape, to take cover behind each other's bodies.
"Reload! Aim! FIRE!"
Another clap-clap of disjointed sound; another wave of bodies jumping, tossed back by the tiny impact… It always astounded him, that sight, that something as slight as a lead ball could throw back a body as if hammered by a giant.
In a few minutes they were gone, or mostly gone. In the dust and smoke of the street few things moved, stood upright, offered themselves to the rifles' sight.
One small boy tugged desperately at a dead man's leg, trying to drag him away, leaving a stuttering trail of blood from where the back of his head used to be.
Oh, but in the very center of the carnage a scene of particular pathos caught the Captain's eye. On his Grand Tour -when for one night he’d surfaced from between the heaving breasts of a Florentine courtesan - he´d been dragged by a friend enamoured of the Arts to see, by torchlight, Michelangelo’s Pieta. He had though then the purity of pain expressed on the Madonna's face would be unsurpassed. He would not see its like for the rest of his life.
But now! In the very center of bedlam, a woman cradled to her breast a child.
No...Not a child. a man, but such was her size, his stature seemed reduced to infantile proportions. Every curve in her body was a scream of agony, the desperate arms, the rocking of her shoulders...Exquisite. Quite exquisite.
He stepped forward, over the tumbled limbs, towards her. Closer, he caught the merest glimpse of her profile perdu. The woman heard him. Some notion of his presence impinged, tore through the thick veil of grief. She raised her head to look up at him.
No beauty this. Her face was a set mask of stolid features, drizzled with scarlet freckles to match the scarlet hair wound in a coronet around her head. Her eyes were a dull pebble-gray, her lips thin, colorless.
She gently set the man down on the ground and unfolded herself before him to her full height.
"You killed him, my husband, my love." The voice was soft, the eyes quite dead. She raised her hands. "He is dead, my boy."
The Captain stepped back as she advanced.
Her voice raised to a scream: "Dead! My Seamus dead!" Incoherent sound erupted from her, soulless screams shuddered her form as she moved towards him, her mouth torn open in a black square hole of hate, exploding sound.
"Sergeant!" He screamed, and a rifle-butt smashed her down.
***
Zululand - November 1877
Southern Africa
In the flickering firelight Dabulamanzi felt the weight of the King's stare, saw the threat of the King's loving smile.
"Dabu, brother's son, finally you are blooded, a fine warrior, a good nephew." And the King smiled.
Dabu had seen that smile many times. Many times had young men of the King's blood been singled out for praise, young men for whom the sun had risen for the last time...So Dabu smiled back:
"Baba, you honor me, I am dirt at the feet of the King..."and Dabu lowered his head even further. He stretched his lips into a wide, inane smile, and knew that sometime in the last weeks, somewhere; somehow he had made a mistake. A flicker of his native intelligence had shone through; someone who had the ear of the King had whispered the truth...
Dabu was by birth, by blood, by right a "man who could be King"; and the King watched such men carefully, least the people start whispering his name as "the man who should be King".
Dabu knew they would come this night. There would be no delay. So he smiled and smiled, laughed and bowed his head, wobbling it from side to side like a man who'd had too much maize beer, and he saw from the corner of his eye Cetshwayo gesture his dwarf forward. He saw the grotesque man's eyes fix on him, then lower to the King's shoulder. The order was given.
Dabu laughed louder, then choked, gagged, and to the general disgust and hilarity started to spew from his mouth the large mouthful of beer he had just gulped.
"OUT! Out, Dabu!" cried his cousin, "You shame yourself before the King!" Dabulamanzi rose and ran to the exit of the great hut, to jeers and pokes and pushes. One malicious hand tugged at his kilt, leaving him naked, and the laughter redoubled. With a drunken lurch, Dabu exited the great hut.
He was out - sober alert and afraid in the cool night air. He stalked silently past the sentries, walked away through the multitude of huts in the royal compound. At an empty hut, he stole an assegai, and a water gourd.
Dabulamanzi, of the line of Shaka, nephew of Cetshwayo - the King of all the Zulus - and himself "a man who could be King", turned his face West to the mountains of the Dragon, and ran for his life.
Naked, afraid as only a wise man is afraid, Dabu ran.
***
Trasvaal - December 1877
Territory Annexed by the British Empire
He was a dead man. He rode in the middle of the silent riders, as he had always dreamed he would, since he’d been a small child.
And now, now that that ambition was fulfilled, Johannes Jacobus was going to die. He was seventeen, and he was as good as dead.
It had started so quietly, his dying. It had started with a Christmas lunch. A celebration, as Predikant said. The birth of Christ, God's promise of salvation made flesh; but for Kobus Kemp, it was a feast of death.
They had gathered at the Vermuelen farm, six families, nearly seventy people, more than he had ever seen together before. They had been there a week, and his family would stay longer. His brother, Wilhelm, was courting Sanie, the Vermuelen's eldest daughter.
Kobus knew it was a mistake. He knew as soon as he saw her, that Sanie Vermuelen was an evil, wicked woman, a soul destroyer.
He saw it in her round, slick, cat face, and the way she peered at Wilhelm sideways under her prim bonnet. He saw it in the way her plump flesh strained the buttons of her high-necked blouse. It was written into her pale skin; in the golden freckles on the inside of her slender wrists.
Mostly he knew it by the thrumming second heart beating at his groin. Sanie Vermuelen was the Devil's Daughter, one of the Jezebels Predikant had warned them about, but Wilhelm was blind.
So they all sat at the long trestle tables for the Christmas lunch, the women serving the men, and Sanie has brushed against him as if by mistake. Her arm had brushed his cheek. She was smiling at Wilhelm, that sly smile. Kobus could smell her, her dense woman-flesh. The ripeness of it mixed with the aroma of the meat-stew made his mouth overflow with saliva, made him gag.
After lunch, the women took the smaller children inside the house, away from the hot sun, and the men cradled their pipes. The younger people wandered away, to sit under the trees, or play some skipping games, with ropes and stones. Kobus watched as Wilhelm and Sanie quietly walked away, heads together, towards a ridge of scarlet rock jutting out of the yellow veldt.
He followed them, saw her run ahead, turning, laughing, luring him into a narrow canyon between the two long spurs of striated red stone. Kobus clambered up the ridge, lost sight of them for long minutes, then came up to perch high above them, a birds-eye view of their embrace.
Their heads were close together, he could see a confused entanglement of limbs and shadows. Their voices - low as they were - were funneled up to him, as distinct as if they panted in his ear.
Wilhelm moaned," Let me Sanie...Just..." Kobus could see him fumbling at her, hear her answering panting cry.
"Will...No!"
"Asseblief, Sanie, 'sseblief?" His brother was begging, pleading, and SHE was making odd little noises, little cries. Wilhelm was pushing her back against the rock wall, pressing into her.
"Touch me, Sanie, please?" Then Willem made an odd strangled sound, and Sanie cried out.
"Sies, don't you touch me! LET ME GO!"
She was pushing Wilhelm away, running between the spurs of rock, her blouse open, her bonnet hanging by its ribbons, running towards the velt, and Kobus found himself scrambling down the rocks after her.
He wanted to catch her, take her back to the house with her buttons undone and her hair falling down so they could see her for what she was: the Whore of Babylon.
And he caught her. He grabbed at her arm as she exited the canyon, swung her round. She was gasping, blinded by tears, her teats half bare, and on her skirt was a glistening smear.
Kobus could smell it, her sweat and his brothers' spill; and suddenly he was tearing at her, pushing her down, scrabbling at her skir,t baring her pale legs. Sanie screamed, a high keening sound, and he threw her down, fumbling at his own crotch, tearing at the buttons.
Sanie fell, fell flat on her back, and her breath wooshed out. She was dazed, and in a second he was on her. He poked at her frantically, trapping her flaying hands, and she screamed. He hit her then, punched her. He punched her as his flesh sank into hers, and in that moment he could not tell which was the greatest pleasure.
Kobus Kemp slammed his fist again and again into her face as he thrust into her body, shouting out his pleasure, his rage.
Her flesh yielded, her face a wash of blood, and then something, someone tore them apart. Harsh hands were ripping at him, pulling him off her, out of her, even as he spilled his ecstasy with a protesting scream.
He scrambled to his knees, and the first kick smashed into him. He was surrounded by a forest of legs. Men's legs. Another boot connected with his chest, rolling him over, and a man's voice screamed: "My Sanie! Look what this animal done to my Sanie!"
Fists hammered him breathless, then a sudden respite.
Someone had pulled Jan Vermuelen off him. A huge hand lifted up his head, and a dark face swam into view. Dark eyes examined his face, then his head was dropped. Swart-Piet Ferreira spat on him.
"Don’t kill him, Jan. Take him to Johannesburg. Let them hang him there for what he did to your girl. If you kill him, it's you will be hanged, and Anna and Sanie and the boys will be alone. Take him to Johannesburg, let the English hang him there."
Kobus Kemp rolled onto his side, drawing his knees up towards his belly, cradling himself, and felt the soft stickiness of his shrinking man-flesh in his palms. Sanie Vermuelen was the Devil, and for her evil, Johannes Jacobus Kemp was going to die.
Manuela Cardiga
May 10, 2015
LIZZIE BORDEN TOOK AN AX
I have loved life
Much longer
Than I have loved you,
So I know
There is no loss
Of love or limb
I cannot survive,
And in this case,
Only amputation
Will suffice
To cut that bind,
That thing
Between us two-
End it -
Cut it through.
Whatever pain
From what love
May remain
I will cure,
The phantom
Twitches
Of my heart
I will endure.
Come now,
Don't complain!
Must I yet again
Explain?
This is your will,
Not mine!
So hold still;
Don't struggle so,
While I strike
That final blow
And sever
My heart from you.
Manuela Cardiga
Much longer
Than I have loved you,
So I know
There is no loss
Of love or limb
I cannot survive,
And in this case,
Only amputation
Will suffice
To cut that bind,
That thing
Between us two-
End it -
Cut it through.
Whatever pain
From what love
May remain
I will cure,
The phantom
Twitches
Of my heart
I will endure.
Come now,
Don't complain!
Must I yet again
Explain?
This is your will,
Not mine!
So hold still;
Don't struggle so,
While I strike
That final blow
And sever
My heart from you.
Manuela Cardiga
May 8, 2015
If life gives you lemons, MAKE LEMON CURD!
Lemon Curd
3 large egg yolks, strained
Grated rind of 1/2 lemon
1/4 cup lemon juice
6 tablespoons sugar
4 tablespoons butter, cold, cut into pieces
Combine the yolks, lemon rind, lemon juice, and sugar in a small saucepan. Whisk to combine. Set it over medium heat, and stir constantly with a wooden spoon, making sure to stir the sides and bottom of pan too.
Cook until the mixture is thick enough to coat back the of wooden spoon.
Remove the saucepan from the heat and add the butter, one piece at a time, stirring until consistency is smooth.
Transfer the mixture to a medium-sized glass bowl.
Lay a sheet of plastic wrap directly on the surface of the curd to avoid a skin from forming; and wrap tightly. Let it cool; then refrigerate until firm and chilled.
(at least 1 hour)
Eat it all up like a pig straight out of the jar, or make Lemon Curd Pie, or Lemon Meringue Tarts! (for the meringue use the egg whites you save from the curd, whip them with a tablespoon of sugar each...)
It's a lot more satisfactory than lemonade and a lot more fattening!!!
YAY!
(by the way, this is not my own recipe, I got it out of an old book)
MC
3 large egg yolks, strained
Grated rind of 1/2 lemon
1/4 cup lemon juice
6 tablespoons sugar
4 tablespoons butter, cold, cut into pieces
Combine the yolks, lemon rind, lemon juice, and sugar in a small saucepan. Whisk to combine. Set it over medium heat, and stir constantly with a wooden spoon, making sure to stir the sides and bottom of pan too.
Cook until the mixture is thick enough to coat back the of wooden spoon.
Remove the saucepan from the heat and add the butter, one piece at a time, stirring until consistency is smooth.
Transfer the mixture to a medium-sized glass bowl.
Lay a sheet of plastic wrap directly on the surface of the curd to avoid a skin from forming; and wrap tightly. Let it cool; then refrigerate until firm and chilled.
(at least 1 hour)
Eat it all up like a pig straight out of the jar, or make Lemon Curd Pie, or Lemon Meringue Tarts! (for the meringue use the egg whites you save from the curd, whip them with a tablespoon of sugar each...)
It's a lot more satisfactory than lemonade and a lot more fattening!!!
YAY!
(by the way, this is not my own recipe, I got it out of an old book)
MC
May 4, 2015
FIVE STAR REVIEW for "MANSCAPES Journey into Light"!
5 A interesting story that I hope will be a motivation to women all over the world who need to start their Journey Into Light
Bywairimu mwangion April 30, 2015
Format: Kindle Edition
A Journey into Light; MANscapes is the saddest story I have read recently. Unfortunately, Clara is a symbol of what quite a number of women have to endure. But I'm glad that she finally realizes life is too short to be spent in melancholy.
The story is well thought out, the plot is perfect and I love the poetic manner in which the author coins her words.
MANscapes is definitely a good read especially for anyone who needs that motivation to embark on their journey into light and I therefore recommend it.
CLICK FOR MORE REVIEWS!
