Forward travelling in seven different directions

‘They shall come to attack you, all from one direction,

But when the Lord is done with them, they shall flee,

In seven different directions.’ That’s the Biblical promise.

The first misdirection is that you were very idle in the SQ,

The second that I was busy at HQ and could not join you,

For Sunday afternoon BBQ.

The third thing is that I was not going to die like you,

Stewing in your own sh*t.

The fourth thing was that I was too terrified to watch you go,

That’s why during visits I hang onto the hospital door.

Alright, I plead the fifth/ and will say naught about the sixth.

The seventh is that forward travelling, if you take the staircase,

Always leads straight to Heaven.

The first direction led back to childhood, and the house in West

Painted bright blue/ so that it seemed to merge into the sky’s hue.

What a view!

The second thing was maize, and the third beans, I had no bones about eating githeri daily. The fourth was that we are but blood, bones and meat/ dog food with skin thrown over the whole thing/ an old Sat Mag used to wrap meat.

The fifth thing is Thou shall not throw stones/ at glass bones.

And the Dead are sometimes more alive than the Living.

The sixth thing is still a secret, and the seventh is the scent of a bypassing stranger, whose name may be, but is probably not, Susan.

Alright, the first direction to run is North, forward travelling in Mpeketoni. The second is that a stubborn woman’s nagging is never done. The third is that no-one really knows Tony (though one Wanga thinks she does), beyond the fact that my fave day is Saturday.

The fourth is that if a man does not marry anyone (and ain’t a priest) He’s not a senior bachelor, he is a seasoned player, (or gay).

The fifth is that East or West, we are forever forward travelling.

And have the poetic license to stay silent. Like sixth. Or. Break the silence, and say the sixth is the way Bro looked when he was dying.

Shrunken and hard-breathing as if every agonising breath of oxygen, had to be dragged out of the air, its bond separated from the nitrogen, carbon dioxide and argon, that make up the Earth’s atmosphere.

The seventh is that a fifth of air equals a quarter of Vodka or 200 ml of Countryman.

And the 21 grams we lose when we first die, and the way the dead go blind, with eyes wide open like circus clowns.

And the last forward travelling we do in this town is vertical,

And six feet down.

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