To His Coy Mistress

A good week to everybody! I’m writing with two intertwining emotions as I speak. On the one hand is the emotion of despondency from the reaffirmation that my betters at writing painfully abound; and elation that I share a kindred spirit with one of my betters. The sage of whom I speak in this instance is none other than Andrew Marvell on his poem “To His Coy Mistress”.

I remember treating this very poem in my first year in university, although at the time we were too petrified of our lecturer, then Dr Inyama, and his promise that only half of us would make it through his course. Our fear of him seemed very well founded on account of his stern and austere demeanour. In fact throughout my four year course in the English Literature department, no one ever saw Dr Inyama break into a smile for even a moment. Ah, I err; I did see him sharing laughter over beer at the senior staff club with his colleagues. Oddly enough, he did seem quite at home with this phenomenon, mirth. Interestingly though, our wariness of Inyama began to thaw by the end of his second lecture on satire in poetry and short stories. The man’s wit and humour was as keen as a red hot blade. He introduced me to my favourite poet of all time, Alexander Pope, the writer of “The Rape of the Lock” – but that is a story for another day. “To His Coy Mistress” was treated on the first day of our lecture with him and my fear of his course at the time blinded me to its beauty. A young friend of mine was to reintroduce the poem to me only a few weeks ago, over a decade after my initial introduction to the poem.

I was flirting amiably with a younger colleague, an actress, about twenty one years of age, on a movie set some weeks ago. She was very pretty and well endowed in the right places, and I did not hesitate to tell her so. She smiled back at me coquettishly and with an impish smile on her face told me she was a good girl and would never have any dealings with men. I liked her, mostly because she was quite intelligent and accurately interpreted my flirtatious advances as being just that, which gave us free hand to pit our wits against one another to see who would win in the end – Frieda look at both my clean palms in the air o, nothing happened! We fenced and parried one another’s thrusts until Nikky, at length, told me that if I must possess her, I would have to court her the way Andrew Marvell courted his coy mistress. The name suddenly rang a bell in my head and I asked her about it. She told me the poem was her favourite and recommended that I go and read it up. Immediately we were done for the day I went back home and searched for it on Google and was amply rewarded – I had found another of my mentors. I settled down to a good read.

The poem is basically about a virgin maiden fending off the amorous advances of an older man. She insists on keeping a vow of chastity and the preservation of her virginity. The man replies with the most gentle and piercing wit, peeling away the young lady’s reserve and defences with the skill and ease with which Hector peeled off Achilles beloved friend Patrocles’ stout armour in Homer’s poem The Iliad, until the latter stood before him, naked and ashamed. He answers her with the lightest sarcasm, telling her that if both of them were granted time, he would begin wooing her ten years before Noah’s flood began, then he would dedicate a hundred years towards wooing and admiring each breast on her chest (chei! See rhyme!) before applying another two hundred years to the rest of her body save for one problem – time would not wait for them. So, in order to forestall Death’s handmaidens – the veritable worms – from deflowering her in the grave where there would be no romance, where all her rosy beauty would succumb to the dust, they would best make use of the youthful fire still coursing through their veins entwine themselves in one fiery ball and tear through the impeding iron gates of chastity!

Isn’t that just heavenly? If there was any such thing as reincarnation, I probably am Mr Marvell come again but, since I don’t believe in it, I’ll be content with the knowledge that many more of my kind roamed the earth centuries before my father carried my mother across the threshold and successfully baked the bun – me. I enjoin you my dear folks to read the poem and let me know what you think. Have the greatest weekend everyone, and my love for you has not diminished even after such a long spell in the wilderness but, that is a story for another day. A tout a l’heure!

A Tribute to My Dear Condom

A good week to all and sundry. Tis another week God has given us. I somehow feel the need to apologise for the dark poem I posted last week but choose not to do so on account of the fact that I did say from the onset that I would like to share my highs and lows with you my gentle folks. For who is it that calls him/herself a friend that does not share all seasons with that one he or she claims to be beholden to. Thank you for your patronage.

This week is on a lighter note and I think the title is self explanatory so there’s no need to bore you with verbose words. I have tried to make my meaning in the poem as clear as possible but the playful and mystery loving part of me keeps getting the better of me and so I end up using words that try to provoke images in colour. I was actually inspired to write this one after watching the psycho thriller Fatal Attraction where Glen Close’s character was murderously bent on ruining Michael Douglas’ character’s life. The startling thing about it was that I was physically( okay maybe mentally, but the fact is I was there) there with him when he was having raw blissful sex with Glen on the kitchen sink and in the elevator to later on became chillingly aware of the consequences of my previous five minute stints as she boiled his family bunny. This is my humble attempt at a poetic fatal attraction. Enjoy!


My brother, my friend,
My protector, my armour.
Thou protectest my head as thou leadst
Me into the dark cloying passages
Of joy
And of mystery.
The viscous and the vicious loomed out
Of their ambush.
The walls like octopi closed in and engulfed me.
Back and forth and grunting,
Cross eyed,
A bemused smile
Fixed across my face,
I struggled to extricate myself
But two steely vice entwined themselves
Around my back.
Finally, with spasmodic convulsions I spewed
Millions of lives
Which you held in check.
Thank you my raincoat
For protecting me from the acid rain.
I come out dry and safe
From painful pees
And sharply braked education
With two lives in my hands
In the startled bondage
Of an unhappy marriage.


That’s all folks so please do have a great week everyone.

SWEET HEMLOCK

Good week everyone! I was going through some of my family pictures the other day and with a wistful smile paused at my late father’s photograph. This particular one he had taken when he had just received his doctorate degree with my four year old self perched on his knee with a quizzed look on my face, probably wondering why I was asked to sit still and look at the mechanical eye staring at me. I remembered the admonition my father used to instruct me with when I’d actively begun appreciating the female form. I was in my last year of secondary school and my ever tidying mother had found some irreverent pictures of women in various forms of undress. My ears, while being too old to be pulled, knew no rest for the best part of a fortnight – a larger percentage of the assault being from my mother. My father in very few words, at four o’clock in the morning, that time most old school parents feel their words sink into their children’s obstinate heads the most, instructed me on the evils of chasing after vagrant women (as he called it) because they were the downfall of would be great men.- a heavy robe he had hung on my broad shoulders from childhood, one I have come to appreciate.

I, as all teenagers are born to do, rebelled (passively of course) against my dad’s instructions. I saw it as him being a spoilsport, and my opinion was enhanced by my uncles’ tales of my dad’s escapades with the fairer sex before he got married to my mother. I wrote this poem in university in my third year with a smile of mischief playing on my lips as I put pen to paper. I want to share with you my thoughts then and hope you’ll enjoy it. Have a great week ahead. Cheerio!


Never again a woman will I chase!
For the evils that abide within
Are such that have no depths.
Eve to Adam
And the fall of Mankind!
But ooooh…
What bliss lies therein the secrets of woman?
Those breasts
Those buttocks
Those thighs
That…
So sweet, so intoxicating, so comforta-
No!
Never!
I shall be wise!
Solomon fell!
Samson fell!
I refuse to be beguiled!
But then…
Sweet is the fall caused by women
For bloodless is the fall.
Like opiated sleep it is.
Retrospect shall now I
On the moonlit blanket beneath which we lay,
Freda and I,
As we writhed and…
Oooh!
Truly, sweet and sour
Is the weapon of a woman.

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