Just Inspired...!!!

Yes our country's economy is not doing well & I hope everybody can see it like the way we're supposed to, companies are struggling to keep up and those who can keep up need to go through retrenchments for them to survive. The job market is steadily freezing, unemployment rate is growing everyday & I remember the words of one revolutionary "a hungry man is an angry man" and I wonder if I'm the only person who knows about that phrase. People get mugged & hijacked everyday and the government officials are so quick to deploy the correctional services & the Police as if they would know how to stop or reduce the crime.

Our situation is beyond the Police, they are hungry too & that shows in many ways especially when they start taking bribes. The financial state of the majority is a bit scary looking also at the number of immigrants from different cultural background, here I'm talking of those with the winning formula & the ones with street psychology. Profit is profit at the end of the day, the patience of the masses will one day run-out & change shall be forged. As I'm jotting down now over 10 000 South Africans are being retrenched from their job by some of the prominent companies due to profit loss & all these other reasons. Change is here & it's either you are ready to wait for what you deserve or get depressed in the awe of poverty, or join the corrupt to survive.

No matter what your choice is when you receive that retrenchment package, take it with a smile because it's part of your rights as an employee. Be inspired to start your own, be inspired to take that very first step to say "enough is enough". I mean lets together say no to corruption, it affects more than just the economy. It affects even the poor of the poorest. I know these article of mine might be like a suicide note to my career if not the catalyst, but all I really want to say to the capitalists of these world is that "One day the poor will have nothing else to eat but the Rich". When you are busy with the process of increasing your money just don't forget that somethings in these world money won't be able to buy & that is just sad. To the poor & the survivors out there, be just inspired...Be Strong Enough To Let Go & Patient Enough To Wait For What You Deserve!!!

Do what's right & please don't forget to do it in the right way...
...be efficient & effective in all that you do, success will come your way. Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans, keep making those plans & do your best in executing them. Remember fail is not an obstacle, it is the First Action In Learning and if you live your life like a pencil them problems will be your sharpener so you can draw a better picture of the future.

Memories Of Her

SHE GOT WELL(Healed)

In her eyes I saw fear of pain

My tears were like rain

They flooded my paper universe

Left me with no place to write my verse

To relief my stress

Seeing her in pain made me cry

Knowing I'm not gonna see her again makes me wanna cry

At least in pain she could respond

I wanted to take her place as her youngest boy

It was this day 11 years ago

That one day when daddy came back home from the Hospital

He said, "o fodile"

She got well

He meant,  "o ile"

...she's not coming back

My favourite spoon became the worst that day

I choked on food from it when I ate

It used to dig the food she prepared on my plate

Why did it have to be the 1 to dig my mom's grave?

Why did it have to be the 1 to cause me pain?

I know it was time

Not my time but God's time

I still remember the day

The year 2004, 18th Of May

When daddy came back home from the Hospital 

He said "o fodile"

She got well

He meant, "o ile"...

...and she's not coming back

By Rufus "Roof-Top" Mashao (18-05-2004)

Yes she got well. She was very sick in Hospital & stayed there for few weeks just before she departed from the painless life of the flesh. Heaven is a place for people like her, beautiful and strong. True believer in the Lord, she loved music so much her normal day was a song and a special one would be singing it with all her kids being home. That prayer she said every Sunday just before we all left for our places of work & schools was the feast for the spirit & motivation our belief in God and ourselves. Eleven years later I stumbled upon my poetry book from when she was still alive. It felt like someone wrote all those poems except the Poem above, "She Got Well"...

...as I could remember vividly the tears that dropped on the very page I jotted a Poem to celebrate her life. That watermark was the signature of life turning it's pages of her last chapter, I wanted to know who writes the book because I was the one who wrote her the only Poem she never got to read. I don't know how, but eleven years later my eyes still get teary when I think of the best memories of my life with her, I remember my mom in happy way. And, today I shall rejoice in the Lord & make happiness for myself by honouring the woman who gave me more than life. The wisdom to never let a moment pass without writing about it, this moment is for you & me momma. And as I have always marked this day in the diary of my heart, so shall the son of my son. Memories don't live like people do and that be the reason I continue to write you again today, on behalf of me & all my siblings. Your "Memories Shall Live Forever In Us".

Tigers Don't Cry, Men Do...

It was the era of BMX and we were out as boys to display our skills to the community members that never understood why we’d put ourselves in the line of danger. According to most people I knew when growing up thought doing tricks on a BMX was dangerous, yes maybe it was by that time because I broke 2 of my hands at the same time with the first accident I had. As a young boy all I wanted to be was a stunt-man hence it came with a lot of pain & fractures, unforeseen circumstances that gives me a chill on my spine now as an older man. I am grateful to be alive & in one piece, now being older & more cautious I look back to my dreams to a realization that I was made for something else. It was 1988 when I first got my first BMX trick-bike, it was my aunt who bought it and she thought it would help with me when being sent to the shops time & again. It would mean that I will always come back sooner and also give me more time to exercise since I was a fat/chubby kid when I was growing up, my aunt would go jogging with me riding my BMX just in front of her.

                                          

Just a decade after being injured by my first bicycle I got involved in a car accident that could make an old man cry like a baby, it would make creative minds want to make a movie about it. It was my best friend driving & only one person was physically injured out of the 4 of us in that Ford Laser 1.6i sport - 1996 model, we were hit by a truck that smashed us against the bridge wall on Jan Smuts Avenue going into Randburg. That was trauma & a half, the ambulances came after an hour and none of us had a cell-phone to call our families or close relatives hence it was in the middle of the night where we were on our way to an after party of a Hip-Hop Summit that was help in Germiston the East of Johannesburg. I know you are reading & thinking the driver was obviously drunk & NO you are wrong to think that, we went out of our way to find a sober driver which didn't change fate of us being involved in an accident. We were all taken to Milpark Hospital along with our injured friend, it was just for safety for us to be checked for internal injuries or fractures. Sitting on one of those non-comfortable hospital chairs at the waiting area I heard a nurse call out my name, I tried so hard to stand up to approach her only to find that I couldn't stand or walk. I felt a pain on my spine towards the waist, as if something had just cut me in half. A few seconds later I couldn't feel my legs, horrifying as it was I screamed to the nurse to call my house. My imagination took a wrong turn & saw me bound to a wheel chair that left me crying for those walks I said no to. Yes I was crying, tell me which man wouldn’t. Yet I could only remember my uncle telling me that I’m a tiger, which I guess most of us boys when we grow up being told that we’re tigers & we should know that “Tigers Don’t Cry”. From that moment on I had my twist it all, I agree with them when they say “Tigers Don’t Cry” but “Men Do. What would be a man without tear drops in his past if not the present, a smile on his face time & again and that laugh that expresses the intellectuals of identifying that crazy joke. What would be a man without loving a woman, being alive & knowing what it feels like to be in love? I know at times we need to be brave & endure the pain hence the biggest pain I know is the one of a man keeping his pain a secret. Yes Tigers Don’t Cry, Men Do…Men do love, live, smile, talk, sing, dance & etc. Men do that because they are men & yes they can be Tigers but Tigers can’t be men, so go on & share your pain. #SomeoneCares

MUSIC TO MY SOUL…

It was all in the midst of childhood when I learnt of death, when an old woman of statue passed on in my family. I was in class when my aunt came to collect me from school to my late (Gogo) grandmother’s house, hence by then I wasn't even told of her life journey ending. While driving with my aunt tries to start a conversation by asking me if I remembered what my “Gogo” used to say to me about celebrating one’s life, the ever inquisitive me then asked where “Gogo” was. I saw tears in auntie’s eyes & her voice starting to sound rough & deep, full of pain and she then parked on the side of the road to hug me & whispered “O fodile” meaning “She’s now healed/well”. She sounded more like Gogo her tone went deeper, I choked on my own saliva & coughed my lungs out as my aunt was a bit slow with pouring me the juice in the Styrofoam cup. Only to find that she was deep in tears & now decided to tell me straight up that “Gogo is no more”, I kind of knew what she meant hence being a little boy I asked whether she was sure. From there it was only silence in the loud engine car, I fell asleep right there & then.

The worst moment of every human’s departure is the burial, the cemetery is mostly filled to the brim in the black neighborhoods in South Africa and the Saturday in August 1990 was the day we celebrated Gogo’s life with songs and praises. That old woman pass on at the age of 86 yrs and as I put this pen to paper I’m not even half the age she lived. She always referred to me as her hubby because her husband was fond of me more than any other cousin or sibling, he is the man that moulded my tune. He loved music so much that it was the only thing I heard on the day of Gogo’s funeral, it brought her whole village together & the only thing was that they were all strangers to me but knew me enough to know that my passion was the song.

The priest came forth with only hymns that left everybody slow & emotional, seeing that it was sad I convinced my cousin to start a chorus from the outside of the cemetery tents. She started the most joyous & thankful song only to get a hiding of her life, I felt guilty the whole day till we got home and as a family we sang the very same song to commemorate Gogo. “I remember mamma in happy way” was then & even though it wasn't a gospel song it was perfect for the occasion & even the funeral, funerals still scare me today…I wish I could be absent on mine, because people crying became Music to My Soul!!! So many I lost along the way and even the daughter to my grand-mother, my mother passed on and it feels like the spoon I use keep digging everybody’s grave. Again today I sing the very same song that got my cousin sister a hiding at Gogo’s funeral, “I remember mamma in happy way”. Excuse my key for those who never talk about death, to all those that passed on & they knew me…DEATH BE NO PROUD!!!

EXCUSE MY KEY…

Thanks for listening to my nerves, damn you got me nervous…

…pardon my story isn't Mr Lonely, my real name is Rufus

King William II had it as his last, some of that greatness onto me was passed…

…never mind my past, I hope this isn't lust

Hoping more that you aren't venomous, something like this can be dangerous…

…hazardous to emotions, girl I’m scared

Not of the past hence the future, damn I’m scared…

…in life I lost and found, still I am lost

“Finding what was never lost doesn't make it yours” my late mother told me that when we spoke about love…

…I know I had enough, ownership ain't my game just teach me how to love you

EXCUSE MY KEY…

I learned my notes in the pain lab…

…with Dr Dre in the background playing I conclude that never will I ever find the missing Rib-bone on my chest

I want to let my heart rest…

…with you it feels like the last test

That maybe I found the missing Rib-bone on my chest…!!!

EXCUSE MY KEY…

…notes I learned are sultry – POETRY and nothing else

All I want is her & her words…

…her swag can’t be a problem, word!!!

EXCUSE MY KEY…

…all I know is the notes I play are never astray – MELODY and nothing else

And only you have to EXCUSE MY KEY…

Man vs Lion

Just after I watched this video I knew I had to share it with the fearful...

...it's not about the fearless but strategy. Success is only about strategy...

DEATH BE NOT PROUD

As we approaching Christmas day & going deep into the festive season, most of us look back to the beginning of the year on the new years' resolutions we had then. And some of us also look back to the previous years and what they had brought to our Christmas Lunch tables, gifts we received & people we'll definitely miss because they couldn't make it to this point. Today I am writing this Blog post just to express respects to those who made it and those who couldn't, the likes of utata Nelson Mandela, Muammar Gaddafi, Senzo Meyiwa, Reeva Steenkamp, Mbulayeni Mulaudzi, Lebo Mathosa, Brenda Fassie and e.t.c

Today I want to pay my respect to the infamous friends & family we lost along the way, people who lived a positive life to the day they took their last breath. This coming Saturday is one of those Soldiers to our everyday struggle in this time & era, Rest In Peace Tshepo "Loopy" Molopa. Here I am writing this message and remembering all the friends I lost along the way till today, I look up to the sky with amazement & inquisitive thoughts. When is my time? Will anybody ever write anything like this just to show their respect or express how they feel? Will it be to glorify the life I lived or to embrace my presence in their lives?

I know most of those who'll read this will driving over a 100 of kilometres to go to different destination to pay their last respects to their loved ones, to all of those who passed on to another world...RIP - Rest In Peace. These Blog post was inspired by my old time favourite poem or should I say the first poem to ever got me to love Poetry, Death Be Not Proud by John Donne . And for all that death had taken from us, I have little to say but the words from that poem...

"One short sleep past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die"

Death Be Not Proud...for we shall meet again with those who passed on, I would love to see the frown on Death's face as we move on to greater heights.

PAINTING BY GOD

A perfect little thing...
...all I ever I wanted for me
Face of the season spring...
...like it's flowers, you bring out the best in me
So Da Vinci's Mona Lisa...
...just a million times bigger
More clearer
As I get nearer
Its my pleasure to say...
"Picasso did paint"
But your beauty is the best art ever
That declares God the best artist ever
There-fore you are the best Painting By God

Framed with love & respect...
...nothing these world could expect
Signed by God himself...
...his signature in your eyes
Placed in his Gallery...
...it has no price tag
It's worth no money...
...God is a scientist
His paintings can move...
...he's a perfectionist
I've seen it & that's proof
Its my pleasure to say...
"Picasso did paint"
God is the best, better than the rest
There-fore you are the best Painting By God