You once moved like music
had your name written in it.
Every step was prayer,
every spin was a story
the air remembered.
The stage was yours,
and we borrowed light
from the way you carried it.
Life changed the rhythm, not the dancer.
The world got loud,
and somewhere the beat got lost.
Now the streets hold your footprints
where the floorboards used to.
Madness did not erase the grace
— it just hid it under harder days.
We still see the art
in how you tilt your head,
how your hands still conduct silence.
You taught us that beauty
doesn’t need a spotlight to be real.
So today we honor you: the dancer,
the dream, the human.
May you be seen, may you be safe,
may you be remembered with love.
CHARLES MADILANA MOOKWA
“AKA” THE DANCING MAD MAN
Who is this mad dancing man?
If you knew his story, you’d be shocked to the core.
Charles graduated cum laude in Arts — the highest honour.
The wonderful Charles. The magnificent Charles.
He studied abroad, interned abroad, played the lead in a theatre series.
The centre stage was what he was born for.
Then came December.
He went home for the holidays and bought his mother a car.
That car took her life.
After that, Charles was never the same.
He never went back abroad.
The director tried to reach him. No luck.
He fell into a web of mental problems, roaming the streets he once performed on.
They call him the Dancing Mad Man now.
But 4 weeks felt like 4 years of misfortune.
One December trip home left him scarred for life.
The wonderful Charles.
The magnificent Charles.
A man without wings, who fell to the ground he came from.
Great Britain’s famous Charles Darwin -
On biology he put a new spin.
Like Lincoln, born the exact same year, month and day;
both hated slavery and are well-remembered, by the way.
Charles Dickens
wrote a plot that thickens
about Pip's fate
and expectations that were great.
The tears catch themselves in my throat,
and do not spill out of my eyes.
He's laying in the warmth of my bed,
and I know his hands will go cold,
I think back to the time I've wasted- no- cherished.
The grief of sickness flickers in my husbands eyes,
Still I do not cry.
His research stirs in my head,
And I laugh sadly,
Thinking: God will not wait for him,
And still my cheeks stay dry.
God, how peculiar, how he makes my mind wonder
Of all the thoughts his data might bestow.
his chest spikes in pain,
I see it in his eyes- then across his face,
And our family's faces twists
as if our hearts are the ones failing,
Maybe they are in some way.
The conclusion that maybe meaning isn't in the pages,
But in their memories,
Makes my chest heave,
But no sob comes.
I see him smirk,
And turn,
And whisper,
“I am not at all afraid to die.”
Then, with a shaky hand,
I lay my hand across his face,
and close his eyes.
Knowing he lives on in books,
and in me.
Charles Kirk, conservative political activist, author, and media personality was assassinated in Utah on Sept 10, 2025
A world of common sense is stifled
A loss for all of us, indeed
Whoever killed him used a rifle
In vicious, vile, heinous deed
We knew him all and his compassion
Someone who spoke the honest truth
Defending freedom with a passion
And gifting hope to our youth
He may be gone, yet seeds he planted
Shall germinate and bear fruit
Ascend to Pearly Gates was granted
So sad his voice is now on mute
It’s one of those turning points
That twists the country on its head
Time shall make sense at this checkpoint
What we have lost with Charlie’s dead
Whoever did this want us chained
And walking left instead of right
May not this loss be their gain
Farewell, C. Kirk, one noble knight
September 10, 2025
the streets smell of coffee
and the burnt ends of last night’s cigarettes.
faces move past me like they’ve been sandpapered—
eyes dull, shoulders pulled up like bad weather.
the mailman walks slower,
the bartender pours heavier,
even the pigeons look nervous.
something’s in the air—
a weight you can’t see
but you feel it pressing your ribs.
I drink my beer,
pretend I’m above it,
but the truth is my chest is tight too.
whatever it is,
it’s leaking through the cracks.
and we’re all standing in it,
pretending it’s just another day.
"Oh King Charles Philip Arthur George,
how do I see thee?
Let me count the ways...
Tho' beauty is only skin deep,
and in the eye of the beholder,
or so we have been told,
yours is more, it goes to the bone,
a sore sight for eyes to behold,
now you have acceded to the throne.
As, like diarrhoea, it seems,
it runs in the genes,
and, if POTUS is President of the USA,
would you be he, KOTUK,
King Of The UK?"
'Surely you jest,' quoth he in dour reply.
Tho', not joking nor feeling surly,
"Some things you simply can't deny,
ours not to reason why," said I,
"and please don't call me Shirley!"
Charles John Huffam Dickens
wrote many novels where the plot thickened
but one of his best ditties
was A Tale of two Cities
this king rulès by the people..By paliamentry decree'
Now the country for millenia, has been a Christian
Majority.. Defender of faiths.? Does he await a great
Change? And is Britain willing to endure untold pain?
REVERSE EKPHRASIS
poesy
painting
bottles clink like keys to hell's doors,
my hands shook before they stilled in gin,
first it was a love affair—
warm whiskey whispers on cold nights,
the booze bloomed,
and I rode the flame like a fool on fire.
years lost, sweat-soaked in bars,
conversations slurred, jobs slipping
through my fingers like sand.
I traded promises for the bottom of a glass,
women for the next cheap thrill—
a barstool my throne,
but the drinks never loved me back.
the mornings were cruel
with the sun stabbing my skull,
and all the friends turned to ghosts,
I was king of my own wreckage,
but the throne was burning,
and still, I drank
the keys stick when I type,
the ink smudges on cheap paper,
there’s an old man in the corner
laughing through his dentures at my words.
he knows, I know—
it’s all garbage,
all of it.
writing the same worn-out lines,
spinning circles around rent checks
that will barely clear.
this morning, the phone rang,
and I thought it was hope—
turned out to be another
rejection letter in a different voice.
I’m smoking old cigars
that burn the fingers but not the mind,
drinking coffee cold as winter in a can,
wondering how I ended up here,
writing just to keep the lights on.
and that goldfish,
it’s still there—
belly-up in its bowl,
not even a bubble left
to prove it ever lived.
I haven’t flushed it.
I’ll keep it as a reminder,
that we all float for a while
before sinking.
the landlord knocks again,
the ashtray overflows.
they peel back my skin
like old wallpaper,
the stink rising
as the organs, bruised and bloated,
spill out like forgotten secrets.
the saw hums,
cutting through bone like butter,
the ribs cracking open
to a cold, fluorescent light
that never flinches.
the heart, heavy, useless now,
is weighed and tossed aside,
just another lump of meat
in a world that’s always hungry
for the next hollow thing.
looking down on what's left of me,
I turn in dicust
having to do this sll over again.
William Charles Lunalilo
First King, chose by the people
Grandnephew of the Great King, as the people vote, was unanimous
Next year, King Kamehameha the Sixth died of tuberculosis
Hawaiian marriages are coconuts
Apple's eye, orchard nigh--girls uppercuts
Bees concede and confess
Honey is not the best
Lunalilo stings in-laws -- blood and guts.
Pacific divides paradise from lies, pulpit denies, missionary connives, fleece, devise hoax, and shanghais,
The native's supplies for whalers, all dives. At times, pearls for wider eyes, command contrives to control their lives.
Kings II & III foresaw their greed, the lands were a need to wed and achieve access was their way to succeed,
Lunalilo was short-lived, the people he decreed, as past kings agreed, a land trust deed, 'ere his life concedes.
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