The Elephant Dreams

The Elephant swings across the board

Zagging her trunk and zigging her tusks!

Striding past by six and six, that’s twenty four

Hours of fun, but she finishes YOU in one.  Ha HA!

 

Your helpless buffs fall stumbling by

Ones and twos, they die like flies

Dotting the spots of the die – like flies

Spotting the dots, by twos and ones. Ha HA!

 

The Elephant tosses the Cap in the sky.

She flings the Gauntlet, pie in the sky!

Elephant Pie!  It’s in your eye!

Hours of fun, and she fixes YOU in one! Ha HA!

Going home in the evensong

Let the egrets fly south to the river’s edges
The last glow on their wings, faces turned
Resolutely, in triangles,
Going home.

Let the late birds call the hour, exhorting
The faithful to their rest. Put out the light, and then -
Close down the day.
Go home.

Let the dogs out one last time, sniffing the dark soil
Innocent of the turmoil that twists beneath
The cool spot where they lie
Gone home.

Watchman, what of the night? Why have
You left us? Why are you silent? Oh, defend us
From the perils and dangers of this night,
We beseech thee.

Let the creatures of the dark creep out, listening furtively
For the last grim step of the day, praying
In all time of our tribulation, Good Lord,
Deliver us.

The Weaverbird and the Spider

A story of Victory, Loss and Corruption

The Buffalo,’ said the Weaverbird thoughtfully, as she settled herself more comfortably on the branch above the birdfeeder, ‘might not have been the real winner, after all.’ 

The flock of bronze mannikins paused at their feeding, looked up interestedly, and one by one flew up to hear the story.  

‘uNyathi the Buffalo?’ they twittered. ‘Not the real winner? Not the Real High Champ?’ 

The Weaverbird began to preen her feathers calmly.  When she was satisfied with their shine she resumed her story.  

‘He certainly appears to be the real Champ. But what is the reality behind the story?’ 

‘But there was no doubt,’ the mannikins said. ‘The whole thing was observed by uCikilishe, the Gecko, who was hunting moths in the corner at the time.’  

‘Cikilishe, speak!’ Called the mannikins.  ‘Did uNyathi truly win the Tavli Championship from uNdlovu the Elephant?’ 

uCikilishe the Gecko clicked softly from behind the rainwater pipe, where he was hiding.  

‘Indeed he did win.  I was upside down on the corner of the ceiling at the time, waiting for another moth to come by. I could see the whole room from that vantage point, and I followed the game with as much attention as I could spare from the moths.’ 

‘It was a great Championship match,’ the Gecko continued. ‘uNyathi the Buffalo won the toss, and began the first game.  At first it was neck-and-neck, but uNyathi had the edge, winning four games, while uNdlovu had three. There was uNyathi, smirking away, tossing his horns and showing off as usual.’  

The birds nodded. Yes, they knew old uNyathi. Full of hubris. He’d be so certain that the next game would be the Decider of the Match. Not that uNdlovu was much better. She was always making such boastful noises with that long trunk of hers.  

‘The Elephant won the next game. It wasn’t very exciting – they each seemed determined to get out of the corner and run as fast as possible to the end. uNdlovu got out just one move before uNyathi.’   Four all! The birds chattered and hummed together. One young bronze mannikin, who should have known better, danced on his perch, squeaking ‘uNdlovu is Champ! uNdlovu the Elephant!’  

‘The fifth game was close,’ said uCikilishe, frowning at the young mannikin. ‘But uNyathi the Buffalo is undoubtedly Champ.  He won the game.  I saw it. He trapped uNdlovu in the corner – not an easy task with an Elephant – and then took some of uNdlovu’s men.  There was the Elephant, with nothing to do but wait for defeat, while uNyathi rampaged down the board. Oh, there’s no doubt uNyathi won.’  

All the birds looked at the Weaverbird, sitting quietly on her perch.  

‘But did you actually see the final throw?’ asked the Weaverbird.  

‘Of course!’  

‘What did the dice show?’ asked the Weaverbird.  

‘Well, I don’t remember,’ said uCikelishe, ‘I was looking at a moth at the time.  But I heard the shout when uNyathi won.  Can I go now?  There’s a fat moth at the window!’ 

‘Thank you, Cikileshe,’ said the Weaverbird gravely, and the Gecko bowed politely. 

‘Gcawu!’ called the Weaverbird when uCikelishe had darted off, ‘Gcawu, the Spider, come out and spin your tale!’ 

uGcawu, the Jumping Spider, leapt across the branches.  As bold as he was, he kept one of his eight eyes nervously on uCikilishe’s vanishing tail.  

‘Tell us what you know,’ said the Weaverbird to Gcawu. So the Spider began his story, rather jerkily, as Jumping Spiders do.  

‘I was there as well, in that room, on the very night.  I was watching uCikelishe – you never know with Geckoes, they’ll eat anything.’   

‘Poor Cikelishe, he’s confused,’ continued uGcawu the spider. ‘He became absorbed in a moth on the other side of the room – you know how these Geckoes concentrate, they see and hear nothing else but their prey.  I saw uCikelilshe dash across the ceiling, grab the moth, and disappear into the airvent. He didn’t come out until long after the end of the match.’ 

‘He missed the exciting finish – uNyathi threw a two and a one, and had to uncover one of his pieces. uNdlovu saw her chance, smashed into uNyathi’s men, and blocked all the entry gates.  uNyathi the Elephant romped home, throwing six after six, and won the Championship with a bang.’ 

There was a long silence from the crowd.  Everyone was just stunned.  

‘There’s more evidence against uNyathi,’ said uGcawu. ‘I was surfing the World Wide Web not long ago,’ he said,  ‘And as I was lurking in a Webcam, I happened to see uNyathi. Now, as we know, uNyathi spends most of his time sleeping in the shade, or grazing.  He’s a bit of a lazy bugger.’  

‘But there was uNyathi, in the middle of the night, with the doors locked and the curtains closed, busy constructing something. He had a pair of pliers in his hoof, and he was twisting some wires together.  He was dressed in a long robe, and he had a towel wrapped around his horns. His beard has grown even longer. He looked quite Devilish.’  

The bronze mannikins hopped about in excitement, hardly able to keep their perches.  

‘I thought no more about it,’ continued uGcawu.  But the other day I casually mentioned what I’d seen to my cousin the Scorpion.  He seemed quite interested -  I noticed his tail curling around his back.  He visited me the next day with some of our Scorpion cousins, and invited me to do a little Private Eight Eyes work – as you know, we spiders are well-equipped for that.’ 

‘The investigation itself was quite dull.  Just endlessly examining bank records, one after another.  Well, we reported what we had found to Cousin Scorpion. He just smiled with his mouth-parts, and curled his tail a bit more.’  

‘It seems uNyathi was so galled by his defeat that he’s been trying to inflate and explode uNdlovu’s bank account,’  continued uGcawu. ‘As we speak, the Scorpions are on their way to his lair, to arrest him on charges of Terrorism.  It turns out he has a previous conviction for something similar, and in fact served two years in prison some years ago.  He’s altogether a Bad Egg.’ 

The little bronze mannikins all nodded knowingly. ‘We knew it, we knew it!  uNyathi is a Terrorist! uNdlovu for Champ!’

They flitted away, one by one, to their nests.   The Weaverbird and uGcawu smiled knowingly at each other in the gathering gloom.   

‘Well done, Gcawu. Shall we report back to the Great Elephant, the Rightful Champ?

God’s Guide to Parenting

Hi, hello and welcome!

A big and hearty thank thee for downloading this Parenting Guide, By God!

This wonderful Guide is based on My best-selling Book, The Holy Bible (God the Father, Son, & Holy Ghost et al., 2000 B.C.E., Heaven: Cherumbim & Seraphim Publishers, revised edition), which thou mayst purchase for just a few dollars at thy favourite bookstore!!!

Get thine today – it’s packed with wonderful child-rearing tips, dietary advice, prophecy, fiction, bigotry and much, much more! All Prophets go to the Profits Fund! Buy YOURS NOW!! For every $10 you spend, $1 goes towards the gift of a better-than-ever Paradise © Cloud-and-Harp Set’ ®™ for disadvantaged Angels.

A Word of warning: some so-called Holy Books have been circulating in recent millenia. THEY ART FORGERIES, SCAMS AND SPAM!!!

My only Authorised Word is the Christian Bible. All other alleged Holy Scriptures were written by False Profits and carry dangerous Viruses. If you receive copies of the following, do not open them!!!!!

Al-Qu’ran, the Hebrew Talmud, the Bagavad Gita, the Vedas, the Sutras, the Book of Mormon, the Guru Granth Sahib, the Kojiki, the Tao-ti-ching, the Katha and Avesta. Any messages from Charles Darwin or Richard Dawkins should be burned immediately in the interests of natural selectivity.

And please warn thy children, so they canst learn to be as intolerant as thou.  

Click this link to go to the next chapter in this God-given book: In the Beginning

Preface: In the Beginning

Welcome back to My Book on Effective Parenting.  If thou hast not yet read the Welcome page, please click on this link.  

I, the LORD thy God, take great pleasure in sharing with thee My millions of years’ experience in parenting.

Dost thou feel, like Me, that parenting is a never-ending duty that will go on for ever and ever, Amen, and that thou wilt SMITE thine children soon?

Then read on!

This Guide is based on Mine own experiments, since I never had a parent from whom to learn. 

My Book has been translated into hundreds of languages. That’s why it’s called the Holy Babel.

I am a Self-made God, an only child (except for My Son, who is Me anyway), and I created the three of Me as a Trinity, in My own image or several images.

Don’t ask how I could have created Myselves in My own image or images unless I first had an image (or three? and one of thee) of Myself to copy Myselves from, and do not ask where that first, second and third images of Myself or Myselves came from, or the one before the first one (which is the second), or the one before that (which is the third – or is it the first?) and so on ad infinitem.

Just remember that thou shalt have but one God, but that I have imaginary friends.

You do trust me to be a rational teacher, now don’t you?

Before We start, let Us pray.

Dear Me, Father of all Creation, help Me to Guide My Children in the fear of Me. May My Children remain faithful and obedient to Me, always dependent and never asking questions, but worshipping Me in unquestioning adoration, for ever and ever, Amen.

Next exciting chapter: The big question answered! The relationship between s*x and creation! WARNING: ONLY FOR ADULTS!!!!!  Don’t let thine children peek!!! The Book of Genesis, or the Creation. 

Lesson 1: The Book of Genesis, or the Creation

1. Before thou hast children, must thou create them. This is the part that thou enjoyest most. If thou art male, it helps to be omnipotent, even as I am. Then canst thou enjoy thyself for six whole days, resting only on the seventh. This is called the Big Bang, or Genesis. But because thou art only human, nay, sometimes even impotent it shall come (or not – heh heh) to pass that thou shalt have between five seconds and an hour to enjoy the creation.

 2. As for women, after conception shalt thou spend the next forty weeks and forty weekends feeling nauseous, exhausted, kicked in the gut, and unable to put thine increasingly heavy burden down. And in the fortieth week shalt thou cry loudly unto heaven:

The snares of death compass me round about, and the pains of hell gat hold upon me.

3. And thou shalt wish thou hadst never been born, and thou shalt dwell in the land of Ob-Stetrics, and the Forceps shall be visited upon thee.

4. And after eight-and-forty hours of labour shalt thou be delivered. And it shall come to pass that thou shalt be even worse off, for thou shalt have a screaming Demon demanding food and making a bad smell for nine months, yea, even for nineteen years. And there shall be no help for thee.

5. And thou men, thou shalt try to father children by another man’s woman, then blame it on the Angel Gabriel, even as I did with Mary and Joseph. Whatever happens, thou shalt avoid taking responsibility until the child is grown up. Verily, verily, I say unto thee, not a nappy shalt thou change, not a tot shalt thou bottle.

6. But since thou men art unable to reproduce without women, I will allow them to exist for thy pleasure and procreation, and to clean thine house and cook for thee. But fear not. Has The LORD not provided KFC and Beer for thee alone? Watch thou this space for My new software program: 

 

7. Thou shalt not kidded by the apparent innocence of infants, for they are full of Original Sin. It is not for nothing that a gathering of cupids is called a ‘concupiscence’. Thou adults are but putti in their tiny hands. But I, the LORD thy God, am exceeding fierce with small children. If the Original (and Unoriginal) Sin of thine infants offend thee, pray thou to Me and I shall come down and smite the lot, even as I did unto the firstborns of the Egyptians.

8. Nevertheless, thou art doing well enough on thine own, beating, torturing and killing many millions of children every year. For more information on the extent of human violence against children, read thou this.

Here endeth the First Lesson.

Let Us begin Lesson Two.

Lesson 2: The Book of Favouritism

WELCOME BACK to My Guide to Parenting!!!  This lesson is about controlling thy children effectively.  We will learn later about smiting, but first we need some groundwork on manipulation, an essential weapon in any parent’s toolkit! Remember to model the behaviour you want your children to follow!  Now read on!!!

1.      Favouritism and jealousy are essential tools for controlling thine children.

2.   First, allow some child to think he is the Favourite. There shouldst be no difficulty. In My unlimited experience, most people need no encouragement whatsoever to believe they have found the One Way to be the only one to sit on Daddy’s lap. From there it’s an easy step to believing their Brothers and Sisters are inferior and wrong, and therefore Unrighteous. And verily, verily, shalt thou smite the Unrighteous amongst thee.

3.      Note the cleverness with which I played favouritism with the Hebrews. First I told them they were My Chosen People. Then I made the Romans scatter them to the four corners of the earth. (Didst thou know that the earth is not round? True – Pie are round, Earth are square. Or do I mean Pie are square, Earth are round? Damnation and Hell’s Teeth, I must check My Omnicience Files.)

4.      Then persecuted I the Jews, very Gentilely, for millennia. The game soon became Nasty, then Nazier and finally very Nazi indeed. Then I sent them back to Israel from whence they persecute the Palestinians mercilessly. My Chosen People have truly learned from Me.

5.      Thou canst foment resentment and hatred amongst thine children nearly as effectively as I do. Consider thou Cain and Abel. Cain gave Me a vegetarian dinner, but Abel barbecued Me some nice fatty lamb chops. I scoffed the chops – after all, when thou hast Everlasting Life thou doest not need to worry about cholesterol – until Cain rose up in jealousy, and didst slay Abel. Then was I was able to give Cain a mighty walloping and send him to everlasting Time-Out. Even thus shalt thou control thine children and have peace for thineself.

6.      Forget not also how I didst favour Jacob, a smooth cheat and a liar, over his honest but hairy brother Esau.

7.      Remember also thou the Flood, or Mine water-playtime. I didst drown all the animals and naughty humans, and caused my dolly Noah to live on a small boat with lots of dangerous wild animals. And the stink of the hyeana shit and bloated drowned bodies did rise up unto heaven, and Noah did come to pass out from it. Lmao.

Here endeth the Second Lesson.

Homework assignment:

Write an essay on God’s Favouritism Through the Ages. Tomorrow shalt thou be arbitralily judged. And the winners shall inherit Everlasting Life in the Heavenly Choir singing Everlasting Praises to Me, and the losers shall be condemned to Eternal Hell. The judge’s decision shall be final, and no questions will be entertained about which is most Hellish.

Now proceed to the Third Lesson!!!

Lesson 3: The Book of Bad Judgement

Welcome back to God’s Guide to Parenting!!!

1.      Right, how many of thee are left? So FEW of thee? Well, let Us get on with Lesson Three.  

2.      Thou shalt start being unreasonable early, that thy children may learn to have little trust in thee. Thou shalt put temptation in their way, even as I did My firstborns, Adam and Eve. Then shalt thou say, “Don’t touch!”. And it shall come to pass when thou turnest thy back, that they WILL touch. Then shall the boy child blame the girl child, and the girl child shalt make up a story about imaginary friends, saying, “Lo, it was not us, a talking snake made us do it.” And thou shalt banish them to everlasting Time-Out, and go on peacefully with thy life. But forget not to send a plague or a flood every now and then to keep them in fear of thee.  

3.      Read the story of Job for more tips about being an unreasonable parent. Job was a good, obedient boy. But to test his devotion to ME I killed his children, his animals, and smote him with sore boils from head to foot, so that he sat in a corner scraping himself with a potsherd. Drove him mad, those boils did. Then blamed I my Imaginary Enemy, the Devil. Lol.  

4.      And if thine children turn out to be Gay, shalt thou rain fire and brimstone down upon their houses, even as I did on Soddoff and Gonorrhea. Thou rememberest that I Let only innocent Lot (or do I mean Lot only Let?) escape with his two virgin daughters. Mind thee, Lot then got drunk and impregnated his daughters, but better an incestuous sot than a sober sodomite. 

 

Here endeth the Third Lesson. If thou learnest nothing else, remember to hate Gays and anyone who is different from thee.

Homework assignment: Test thy children’s love for thee. 

1.      Take away thine children’s toys, even their dolls, their toy cars, and their Playstation.

2.      Kill thine children’s pets. Leave not a puppy, a kitten or baby rabbit alive, and forget not the budgie.

3.      Ask thine children whether they still love thee. If they sayest ‘Yea, Father,’ smite them with boils.

4.      If thine children begin to hate thee, drown one or two as an example to the others.

Now go forth to Lesson 4!

Lesson 4: The Book of Ruthless

1.      Welcome back for Lesson Four!!! How didst thou get on with thine homework for Lesson Three? I hope thou still hast some children left for the this important Lesson, which deals with the delicate subject of discipline and punishment.  

2.      The best way to keep thine children obedient is to punish them.  None of this shilly-shallying, namby-pamby, nerdy respect-and-self-discipline rubbish!   

3.      PULL THY FINGER OUT, MAN! Take no prisoners! If thy children so much as think of disobeying thee, SMITE them immediately!   

4.      As a second resort, canst thou give them a plague of boils, or of haemorrhoids.  5.      But the best way to discipline thine children is to build a huge fire, get a pitchfork to throw them in, and burn them alive….for eternity, as I do.  But if thou art a mere mortal, burn thou them as slowly as thou canst. 6.      Or if thou art lazy, simply start a rumour of Hellfire and Brimstone. Many of thine children will be eager to spread the news to their Brothers and Sisters, hoping for a Paradise Cloud-and-Harp Set ® ™ for themselves while their siblings are invited to the Everlasting Barbecue.   

Here endeth the Fourth Lesson. 

Homework assignment: Practice thy ruthlessness 

Build a large bonfire in some convenient place. Get out thy garden fork, looking meaningfully at what children thou hast left.  Make gestures to remind them of what happened to their baby rabbits. If they run, hurl thou rocks and stones at them.

,
Now go on to My final lesson!!!

Lesson 5: The Book of Execution

1.   Let Us hope yesterday’s homework prepared thee for this last and most important lesson.

2.   I know I said “Thou shalt do no murder”, but I was kidding. Kid murder is fine.

3.   Believe thou not ME? Then remember the Passover, when I smote all the firstborns of the land of Egypt, both man and beast. Must have been millions of the little devils, but I got the lot.

4.   And remember how I instructed My servant Abraham to slaughter his beloved son Isaac as a sacrifice to ME? And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son. But I sent the angel of the LORD to offer him a ram instead. Believe me, roast mutton tastes better than child.  I love children, but I couldn’t eat a whole one.

5.   And thou shalt never forget, because it is drummed into thee continuously, that I had My only son (who is, in fact, ME, or at least one of the Three of Me) executed. And this I did to save thee, miserable sinners, from the Hellfire to which I have consigned thee. After all, thou art full of Original Sin.  As thou showed, when thou ate of the fruit of the Knowledge of Good and Evil!

6.   SO! THOU ART SINFUL!! YE ARE ALL DAMNED!!  I WAS JUST LULLING THEE INTO A FALSE SENSE OF SECURITY WITH THIS SO CALLED PARENTING GUIDE!!!!  BUT WHO IS THE PARENT, EH, AND WHO IS THE CHILD???!!!! 

AND WHAT IS THE FINAL LESSON ABOUT PARENTING??? HUH??