There's a Little Jumbie in My Head: January 2011

Out of Body Experience

"A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is visible labour and invisible labour." ~ Victor Hugo

The Hangman

William and the hangman, and some officials, stood in the hot morning  sun of the fated day. William already had the noose around his neck.

"Hurry up," the hangman said.

"E," William said.

The hangman pulled the lever and William is killed. "The answer was Michael Jackson," the hangman then told the officials.

"But that has an E," he was informed by one of the officials.

The  hangman was then told to go to jail, without passing Go and without  collecting $200, where he has been trying to roll a double for the past  three years now.

Apocalypse Bow Wow

The dog is a gentleman; I hope to go to his heaven, not man's. ~Mark Twain

Silence, Finally

Pa always wanted silence
'Cos Ma was always yellin' about,
So I hacked Pa's ears off
And stuffed them into Ma's mouth.

Alcohol Marketing Strategy

Take a shot when the times nice,
Take a drink when the days sad,
Take a sip of the blood of Christ
Then quench your thirst to get on bad.

Illustration from "The Little Prince".

Home on the Prairie

One person's refuse is another person's refuge.

It was sad when the twins killed themselves. According to the suicide note, their reason was just to get away from everybody. Everybody thought this was very silly.

They said nothing... but everyone still couldn't help but wonder why anybody would ever want to get away from them.

Ghost Story

According to local legend, a ghost roams the sea shore at night. Nancy was interested in the paranormal and had never seen a ghost, so she pitched a tent on the shore and kept on the look-out for it.

She would've seen it too, if she wasn't so damn high on shrooms all the time, according to local legend, anyway...

Ingrate

I wish I could wake up in the morning and know what it is like to be grateful to wake up, and know how grateful I should feel for even being able to feel grateful for waking up.

Scrambled Egg

Up

This one isn't by me! My girlfriend, Lily Kwok, painted this for me for Christmas. Based on the animated film "Up". It's hanging on the wall behind my bed right now!

Death Metal

Mark and Juan were playing pool, when all of a sudden Mark said, "You know, man, Judas Priest is kind of lame."

Juan looked at him, chalking the tip of his cue. "Why don't you just say what you really mean, Mark?"

Mark shrugged. He said, "I just never thought they were very metal."

What ensued was a fight to the death that injured Mark and killed Juan. You might think this is a sad story, but Juan always went down as the man who fought and died in the name of Judas Priest, and that's very metal.

Solitude

Hat came out too big, haha. Hobbit-esque.

The Street Preacher

He was hollering on the sidewalk

About judgment and sin.

He handed me a ticket to God

And I threw it in the bin.

A Kiss

A kiss down by the riverside,
When the waterspouts
Come to life
Across the evergreen stride.
A kiss with your mouth open wide,
With noses nuzzling
And lying on foliage, rustling,
With nothing to hide.

A kiss beneath the harvest moon,
In the wheat and the rye,
When pixies spiral to an eventide rune
'Til the morning Phoenix soars by.
A kiss during a fiery noon
In the fields of midday bloom
And so sings the loon
While petals rise from the gloom.

A kiss, for birds to sing,
For the winter to turn to spring,
A kiss on a burning bee sting
From a blind girl to a King.
An exchange of bliss,
A kiss,
To melt a world of snow
In a breath of warmed mist.

- K. Jared Hosein

Nightlights

The fireflies spin
All through this dreary gloaming.
Wild tiny nightlights!

Feelings

Kyle and Kimmy sit on the grass. Kimmy asks Kyle, "Have you ever fallen in love?"

"No," Kyle says.

"Me neither," Kimmy says, "Do you want to try falling in love right now?"

"How?"

"Let's just try to love each other."

"Okay," Kyle said, concentrating.

"Is it working?"

"I think so. What about for you?"

"I think so. Yes, it's working."

"Yes. It's working here too. I just fell in love too."

"I'm so happy, Kyle."

"So am I, Kimmy."

And they lived happily ever after.

Propaganda

Baby Henrik had no problem when his mother fed him his mashed potatoes and peas. But when she tried to feed him her Nazi rhetoric and propaganda, he could never stomach it and stopped eating it. She even did that annoying airplane thing with the spoon, going rrrrRRRrrRRrrrr but Henrik wasn't having any of it.

Henrik's father was also very concerned. Even after reading Mein Kampf to him at bedtime, they still couldn't get him to swallow the propaganda. Later on, Henrik's first words were "mazel tov". And much later on, Henrik's parents were arrested for a string of hate crimes on local black people.

Henrik's fine, though. He recently got married to a nice Jewish woman, whom he met while working with the Israeli Mossad.

The Wait is So, So Long

I've waited for a fish that did not bite
And for a little wind that couldn't fly my kite.
I've waited for mail that never arrived
And for fruit of a crop that never thrived.
I've waited for meetings, always adjourned
And for telephone calls, never returned.
I've waited to grow just one inch more
(But I am still just five foot four).

I've waited for a train that was already gone
And I've waited for a baby that was never born.
I've waited for that raise that I never got,
I've waited for every have that I have not,
And I'll wait it over,
I'll wait it times ten
Rather than wait
For no one
To show for my party again.

K. Jared Hosein

N.B. This was made into a short film that was featured in a few foreign film festivals. It was directed by Ryan Jenq and used music from the indie band "Swansaw".

It won the 2008 Scholastic Gold Key Award for Visual Arts & Writing.

Look Both Ways

George's mother was always adamant with George that he look right, then left, then right again whenever crossing a street. When the time came for him to do it by himself, he did as he was told. He looked right, then left, then right again.

He crossed the street and did a little victory jig but was soon killed by a car speeding down the sidewalk behind him.

Bear Pressure

I really thought I coulda do it, Ma. I thought I coulda live amongst real bears. Tell everyone I'm sorry.

No Sugar

He takes his coffee black, no cream, no sugar. She takes hers the same way. They see each other everyday in the coffee shop. He always steals glances at her when she's sipping her coffee.

She always has her hair over one eye, gazing back at him. They want to say hello but they never do.

It's a good thing too.

Because one of them has AIDS and doesn't know it yet.

Six Degrees of Separation

I stepped on a guy's shoe today. The guy proceeded to tell me he has friends. Friends that know lawyers. Lawyers that know judges. Judges that know politicians. Politicians that know Presidents. Presidents that know First Ladies. First Ladies that know kindergarten teachers. Kindergarten teachers that know toddlers. Toddlers that know parents. Parents that know his friends. Friends that know him.

I just kept walking. As fast as I could.

Moving Away

Ravi

got so angry with everyone that he decided to move to another planet in another galaxy. So he packed his toothbrush, his clothes and his books. He then looked at the sun and said, "You know what, we had good times too." But while trying to dismantle the sun to put in his briefcase, he burnt up and died.

Giant Ape at Sunset

It is what it is.

Penny

During her trip in

Russia

, Penny was pretty sure she spotted a fairy. She blinked her eyes, but the fairy was gone, and Penny went about the rest of her day without a hassle.

On the other hand, the fairy fluttered home and told all her fairy friends about Penny. They spat on her and called her a liar. The fairy would forever be branded as the village liar and she became an alcoholic and drug addict, never married, never bore any children and died alone naked in a fairy brothel, where she had been selling her body for money.

Penny, on the other hand, ended up meeting her penpal, another fire-breathing dragon, in a cave in Siberia. They got married and moved back to the planet Dragonia, where Penny laid many dragon eggs. They all hatched and grew up to be doctors and lawyers.

Musicians

Dave was never fond of musicians. He was not comfortable with the fact that they could blow through a hole, slide along a string, tap on a key, bang on a drum, exhale in a hum, and they could tell him what to feel just by doing those things. "Isn't that a form of mind control?" Dave would say.

I think at this point it's safe to say Dave was never known as a very cool person among his peers.

Like a note in a bottle,

Drifting the seven seas.

Like the pollen in the spring,

Being ferried with the air.

Like a kite without a string,

Drifting free of care.

Like the leaves on the tide,

Like the salmon the rivers tow,

They all go to places

I will never, ever go.

K. Jared Hosein

There's a Little Jumbie in My Head

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