By Ogutu Muraya 0 [idea; a big number zero on the first page, under his name, to bring in the visual?] [second page:] ZERO [third page:] [i]Zero is zero but what else can it be?[i] Or [i]Have you ever heard someone say, ‘My favourite number is zero?’[i] [start poem from page 4]: Zero is a living word, a word that is self-moving, self-replicating, progressively complicating itself Zero is words heavy like prison doors, words stirring, words stinging, words stringing into unapproachable silences Zero is an idea, distant, distinct, distilled, fliting, flirting, fluttering eternal energies of entanglement Zero is a mirror of time, time unlimited, time interstellar, time intertwined, time undefined, time geological, Zero is nothing and in that nothing something, stories before there were stories to tell, music raising above overwhelming noise Zero is a mask that unmasks, a frame that un-frames, a tale that un-tells, a name that un-names Zero is lamentations, ululations, riotous, primal cries suspicious of identity politics and pseudo-liberations Zero is rounded, globular, spherical, circular, without a marked beginning or a definite end, uninterrupted continuity Zero lacks directional properties, a compass without a fixed North, it is multi-dimensional, equally sensitive and equally intense Zero is singleness of intention, undivided attention, watching the last flicker of life, eager fatalism Zero wages life in a time of war, a wave of poisoned joy, intimate whispers of free at last Zero is sonic restructuring, sounds of exorcism, echoing and evicting zones of non-being Zero smiles, transforms, transitions, transgressing even the iciest of hearts, subverting coldness Zero is fiercely vibrant, improvised, dynamic rhythm, a space of creative ritual Zero is a seeker of silences, retracts and retreats, dwelling in inner world, the under surfaces Zero is an alienated earworm, cracked, dogged, dislocated, fractured, fragile music Zero is palpable, pulsating, supple, simple, palm wine on a hot and humid day Zero is mystical, enigmatic, murmur of immaterial mindfulness nursing illusions of control Zero is a beat, the beat, the beat, the beat, the beat, the beat, the beat Zero is pure ego, inspiring uneasiness, fidgeting wind eating a dull cigarette Zero is a longing, a yearning, a desire, a need, an itch, an urge for warm, mental, steamy, sexy, soulful, remedial, subversive self-love Zero decomposes itself into the earth from which new life bud, sprout and grow Zero is the look of silence, what needs to be said has been said, what is not said is said without words, and there is nothing else to say