Speak no more – let us just make music
This poem speaks to and responds to historical, psychological, cultural and social forces that shape the identity and culture of the people of African descent. It pays homage to the black Jazz music legends, who during the back-to-Africa movement and the Harlem Renaissance period fostered a body of music through an identification with Africa, albeit through a construct of Africa and an imagination which fell short and resorted to mimicry of their white counterparts. More often than not, the African identity is objectified to a form of concept that expressed more of African primitiveness. Similarly, this identity tension, at times, echoing some of the body of music that emerged out of that time, plays out in everyday relationships between the black diaspora and Africans – a body of soundless and sound-full subjectivities.
But if only we would deconstruct this discourse through the music of poetry. This piece sings to that deconstruction.
Found, again after five
hundred many years of
uprooted-ness
of ancestry
wisdom-ness,
found, again after many
years
let us unveil to
as if the eternal moment
were
pieces and links
of stitched fabric notes
on top of the hours
shaded memories
of hundred pharaohs,
let us long to rise
and in our place abide,
void of
black and blue
of being theirs,
obeying thoughts of river
to flow into open gates,
I fixate on seeing
and hearing you;
avoiding night hours
that has lost so much, already,
you, spinning out of self
do you see, hear me
in stillness of time
beyond invisibility,
flow, choose to where I flowed out of,
make a place next to me,
just be quiet
to the soundless voice
of memory
that speaks no more,
mystery remains but
I am here
breathing together; like you
opening to gifts of the sun
journeying-to-find-earth of sorts
yes, I am like you
so, desist
objectifying my identity to
an unidentified form of concept;
construct-less jungle beats
that express misconstrue primordiality
reality'ing-less my existential-ity,
undress from the philosophized
dogma of Berlin-ized,
historicized & subject-icized
facile image-ized,
Afro-cized, the rest is just a mirage.
Like soundless voices that used to tell,
over & over & over
of undecipherable
language
of memory,
of time spaced
in the price of life,
come, blow into unknown sounds
to opening flowers
of my interior,
paint over margins
that strain-fully muddle our image
into a-word, world
of confined-ed-ness,
instead, make our space inside
as if millions of suns
were arranged inside,
sound, the ecstatic horn bursting like suns
soak'in our chest
fill'in notes of music that belong
in the warmth of our chest,
blow into the horn
our existence
to tunes of resistance of now-full-ness,
interrupt'n time
to revolt'n space-full
music-form of resistance,
intervene'in insatiable souls
of fragmented-ness,
dis-integrate-less
evanescing the time
spaced in sinful-ness,
build'in statements
of love beyond concepts,
anchor me as I'll anchor you,
come to this temple of beatific-ness
to the few that find the path
to obscure imagery
expression-less of that
to express-more of us
more than less;
let us go naked and dance
distance'in the world
of construction-ness
to paint naked to
less-reductional beats
of sax-o-phone-ness,
from the sweetness
of the belly rising
notes-full-of-pearl drops
breath'in into our imagination
of two worlds
penetrate'in-to the heart,
kiss the music
the mouth touching the lips
feeling on the surface
the taste of lips he wants,
to taste the truth he wants,
blow unknown sounds
into interstices
of magical notes that
distances the world of
fictional mimic'in
to imagery music'in,
indistinguishable from music, when we join
continual, eternal dream of
one note of unexpected magic,
to recognize me, fill me
with heartful-ness imagery
mergin'in mine with yours
pieces of a lunar
sax-a-phonist
with an ordinary dreamy poet
lost in vision
of notes that turn the heart over,
making spaces of euphoric fusion
of our aesthetic
descend'in-to-night
of shadows,
invasion of
mine with yours
to turn into stars each night.
Come, let us improvise,
intrude on
the locus of culture
that dances
to performances,
let us
merge like the two seas
brought together
with time & space,
pretext'd pulse
of third space,
blow'in-to the world to awaken, to
instigate
our renaissance'd
time and space
in language
that speaks to our soul,
beyond beats
that strain our chords of music
let us debate-less
drunk'in metaphorically poetic space
with laughter'd breath.
In silenced music
let us leave this world,
move'in closer
to moon-trips,
to hear in stillness
musical notes of beloved-ness,
let us live in the soul
find'in our feet
naked in the glory
of our splendid past,
submerse'in naked
in ancestral remember-ance,
let us just make music
of expressions of
our world
of now and
in remember-ance.
BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS
* This poem is also available as an [email protected] or comment online at Pambazuka News.