The poem is finished -

A choreographed coincidence as 7 in the magic number. (3 is so last century). For the final draft, I did away with the harsh language, replaced : he “won’t tap, won’t twitch for shit” with “won’t tap for nuthin’, won’t twitch for zilch”. Reason? simply to pander to younger audience and possible publications that may frown at such language… Somewhat redundant through as the poem begins with the use of an illegal substance.

So the reason for the poem:

The imagined silence, the void that hip hop fills, the fear of it.

Hip Hop rules the world. This is as true a statement as the ‘the sun shines’. There has never been a genre of music so malleable, so simple, so marketable, so present, so complex, yet basic as this. Its selling point is to make something out of nothing, to swagger up to a group of hard men, with nothing to show for yourself save your voice. Its romance: to be backed against a wall, still spitting and representing yours, your family, your ends, your truth. Its instruments are simple: Something you can hit, and a voice. That’s it.

I think the world without Hip Hop would be a more repressed place, certainly my life, my voice, in-fact – as hip hop led me to poetry – my work would be of an entirely different nature, or might not exist at all. Fearing that – March Forth.

————————————————————–

March Forth -  for Jay Bernard
(‘jay’ is also slang  for marijuana)

My friend Jay likes her birth date.
She says its a call to action: March 4th.

Her dread locks are loose tower blocks,
forehead for sky, her nose: a shrouded figure,

a dude speeding by, who is back packed with
sketch books and gas masks, jeans patched

more times than he’s matched sticks to spliffs.
He is a loose hoodied slouch with spray cans,

crouched in a train yard, headphoned and
nodding hard to lyrics so deep it digs back

to the African forest where it started, back
to talking drums. Now, they talk in drum

patterns, scattered in urban forests;
rappers pattered tones riff against bars

just like spray cans whiff against walls,
both birth brilliance, coupled in this dark

before radio crackles, and rail guards
mark his presence; it’s clearly time to go

he packs bag and coasts: a winged shadow
floats past yellow lines, glides over railings,

air vents. The clouds cry. A poverty stricken
kitten skips the sprinkled streets, litter

glitters pave-stones, pavement splits into
a doorway, he enters, out breaths a beat,

door shuts with such finality
it stops his existence:

he never pressed a nozzle to colour walls,
the rapper’s vocals never coloured bars;

it’s a blasphemous silence, it unravels
talking drums, jazz, blues, baselines,

black music – never strummed, trapped
in the fingernails of a slave, so stitched,

he won’t tap for nuthin’, won’t twitch
for zilch, and the unplayed guitar riff

like ghost graffiti, leaks
from his heart, and dies.

Jay, I once smoked your name
and glimpsed what might’ve been

had no one courage enough to march forth,
make canvas of walls, and music of bars.

Wisps of it phantom roads in pot holes
and hide in the hush of a rapper’s flow.

I nod to brave such breaks in hip hop
and pray that the beat don’t stop.

© Inua Ellams 12/09

My friend Jay likes her birth date.
She says its a call to action: March 4th.

Her dread locks are tower blocks,
forehead for sky, nose: a shrouded figure

speeding by, back packed with sketchbooks
and gas masks, jeans patched more times

than he has matched sticks to spliffs.
He is a loose hoodied slouch with spray cans,

crouched in a train yard, headphoned and
nodding hard to lyrics so deep it digs back

to the African forest where it started, back
to talking drums. Now, they talk in drum

patterns, scattered in urban forests;
rappers pattered tones riff against bars

just like spray cans whiff against walls,
both birth brilliance, coupled in this dark

before radio crackles, and rail guards
mark his presence; it’s clear – time to go,

he packs bag and coasts – a winged shadow
- floats past yellow lines – glides over railings,

air vents, the clouds cry, a poverty stricken
kitten skips the sprinkled streets, litter

glitters pave-stones, pavement splits into
a doorway, he enters, out breaths a beat,

door shuts with such finality
it stops his existence:

he never pressed a nozzle to colour walls,
the rapper’s vocals never coloured bars;

It’s a blasphemous silence, it unravels
talking drums, jazz, blues, baselines,

black music – never strummed, trapped
in the fingernails of a slave, so stitched,

he won’t tap, won’t twitch for shit, and
the unplayed guitar riff like ghost graffiti

leaks from his heart, and dies.

Jay, I once smoked your name and glimpsed
of what might’ve been had no one courage

enough to march fourth, make canvas
of walls, and music of bars
———————————————————————————–
Flecks of if it frighten me and these roads

they haunt my.. and blah blah

——————————————————————-

So, what am I trying to say here? what is the reason for the poem? I am not sure yet, I fooled around with making it a moralistic ‘so don’t smoke weed‘ tale, or  a meditation on Jay’s face, or try to tease something from the city/the jungle, but I settled on returning to music, to one of the thoughts, questions that sparked the poem? what if black music never existed…

Wole Soyinka writes about consequences. His recent play staged at the National Theatre: Death and the king’s Horseman, is about what happens if a traditional ritual is not completed, followed through. And I am taking a leap from here… the music, the graff work, a bag full of diagrams, movement, song, this is ritualistic, sacred? no?

A game of Spot The Poem.

(more…)

Having arrived in San Francisco not long ago I sat in a diner and wrote about my first impressions.

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