Progression 6
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?
