Forever

The child understands that your love is forever
As permanent, that is, as the smile that overcame you
As the tongue you snuck out as you played peekaboo
The child sees clearly, trusting in this truth
And worries not
Forever is your burden to share
No, the child does not worry
The duty of worrying is yours alone

And so child, I worry about what you might learn about forever
That the things that God creates only approach forever
That the pleasures of the senses are best appreciated in proportion to their rarity
That even hugs and kisses have their limits
That your very presence is not guaranteed
That your very smile, mischievous at that, might be fleeting
That your roving mind, lively and inquisitive, might enter autumn
That those unending questions could one day be silenced
That, in this land - prone, you could be brought low for a nothing
That there is a difference between forever and eternity
That here on earth, we can only promise forever
That indeed, we are only promised forever

But my child, even if eternity is foreclosed to us by fickle gods
Know that my love is forever
Know this, my child, forever
Forever and a day

Forever, a playlist

A soundtrack for this note, one of my favorite playlists, quietly devastating soul (spotify version)

• 4ever by Entouch
• Forever by Jonathan Butler
• Forever in my Life by Prince
• Make it Last Forever by Keith Sweat
• Always and Forever by Heatwave
• All I Want is Forever by Regina Belle
• Forever my Lady by Jodeci
• Forever, for always, for love by Lalah Hathaway
• Forever, for always, for love by Luther Vandross
• This love is forever by Howard Hewett

File under: life, love, culture, parenting, life, observation, poetry, toli

Writing log. June 6, 2022

The Voiceless Past

A terrain of uncertainty
And a time of imposition
It was rough going, to be frank,
Fraught days best left forgotten

We eked out a strange kind of life
The small mercies sufficient unto themselves
When dread was a daily intruder
And our only defense was a stare

Branded itinerant, of no fixed abode
Still we fashioned temporary shelter
Falteringly, we laid our bed of unease
Always wondering when we would next hear laughter

But even in the most precarious moments
We remembered the words of the ancestral songs
And even if we could only sing them softly
We were comforted by their blanket of soul

Serene about the way forward, resolute about the challenge
This interlude shall pass, and we will leave our mark
And the elders' refrain will resound
Full throated, all parts sung in harmony:

In those painful hours, our hearts were hoping
In those silent days, our eyes were watching
In those dark years, our wounds were healing
For even with the tears, we knew our time was coming

The spirits returned our voices, truly the world will remember
And we shall tell everyone the story of those dark chapters
How we never gave up the struggle and proved our mettle
Remember: there is more in the mortar than the pestle

The Voiceless Past, a playlist

A soundtrack for this note (spotify version)

• We're Gonna Make It by Alyson Williams and Ted Mills
• Tryin' Times by Donny Hathaway
• When We Get by by D'Angelo
• Hard Times by Baby Huey
• Stare and Stare by Curtis Mayfield
• Hard Time by Gregory Isaacs
• Protection by Massive Attack
• Time Tough by Toots and the Maytals
• Protection by Gregory Isaacs
• Tryin' Times by Roberta Flack
• Remember by Hank Mobley

After Talking Drums

File under: culture, memory, observation, perception, strategy, displacement, Ghana, coup, Africa, poetry, toli

Writing log. June 6, 2022

The Corner of 12th and Chicon

Transitional you may call it these days, the corner of 12th and Chicon
A far cry from its salad days as an out-and-out combat zone
When hardened hookers used to walk the streets barely causing a shrug
And the weary cops turned a blind eye to the open air markets of drugs

Change has been long coming but it creeps up on you all of a sudden
Places betray only faint traces of their previous reputation
Located just a mile from downtown, no wonder there's been gentrification
The inescapable reality of commerce and real estate transactions

Suffice to say in this case, that there has been a whitening
A rebrand now that the corner is no longer so frightening
And as a fitting testament to the changing face of East Austin
On the mural, they painted the face of Bad-era Michael Jackson

Still, the other heroes are there, defiant:
   Bob Marley, Nina Simone and Prince
Thurgood Marshall, James Brown, Sade,
   Sly Stone (or is it Jimi Hendrix?)
The conscience of a certain tribe: Dick Gregory, Muhammad Ali
And, keeping it real, conflicted martyrs like Tupac and Biggie

Throughout, the nearby Eastside Community Church aimed to provide shelter
Modified latterly to host, on its premises, a Pregnancy Resource Center
You never know in Texas, this was ground zero for maternal mortality
Where Barbara Jordan fought for civil rights, they try to preserve her legacy

The last holdouts remain but now no longer hold sway
Just a few transients holding on to faded glory days
Rough trade, ambling in the early morning to the liquor store
Passing, as they do, the fresh-faced women out walking their dogs

Lululemon leggings, some carrying their yoga mats, nubile young things
Or the others now heading to work out on the shiny exercise machines
Complicated tributes to physical perfection, elliptical witnesses
On their treadmills to modernity, edifices of health and fitness

The parking lots where the Guinean immigrants would sell African clothes
Trinkets, carvings, dashikis, herbal oils, and the like are now mostly closed
Once their steady remedial work was done, the developers moved in
It's a safe neighborhood now, and on a few plots they've started construction

A couple of desultory food trucks, beasts of burden, now stand alone
On the way to middle school with the 11 year old past 12th and Chicon
No crossing guard here, those who walk these streets are on their own
Eyes wide open, we take it all in. Then a quick hug before I turn and walk home

The Corner, a playlist

A soundtrack for this note (spotify version)

• The Corner by Common ft The Last Poets
• Ital Corner by Prince Jazzbo
  One step forward, two steps backwards on the corner. "Now you are commercial" in Babylon go the lyrics of this upsetter dub joint.
• Street Corner Symphony by Kook & the Gang
• Look Around the Corner by Quantic & Alice Russell
• For Corners by Digable Planets
• Hell is Round the Corner by Tricky
• Blues on the Corner by McCoy Tyner
• On the Corner by Miles Davis

Bonus beats: Street Corner Hustler Blues by Lou Rawls

See previously Inman Square Still Life and Coyote Point

This note is part of a series: In a covidious time

File under: culture, observation, perception, Austin, Texas, race, black, urban, city, gentrification, history, poverty, economics, USA, poetry, covidious, toli

Writing log: August 31, 2022

Academic Discourse

Informants were forcibly struck
     By inadvertent socio-cognitive barriers
Where assumed nuances facilitated sensemaking
    Within the same systemic design community

The organizers initiated the webinar
     Effectively problematizing group interaction
Playing the role of existential gatekeepers
     Making use of information and communication technologies

Informal knowledge is reinterpreted
     Within a group's particular context
Socialized to a degree by volunteers
     Providing practical learning experience

Demarcating, at once, well integrated empirical findings
    That a majority of members would endorse
Immersed in exploitation spanning boundaries,
    The sphere of academic discourse

Academic Discourse, a playlist

A soundtrack for this note (spotify version)

• Words into Action by Mica Paris (ft. Paul Johnson)
• I Just Don't Understand by Ann-Margaret
• Complexity by The Roots (ft. Jill Scott)
• Don't You Understand by Saunders Sermons

After reading some veritable word salad masquerading as jargon

See previously Eating People is Wrong and Duty of Care

File under: language, absurd, jargon, academia, obfuscation, humour, satire, culture, education, observation, perception, poetry, hatchet job, toli

Writing log. June 4, 2022