A Last Request

If this interlude should come to an end
Let there not be any regret
If this moment passes and we should lose each other
Know that conversations like ours never end

We gave it our all
This much we know
For, even in the depths,
Together we bore witness

So tell, tell our story
That we should leave our mark
Inscribed in relief on this fleeting canvas

Tell, tell our story
The struggles to be considered
And joys to be relived

Tell, tell our story
Fixing a time and a place
And people too
The fragments to be discovered
For this is our story

Spoken like the griots of old
Written like those scribes
Drawn with delicacy
Or sung with abandon
Tell, tell our story
That we should not lose these memories

A last request:
With one breath, in one motion
Tell, tell our story

A Last Request, a playlist

A soundtrack for this note.

A lush playlist that I've long luxuriated in, ballads of wist and yearning, nothing is left behind (spotify version)

• Last Request by Omar
• Kissing a Fool by George Michael
• Kick out of You by Dwele
• One Last Cry by Brian McKnight
• I Should Have Loved You by Chuckii Booker
• A Last Request by George Michael
• Whenever Wherever Whatever by Maxwell
• Keep Your Head to the Sky by Earth, Wind & Fire
• Simply Beautiful by Al Green
• Do You Feel by Jose James
• Please Stay (Once You Go Away) by Marvin Gaye
• Careless Whisper by George Michael
• Spend a Lifetime by Jamiroquai
• Come to my Door by Jose James
• Another Life by D'Angelo
• When the Party's Over by Alexander O'Neal
• Gills and Tails by Amel Larrieux
• In the Morning by Omar
• Vain by Dwele

See previously The Tale of the Lost Stories and The Fleeting Canvas

File under: sensory, culture, observation, perception, emotion, lyricism, life, love, wist, memory, poetry, toli

Writing log: September 22, 2022

Three Centuries

Voyagers through the terrain of time
Living out three centuries simultaneously
Time travelers in the torrid zone
Navigating its fraught territory

The near past is nothing to speak of
Replete with close encounters with dread
Luckily therefore, we shy away from nostalgia
After all, these were labeled our lost decades
Moreover, even the earlier eras bore a taint of calamity
Of pawnage at home and, in middle passages, chattel slavery

We made our accommodations, and devised our survival strategies
At times resisting those who marked our lands as uncharted territory
They came with breech-loading muskets, Maxim guns at the ready
Meanwhile we had nature's usual afflictions too as adversaries

Mindful of the mosquito principle, we cultivated fever trees
Prepared potions of bitter roots contra miasmas and rank diseases
Plainly the ancients suffered the ailments but didn't have the vocabulary
The graves were getting full - these days we'd call it excess mortality

Black gold and crown jewels extracted, there were protection treaties
Signed under duress, some of the chiefs yielded to malign authority
The structural adjustments of yore, a taste of excessive liability
A short sale, in retrospect they put a human face on ugly realities

Young, ever hopeful, unencumbered by the past, we look forward
As an article of faith, trusting that better days lie ahead
In time, as well as in place, removed from the burden of deference
We bring forth the elements of survival to charge our present

Fumes, fragments abound, shards of memory
That the storytellers left, the faint glimpses of glory
Elements of our present could do with a touch of modernity
We hold on, we hold fast, and we will tell our story

And so some of us, by default, have found ourselves living in three centuries
Simultaneously navigating tradition and modernity
Overlapping frames, for humanity knows no boundaries
No one is coming, it’s up to us to shape the memories

Off kilter, confronted, as we are, with many uncertainties
We wear, as protective armor, our masks of civility
Treading a fine line, but finally in charge of our destiny
Comforted, we attempt the choreography of normalcy

So, the battle enjoined, charting our own direction
The upshot now, the nature of our contribution
Clear-eyed, is to press beyond a naive sentimentality
And demonstrate that we move forward through community

Truth and reconciliation, a conversational strategy
Social living, the antidote to manifest destiny
In the torrid zone, then, this was a matter of necessity
We paid our premiums, soul insurance was the remedy

Three Centuries, a playlist

A soundtrack for this note (spotify version)

• Out of the Past - The Three Sounds
• Side by Side - Dianne Reeves
• Let's forget about the past - Clyde McPhatter
• Now's the Time - Charlie Parker
• Back to the Future - D'Angelo
• Jazz in the Present Tense - Solsonics
• Out of the Past - Art Farmer
• I Can See the Future - Incognito
• Out of the Past - Benny Golson Sextet
• Til It's Done (Tutu) - D'Angelo
• The Past, The Present - Kupla

See previously: The Torrid Zone and Soul Insurance


File under: Africa, culture, observation, perception, identity, strategy, Social Living, memory, poetry, toli

Writing log: September 18, 2022

On the Death of a Poet

That’s fine dude, I'm not mad at you
The masked man's video footage revealed the poet's last words

Some men can't bear the thought of not being feared
And, faced with an incandescent smile instead of a stare,
He fired three shots in rapid succession
He let her know who was who

In his own way, he dispensed some American home truths
Call it the imperial boomerang, that obscene point of view
Visit America before America visits you

I couldn't bear to watch the clip of the death of the poet
But from the still, I could see in her smile, the sense of bemusement
And knew all too well what would have happened, later, when she got home
That that masked man - puff, with his big weapon
Would end up as a minor character in a poem


After Renée Nicole Good


See previously: Prone

File under: grief, blood, outrage, murder, USA, crime, violence, rogues, culture, observation, perception, creative process, hatchet job, The Rough Beast, poetry, toli

Writing log: January 10, 2026

Chasmaphobia

Mind the gap, the train operator's message over the intercom
Murphy's law. Or was it nervousness that caused the fumble?
The black rectangular shape shuffled out of the breast pocket
Its curvilinear flight path deftly avoiding the outstretched hands
The rainbow's end right in the gap destined for the tracks
Parabolic trajectory congruent with the laws of physics
Serene, but all you could do was watch and bear witness
That sinking feeling, well none of you were able to react
Superfluous, the message you should have heeded: mind the gap

Chasmaphobia n. the fear of dropping one's keys, badge, wedding ring or equivalent into a gap (say between the elevator and floor)

Mind the Gap, a Playlist

A soundtrack for this note (spotify version)

File under: life, accident, improbable, whimsy, humour, observation, perception, poetry, toli

Writing log. Concept: February 10, 2006; April 18, 2022

Dark Milestones

A dark milestone, they said, and a "terrible toll"
A profound loss repeated so many times is awful
Easy words out of the mouth of these opportunists
Spewed in profusion as a shield for their mistakes

Their blather rather underscored the lack of concern
As if one could be saved by platitudinous laments
What was once unthinkable became the norm,
 we heard of incalculable loss
Mass extinction on a regular basis, so many were paying the cost

The unending daily tallies were duly consigned to the middle pages
We heard of fatigue and, after false starts, a return to normalcy
Time to move on, they said, we should resign ourselves to mass death
Fatalistic even when the evidence showed that things could be mitigated

The brief moment of solidarity had passed,
 the clapping and shared sacrifice
It was all up to individual choice,
 people should be left to their own devices
The previous narratives reasserted themselves
 in this renewed torrid zone
The rest is history, all that remained was to mark the dark milestones

After a dark milestone (January 2022)

See previously A Panoply of Mistakes a year earlier

Wrong, a playlist

I might as well recycle the previous playlist, nothing changed in the interim, only the body count. (spotify version)

This internal displacement is part of a series: In a covidious time.

File under: failure, coronavirus, pandemic, hypocrisy, outrage, hatchet job, culture, observation, England, incompetence, politics, language, humour, Observers are worried, Buyer's Remorse, covidious, poetry, toli

Writing log. Concept: January 10, 2022. June 1, 2022

High Wire Act

It takes considerable effort to appear effortless performing a complex task; we all applaud the display of excellence.

It takes no considerable effort for a high flyer or leader to fail miserably; we all laugh at the display of incompetence.

The walk of life is a tightrope.

High Wire Act, a playlist

A funky playlist for this note. (spotify version)

• Live Wire by The Meters
• So Tight by Rick James
• Tightrope by Junie Morrison
• Tightrope by Janalle Monae and Big Boi

File under: life, culture, observation, perception, aphorisms, zingers, humour, failure, Observers are worried, toli,

Writing log: February 22, 2021