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

Maroon Creed

Long before those edifices of past sorrow were erected
They moved with the poetry of resistance
Disdaining the fraught burden of a label
Freedom and defiance, they owed allegiance to liberty

Naturalists by inclination, observers of the earth's promise
They found strength in conversation and community
The playfulness of the language, the meandering turns of phrases
Luminous idiolect that harkened to ancestral lands

By necessity navigating the contours of cultural interplay
Recognition in the names, a heritage weighted with history
They carried in their tongues the tales and the traditions
Fragments of identity, the métissage of their found society
The maroon creed, independence of thought, purity of faith
Sacred links, bonds forged in renewed nighttime ceremonies

To stand straight even amidst insecurity
To laugh when confronted with precarity
To flow around obstacles, resilient as a river
And always hewing to escape, shackles discarded
Sounding the alarm with conch shell at the ready
Intent, moving with purpose, their destination is history

Bearing traces of scars still lingering that speak to society's ills
Not beholden to the legacy of those days in the hills
Yet embodying by one's very existence the remembrance
Of the enduring shame of what man would do to fellow men
To strangers and neighbors alike, out of the wages of blood and sin
Charting a path then, spears burning, ever mindful of this proud legacy
Cast in this vein as living emblems of cultural memory

Maroon Creed, a playlist

A soundtrack for the Nèg Marron. Caution, take heed, behold a spear burning over yonder. (spotify version)

• Man in the hills by Burning Spear
• Spear Burning by Burning Spear
• Black Soul by Burning Spear
• Door Peep by Burning Spear
• Spear Burning (live) by Burning Spear
• Song of the Maroons by Courtney Pine
• Foi de Marron by Léon-Gontran Damas
  Listening to the premier poet of Négritude narrating his famous ode to the maroon creed is invigorating. It is easy to see the spark that he lit in Senghor, Cesaire and other contemporaries.

In memoriam Aba Cecile McHardy


See previously: Until Such Time, Traveling Light and Forgiveness and Love

File under: culture, observation, griots, maroon, perception, history, legacy, freedom, slavery, race, identity, poetry, Caribbean, Africa, Social Living, toli

Writing log: July 3, 2022

The Lobby

It's one thing to avert the eye and go for benign neglect
It's another when the chairman of the board is affected
I recall that when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait
A furious response was simply not up for debate

With Kuwaiti elites, whether oligarchs or royal family, over a barrel
These major stockholders, the world over, were in mortal peril
Forget matters of sovereignty, it didn't need to be said
That it wouldn't be good for business, let alone US interests

Even today, western media, who would not normally exercise restraint about strangers
Suddenly become coy and sensitive about their coverage, and hew to their better angels
As India became a new epicenter, they initially started showing makeshift crematoriums
And the telegenic, albeit burning, funeral pyres; the utter collapse and dysfunction

But the tone quickly changed, even as things were getting worse
The reality is that Indians hold the power of the purse
It really comes down, in these things, to who pays the piper
Who has the loudest voice when it comes to the diaspora

For when, say, Google's CEO's close and extended family is affected,
You'd best believe there'll be outrage, and an almighty scramble
Suddenly those who would never otherwise spare a thought
Are seen to be urging solidarity for this catastrophe

And so I've been thinking about the power of the lobby
I wonder who, in extremis, would ever be coming for me
I have long studied the successful ones even if I disapprove of their sleaze
The Israeli, the Saudi and those others; smooth operators, well versed at advocacy

For when my countrymen were stranded in Libya, Lebanon, or what have you
Or even those unfortunate souls who were being trained by Nicolae Ceaușescu
When calamity struck, the lesson they quickly learned was rather sobering
Namely that not a scintilla of help was on the way, no one was coming

In the past, to hold a Ghana passport was to be a down-on-your-luck kind of person
Radioactive really, the kind of thing that attracts the worst sort of attention
The immigration agent would break out a broad smile as you made your arrival
Your ovaries or gonads, foreseeing their inspection, would start to shrivel

We always wished for a different passport, Liechtenstein, or, say, Luxembourg
Let's be frank here, of a Luxembourgian held for hostage, I have never heard
But it stands to reason, there is something quite apt, even if it's inequitable
To read a headline: "White contractors airlifted to safety before local Black people"

There is a great sorting hat at work, perhaps the gods have always played favorites
But it is rather tiresome for those of us who have to content ourselves with miseries
"The fellow with the fufu usually moves over to the man with the soup,
Never the other way around", goes that saying, and well known Nigerian truth

And so as I write my own stories, I realize that I too need a posse
That I need to build bridges, and help those on the lower rungs than me
In this liminal life in the glue layer, making connections is what matters
The head nod of appreciation, building up the lobby for my fellow travelers

The Loud Minority, a playlist

A soundtrack for this note, meditating on a lobby (spotify version)

• The Loud Minority by Donald Byrd
• The Loud Minority by United Future Organization
• The Loud Minority by Frank Foster
• The Loud Minority by Kero One

...

Timing is everything
Observers are worried

File under: power, politics, immigration, identity, strategy, lobby, communities, advocacy, Great Game, humour, Ghana, Africa, culture, social, observation, perception, Observers are worried, Buyer's Remorse, poetry, toli

Writing log: May 14, 2021

Self Portrait In Verse

When asked what I do for a living, I tend to lead with
"Truth be told, I'm really just a failed pineapple farmer"
When pressed, I then add that the bio reads
"Technologist, omnivorous reader, sometime writer, and music lover"

The leading volley normally never fails to disarm
It leaves an opening, and then I can turn on the charm
It softens me up, this mix of false modesty and imperfection
I'm a connoisseur of the strange architecture of misdirection

The backup option too, while accurate, is a diversion
It tells its own story but adds to the confusion
Truth be told (again), I favor words as protection
Fugitive glimpses of the self, the art of omission

The Akan conception of self will get invoked
Even if most of my life, I've been an exiled soul
But some are very keen on the curriculum vitae
Or that American innovation, the resume

...

I write books of toli covering life in the torrid zone
Occasionally self referential, one hopes they can stand alone
Densely linked manifestations of hypertext dreams
Focusing on small things, dark matters, and whimsy

Ask not what I do, but focus on what I write
Ask not what I hate, I only know what irks me
Ask not what I love, but behold what I praise
The normalcy project is what I try to navigate

These words are, again, a diversion from the heart of the matter
I'm a man of the hills, a word fugitive that's hard to capture
While these days, you'll find me tending to my pandemic garden
I'm happiest reading a book, not too far from Aburi Gardens

Something whimsical by way of Hilaire Belloc
Or Caribbean, say Zee Edgell or Derek Walcott
Some biting satire, think Evelyn Waugh or Saki
Kwesi Brew for soul insurance or Chinua Achebe

Perhaps some afrofuturist young turk, you know the names, but nothing too dark
I'm a sucker for genre pieces by Octavia Butler and Richard Stark
Or James Ellroy, give me American Tabloid, here's to bad men
Indiscriminate, really, so long as the writer knows how to wield the pen

And there'll be music, my enthusiasms are well known
The urban griot soundtrack: soul and jazz with funk undertones
The blues feature, all the African genres, and hip hop
Gospel too, basically all who use music as a weapon

Academia is long in the rear view mirror
I saw more than enough of that life from my father
The Wife, a historian, has access to a great university library
I live as an omnivorous reader and cause good trouble dispensing toli

And that's the natural extent of my ambition
To luxuriate in the safe harbor of deflection
That while I might present as chief toli monger
I'm really just a failed pineapple farmer

Chief Toli Monger, a playlist

A self portrait in music. It coheres for me but your mileage might vary. We start and finish with Burning Spear's Man in the Hills album, the maroon soundtrack. (spotify version)

• Man in the Hills by Burning Spear
• Dancin' with Myself by Johnny Kemp
• Seein' is Believin' by Cheryl Pepsii Riley
• I Can't Help It by Michael Jackson
• 8 Million Stories by A Tribe Called Quest
• I Go to Work by Kool Moe Dee
• Bravebird by Amel Larrieux
• Throw it Away by Abbey Lincoln
• Black Soul by Burning Spear

...

Timing is everything
Observers are worried

File under: whimsy, humour, culture, identity, observation, perception, writing, misdirection, strategy, poetry, personal, Observers are worried, toli

Writing log: May 4, 2021

Faint Praise

Occasionally lyrical, and always whimsical,
   he writes with the verve of the modern traveler
Her aesthetic choices are always daring, as if to strike a nerve,
   the tension is unbearable
He raises new vistas in his work,
   pushing towards the outer edges of the craft
A remarkable debut, her striking voice emerges fully formed,
   prismatic and thoughtful

Finely written, his book grapples with the liminal interstices
   of tradition and modernity
She captures something of the languor of the immigrant's condition
   and its tragedy
Thus it was a surprise to behold the new directions he is pursuing,
   a testament to his ambitions
Now she has turned her keen lens on western idées fixes,
   she sites her work at an unquiet juncture

Favoring the edgy, the argument becomes a touch unrefined,
   it betrays his purpose
The pose of the insider has served her well,
   less incisive are her wrought portrayals
A close reading reveals the shortcomings
   of his troubling and combative approach
What are we to make, on the page,
   of her more experimental departures?

Tellingly, the initial promise and aplomb appear to have gone awry
   on this well worn terrain
It is when she strays into Austenite stylings
   that she loses the edge to her oft-biting satire
By pursuing the phantom thread of dislocation,
   he risks raising the tired tropes of mulatto identity
The Forster inclination doesn't serve her well,
   her gimlet quill ought to be reserved for life's incongruities

The subtext is clear, sure you can write, but next time stay in your lane
What the academy bestows freely, it also reserves the right to reframe
As flavor of the month, play the game wisely or you may come up short
The funk song was a fiction: All the critics love you in New York

Faint Praise, a playlist

A soundtrack for this cautionary tale. (spotify)

• All the Critics Love U in New York by Prince
• Stay Cool by The Roots
• High Hopes by S.O.S. Band

...

Timing is everything
Observers are worried

See previously: Flavor of the Month

File under: humour, culture, observation, perception, hype, language, identity, authenticity, literature, art, shell game, Africa, immigration, poetry, hatchet job, Observers are worried, Buyer's Remorse, toli

Writing log: April 28, 2021

The Stereotype

You know too the stereotype about black men,
   that we care too deeply
Unlike the rest of the world,
  all those shifty flaneurs living carefree

The black man's burden
  is of a lifetime duty of care and responsibility
The lack of physicality is appalling
  which, I daresay, is why we hide our bodies

What a life, always the first pick
  for the keynote at the philosophy colloquium
And hopelessly out of our league
  in athletic sports except in technical events, say equestrian

Always to be found, long past the midnight hour,
  in the lab at the science center
And hard at work in the afternoon,
  when most others are taking their siesta

Can't get them to crack a smile,
  so humorless, always so serious
Two left feet on the dance floor,
  no rhythm to speak of, can't carry a chorus

Unlike those undisciplined others
  who are so quick to lose their temper
Equanimity in repose is the natural mode of the African,
  the cerebral thinker

Forever with masks of civility, a confession of faith
A model minority dedicated to inspiring higher forms of debate

A change in perspective,
  badged with the confident sovereign's regard for tradition
Elevating the discourse,
  our contribution to humanity's curriculum is conversation

...

You know too the stereotype about black men,
  that we write long poems
One stanza is never enough,
  effusive outpourings are the order of the day

This afternoon, The Wife ran up the stairs away from me shouting
"Don't give me another poem to read". The prospect is of marital counseling

While my poet friends have always casually stressed
  its pickup potential and aphrodisiac powers
They never mentioned
  that poetry has been cited as grounds for divorce in New York courts

I'm genuinely curious what the tipping point was
  that forced her drastic measures
I'd like to think it was the quantity,
  rather than the quality of my poetic gestures

Did she see me approach with a sheet of paper?
  Was that the tip off?
Perhaps I should instead be declaiming
  my fragments of lyric verse

I too have watched Love Jones
  and realize that the spoken word cats
Get a lot of love and action.
   I've got to change up my game quick fast

Was it the accumulation of metaphor
  that broke the camel's back?
Or the searching scrutiny every encounter is now provoking?
  Imagine that

Quoth Chateaubriand,
  poets are like birds, the least thing makes them sing
Witness this poetic impulse
  now causing marital discord and misgiving

Needless to say, the warning shot was fired,
  I'm going to have to stay in my lane
I'll have to make do with you, Dear Reader,
  if only for the sake of my children

...

You know too the stereotype about black men,
  that we have large vocabularies
And frequent affairs of the heart,
  owing to a frisson de folksonomie

Liminal undertakings,
  we pursue the psychogeography of far regions of the mind
Forever mindful that some only fancy
  the hyperlinked territory we outline

The hatchet job tag gets a lot of mileage,
   that and the proverbial zingers
Fallen angels abound, those rogues,
  the strange bedfellows and the grifters

Aficionado of shell games,
  I'll concede an obsession with gremlins and parasites
These last may get plaudits, but take heed of their insatiable appetites

The human factors, the economics of whimsy,
   and the laws of grief
It's all about manufactured serendipity
  and finding comfort suites

Where comprehension is poor, turn to glue layer people,
   their networks and infrastructure
We seek to capture social interplay through observation,
   the changing perceptions of culture

If there are dark matters,
  there is the determination to bear witness
Biting satire as a weapon
  when confronting the heart of darkness

The necessity of permanent outrage informs the exiled soul's identity
An immigrant's stance contra dislocation and this fraught modernity

The joy of small things is a mainstay
   as is compulsive storytelling
Humour is everywhere in communities
   and ultimately social living

Of late, public health has been a focus
  what with this covidious pandemic
Needless to say, the specter of the superspreader looms,
  observers are worried

The one important contribution that the African can make to the world is to keep reminding everyone that it is out of sympathy and the love for one another that we can build eventually what is valuable and peaceful.

- Kofi Abrefa Busia, The Prospects For Democracy In Africa

Stereotype, a playlist

A soundtrack for this note. Looks aren't everything. (spotify version)

• You Can't Judge A Book By Its Cover by Stevie Wonder
• Poetry by Roy Hargrove Erykah Badu & Q-Tip
• Seein' is Believin' by Cheryl Pepsii Riley
• I'm Too Much by Chubb Rock
• Seein' is Believin' by Adriana Evans
• Dancin' with Myself by Johnny Kemp
• You Can't Judge A Book By Its Cover by Bo Diddley
• Looks aren't Everything by Cherrelle

...

Timing is everything
Observers are worried

File under: stereotypes, whimsy, culture, humour, observation, perception, language, obsession, race, black, Africa, identity, Observers are worried, poetry, toli

Writing log. Concept: April 1, 2006; April 26, 2021

The Torrid Zone

Journey with me to a far region of the mind
Ponder the daily reality lived by so much of mankind
There's no escape from these ongoing acts of violence
This disturbing tranquility we face, the rest is silence

Certainties were turned to dust, we learned, back there yonder
The quiet revolutions that were launched so quickly foundered
Despite the debts foretold, many enjoined in mindless speculation
With the inevitable result: functional defenestration

They were early to despair, those who keenly felt the weight of ideas
Swiftly disabused of the notion that the burden of loss would be shared
Justice was a mere concept, a quintessential abstraction
And freedom was a feint, a rhetorical misdirection

The suggestion was displacement to the heart of darkness
Secrets and lies, the new formula, method to the madness
Secret lives, newfangled norms, and forbidden encounters
Artful omissions, ellipses, the purposeful restraint of actors

Things fell apart as we entered the new normalcy
Of pulp fictions and the B-movie theory
We did well to wear our masks of civility
Even as our underlying emotion was incredulity

These were strange days full of chaos and disorder
Rituals from time immemorial upended in short order
The lunchtime heists of fond traditions would cause unbounded loss
Remember: the dark matter of communities lies in the least of us

Strange bedfellows, with impunity, were wont to make the road fearful
Their grim militias were unleashed, while their leaders stayed cheerful
Without restraint, they shattered all records in due course
The question remains: what paradise have we lost?

Useful idiots arrived on the scene with their wishful thinking
Causing confusion with their cacophony of prevarication
Meanwhile the codes of martial music were playing a grim drumbeat
As the tanks and the khaki men made their way into our streets

Whether to engage in the battle, ultimately, the choice is yours
Be mindful of a shadow's burden and the spirit's rhythm of loss
To survive the shell game of life, hew closely to the skeptic's credo
The alternative is to sing the inflation calypso and dance the corruption tango

Observers were worried about all this as you must understand
For absolutely everything turned out to be written in sand
But the muse wills what she wants, you made to follow her demands
All the while singing the old spiritual, the creator has a master plan

The indignity of the great game, soul insurance proved to be a fiction
The normalcy prohibition you faced informed the great longing
Your tribe was denied relief in practice,
   and even in their hypertext dreams
The great historian was mistaken about the end of the age of extremes

The cowboy boots of the colossus stood astride the dark continent
The scramble for black gold and trinkets
  destined to adorn the crown jewels
What was manifest was that
  there would be neither truth nor reconciliation
There was no forgiveness and love in this land,
   there were only resource actions

The elephants fought to standstill, it was a split decision
They decided on rewriting the script to resolve the contradiction
Things would be better for them if we got on with forgetting
Far better than reparations, they disdained the act of forgiving

It was your duty of care,
  you turned to social living to get out of the mess
Mindful as you were of the mosquito principle,
   you were determined to bear witness
The interplay of the conflicted legacies of men
  resounds throughout history
What we choose to remember and forget
   is the essence of cultural memory

For want of a bolt, you had close encounters with collateral damage
Where others feared to tread for fear of the noble savages
It was an obstruction of justice, there was no easy way to assign blame
Detached as you were from a land that had herd immunity to shame

You were left to learn by bitter experience the laws of grief
The writing was on the wall, no one was coming to give you relief
Unable to salve the wound, you would face the challenge on your own
Stranded as you were, the Gods bade you welcome to the torrid zone

Africke hath ewer beene the least knowen and haunted parte in the world, chiefly by reason of the situation thereof under the torride Zone; which the ancients thought to be unhabitable. Whose opinion, although in verie deede it is not true, bicause we knowe that betweene the two Tropickes there are most fruitefull countries.

— John Pory, 1600.

In his translation of A geographical historie of Africa by Leo Africanus

Soundtrack for this note

Mountain of When by Amel Larrieux

...

Timing is everything
Observers are worried

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

File under: culture, observation, poetry, perception, displacement, immigration, identity, exile, memory, Africa, Observers are worried, covidious, toli

Writing log: March 30, 2021

Flavor of the Month

No one is indispensable
Your kind are a dime a dozen
Don't delude yourself on special standing
Don't fall for that kind of racket
True, your skills are specialized and you're now being feted
Your insights are recherché, studied as befits the media glare
With the acclaim, you seem to have gained an entrée, a seat at the table
But the real power brokers are at the high table, far from where you are seated

No one is indispensable
True, for now you're the flavor of the month
But, as the history of all creative endeavors has shown,
Originality, although prized, has a shockingly short shelf life
Humanity can amble along with the merely mediocre, or plain ordinary
Survival is the biological imperative, your talents are unnecessary
Excess sauce, a thrill for the moment, a temporary passion
Tastes are bound to change, albeit you may be the latest fashion

No one is indispensable
I know, it's sad. They're throwing fine labels at you:
Edgy, Emersonian, afrofuturist, avant garde
Such is the frisson of authenticity granted those bearing a ghetto card
Your time might have come, feel free to enjoy the spotlight of this phase
But steel yourself for when their gaze surely shifts in the coming days

No one is indispensable
I tell you, let me count the ways
My friend, trust me on this,
Get ready to be lavished with faint praise
An ode to this fleeting moment when you are labeled Number One
Ephemeral, disappointment is nothing new under the sun

Flavor of the Month, a playlist

A soundtrack for this cautionary tale. (spotify version)

• Drop a Dime by Charlie Hunter
  I like the version on the Gentlemen I Neglected to Inform You that You will Not be Getting Paid album and accompanying tour but any version of this groove will suffice
• High Fashion by The Family
  Here's hoping that Prince's vault will reveal more from the sessions for this band.
• Flavor Man by Public Enemy
  The album's title poses the existential question of the internally displaced: How you sell soul to a Soulless People who sold their soul? The greatest hype man in history, Flavor Flav.
• The Latest Fashion by Prince and The Time
  The live and original versions are light years from what was released, I hold on to them. Staying power was suspect with this tune.
• Hot Property by Jamiroquai
  A light fun jam to round things up. It sounds almost like disco which we know quickly became branded as a passing fancy.

...

Timing is everything
Observers are worried

File under: humour, culture, hatchet job, observation, perception, hype, hubris, identity, poetry, authenticity, shell game, Africa, immigration, Observers are worried, Buyer's Remorse, toli

Writing log: Concept March 2012; March 17, 2021

Ellipses

I first met my sister one Christmas Eve, I was about to reach my maturity
A long story, gaps, pain, and the ellipses that belie a longer history
Of such things are families made, what with the undercurrent of trauma
Still, that quarter century was tough to bridge between mother and daughter

We'd been talking over the months and now it was a family reunion
Feeling each other out, exchanging banalities, she was unassuming
The three of us in the Brent Cross flat, a typically cold English winter
Contra London's grey, we all wore the most godawful sweaters

We settled in with no wariness and just got on
Cool customers, we were nothing if not nonchalant
They stared at each other these proud African women
My aunt made it a fourth in our exiled quadrant

A meeting of minds, myself, aunt, sister, and mother
Exiled souls, from homelands and from each other
Four lonely Londoners now missing Nigeria and Ghana
Wondering how to write the script for tomorrow's chapter

The usual suspects came into play: respect, deference, shame, and matters of protocol
We found our way through the initial unease and established our new rituals
Not knowing what one should expect, our trajectories in life were not too dissimilar
Still it was disconcerting, in the moment, to experience the shock of the familiar

Crafting narratives, some of us for a living, we were all born storytellers
Truth and reconciliation, it was hard to tell who could top the other
We could each raise the stakes recounting close encounters
And mention the harrowing escapes that marked our identities
The stolen moments we now shared, the tale of the lost stories

We quickly forgot the hurt and settled into the comfort suites of teasing
Deflecting past slights with irony and dry humor, we practiced the art of easing
Still, the mannerisms were uncanny, genetics could not be denied
Fittingly, the first movie we watched together was Secrets and Lies

Elliptical, a playlist

The soundtrack to this grace note comes courtesy of Meshell NdgegeOcello, purveyor of liquid soul and elliptical funk grooves. (spotify version)

• Elliptical by Meshell NdgegeOcello
• Forgiveness and Love by Meshell NdgegeOcello
• Mary Magdalene by Meshell NdgegeOcello
• Oysters by Meshell NdgegeOcello

I nominate this brief note for The Things Fall Apart Series under the banner of Social Living. What paradise have we lost?

File under: family, history, personal, memory, exile, separation, culture, immigration, identity, Ghana, Nigeria, Africa, England, observation, perception, life, Things Fall Apart, Social Living, poetry, toli

Writing log: March 25, 2021

Masks of Civility

Masks of civility were our usual garments
Even as we boiled silently with rage
The understanding was that this healing process
Would allow those others to turn the page
A lifetime of turning the other cheek had rendered us quiescent
Still, it was altogether unbearable, this internal displacement

In this liminal zone, we lived strange days of fiction
Weary travelers in a land of contradiction
To expose the molten core of reinforced steel would betray our purpose
The arc of providence, historians said, would surely bend towards our shores

Our national anthem lifted every voice against the strife
We played the rhythm of loss badly for our kind of life
We were close companions of the shape of dread
Who sang I can't breathe, the chant of the living dead

Tracing its contours like connoisseurs of anticipation
The country's dream was a hollow promise, empty marketing
The mantra goes the customer is always right, of course
Meanwhile, you get what you pay for, there's no buyer's remorse

The knives are out, they aren't even bothering to hide their intent
They're coming for us with everything they've got in their rearguard action
The fig leaves of due process were revealed as decorative nipple pasties
Functional, yet entirely ornamental, their bosom's virtue exposed freely

They parade around the poles of propriety as they strip rights and tease
Unvarnished power grabs their sordid maneuvers as befits back room sleaze
The cynicism of state capture revealed in their state of undress
Squalid encounters with the long coat contingent, expect nothing less

In practice when no preemptive measures can be afforded,
The bearer is denied the privilege of rage
This normalcy prohibition leaves us bereft and misdirected
Consigned perpetually to post-facto outrage

Traverse minefields of hurt feelings and cultural sensitivity
The slate of unease is always wiped clean for the loud minority
Thus our usual reliance on truth and reconciliation is misplaced
Masks of civility are the province of the internally displaced

Masquerade a playlist

A soundtrack to deflect attention from this note. (spotify version)

• Masquerade by Alyson Williams
• The Masquerade is Over by Lou Donaldson
• This Masquerade by George Benson
• The Masquerade is Over by Nancy Wilson and Cannonball Adderley
• The Masquerade Is Over / Since I Fell For You by Jerry Butler
• The Mask by Fugees
• Behind the Mask by Michael Jackson
  Late era MJ was full of musings about identity and authenticity.
• The Charade by D'Angelo
  The black messiah speaks on this
• The Mask by Miles Davis
  We end this playlist in abstract sounds of musical dissonance. A phantom thread of displacement runs through Miles's entire oeuvre.

Timing is everything
Observers are worried

See also: Normalcy Prohibition

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

File under: normalcy, displacement, race, privilege, civility, rage, philosophy, alienation, USA, culture, observation, perception, memory, poetry, identity, legacy, power, Observers are worried, Buyer's Remorse, covidious, toli

Writing log: March 13, 2021

Normalcy Prohibition

We'd gathered after the cosmopolitan professor's lecture
At the round table, there was a little wine and conversation
In the Green Room at the Headliners Club,
   idle chat about its architecture
Members only, the joint was swank,
   believe me, you couldn't beat the location

Breathtaking views, it felt like floating,
   there, on the top floor of the Chase Tower
We were enjoying this dinner in honor of the renowned philosopher
Prime cuts of steak with all the trimmings, not your standard buffet
And for those otherwise minded, dinner options included a vegan entrée

The ethicist speaks of identity was the stated title of the talk
Typically lucid, he was promoting his latest book, he'd kept it short
A Cambridge man, he deftly navigated the day's fraught politics
No pointed commentary about the mogul-turned-President's antics

One of the participants at the round table was an august professor
You know the type, long praised for his robust, classical philosophy
He started to expound on the quality of rage throughout Western history
The uses of wrath and its unfortunate modern suppression despite its validity

From my seat at the table, I could see all too clearly where this was going
Emeritus, the man had a lifetime of captive audiences
   he was used to lecturing
He could build up a full head of steam
   and, at length, carry on pontificating
All the while pretending to never notice
   the slack mouths of those listening

A frisson of danger would carry his argument
   to its preordained conclusion
He brought up the droit de seigneur or some such grandeur and delusion
The lack of care for conventional wisdom and liberal pieties
He was used to pushing people's buttons and defying boundaries

I pondered the question, perhaps there was a subtlety I was missing
With an audience of academics who speak in code it pays to listen
In any case, I was there as a plus one, The Wife had Prof as her mentor
Which made me not a deep thinker but a mere spousal contributor

My own work, I'd offered earlier,
   explored the issue of neutrality in technology
And how recommendation systems could be brought to bear on society
Whether social platforms, and those who control them,
   could act out of spite
And how to design networks with transparency in mind to be forthright

By the time I mentioned the work on self driving vehicles
That was the recent part of my software practice
I rather feared I'd lost the audience with talk of miracles
And that they would pigeonhole me as an afrofuturist

Still, I don't know what possessed me,
   in the moment, to forgo quiescence
My usual strategy is to remain silent
   when confronted with arrant nonsense
Perhaps it was the fine wine on hand that loosened my normal reticence
I prepared to fortify my tongue to address the implied violence

With a smile as I sipped my red wine,
   I decided to engage in light criticism
I find it to be the strategy of choice in the face of misguided contrarianism
I have long experience dealing with those should have known better
My recommended action is to disarm with a choice proverbial zinger

It is a real privilege, I noted, to be able to afford rage
Not everyone in our societies is granted the honor of escaping the cage
Indeed, some people get quickly branded as uppity
   at the slightest umbrage
In my field, the concept is akin to the principle of least privilege

The least of us, it seems to me, deserve consideration now and again
The freedom of action, by definition, is granted to free men
But at the outset of the road to freedom, there was a touch of dismay
The constitutional settlement for slaves was to be counted as three-fifths
Partial personhood implies partial freedoms that come into play
When you are wrongly accosted on Texas streets by the sheriff

Our host had earlier quoted Publius Terentius Afer,
   better known as Terence,
That Afro-Roman Senator of yore,
   a paragon of uncommon wit and sense
And his enduring aphorism and motto

Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto
I am human, and I think nothing human is alien to me

I left it there, there was no need to go further, you see

The old professor, finally silent, simply seethed
Daggers in his furious eyes were pointed at me
It was a wonder, given his discourse, that he could repress his rage
Thankfully, those norms of politeness came into play at this stage

I worried that there would be a response, and had prepared my rejoinder
Forgiveness and love was my own take, forbearance in social behavior
I held my fire, if he was to continue with his noxious agenda item,
As a software engineer, I've frequently solved the dining philosophers problem

The guest of honor was more practiced at these matters and promptly
Changed the topic, and brought up further examples in history
Honor codes were an example he'd covered in one of his books
Those duels and other misguided traditions that we now forsook

He conceded my point, but had nicely recovered the tenor of the dinner
With characteristic wit, he'd brought things down from a boil to a simmer
Whereas the lies that bind
   was his preferred framing of matters of identity
I favored truth and reconciliation, poetry as cultural memory

The notion is clear for those who have long borne masks of civility
Of the fool's paradise of considering philosophy detached from equity
Albeit internal displacement is my tribe's underlying condition
I'd like to one day escape from the state of normalcy prohibition

Normalcy Prohibition, a playlist

A soundtrack for this note. (spotify version)

• Weary by Amel Larrieux
• Cranes in the Sky by Solange
  A Seat at the Table is all one can ask for
• I Think I'm Normal by Carter Ace
• Ordinary Joe by Terry Callier
• Ordinary Guy by Joe Bataan
• Weary by Solange
• Dinner with Gershwin by Brenda Russell
• Ordinary Life by The Weeknd
• Wrath of Kane by Big Daddy Kane
  I tend to end playlists with something to destabilize things, and wrath has never been bottled up better than with this piece of braggadocio.

Timing is everything
Observers are worried

See previously: Internally Displaced

File under: humour, normalcy, displacement, race, privilege, conversation, civility, rage, philosophy, alienation, USA, culture, observation, perception, poetry, memory, identity, legacy, Observers are worried, toli

Writing log: March 10, 2021

Internally Displaced

Internally displaced is a phrase I find myself drawn to
This modern traveler bears the deadweight of an exiled soul
The phrase carries with it a burden of dislocation
The succinct expression of the taint of alienation

Conventionally, it's the removal from one's home and native land
That is, a physical distancing, that can leave one unmanned
But there's also the worrying spectre of a psychic affliction
Unbalanced, the separation can present as a mental eviction

A matter of scale, it belies an embedded contradiction
For how can displacement be internal after all?
Perhaps it is a matter of perspective, this reduction
With the narrowing of horizons, the sufferer's prospects appall

Tantalus must be the patron saint of the internally displaced
Always on the verge, so close as they are to a comfort suite
Their song: the nearness of you,
   an ode to their erstwhile paradise replaced
A life of the unfamiliar, and the attendant sense of wist

Presumably the internally displaced haven't crossed any external borders
That are seen to matter in the eyes of international lawyers
Yet the clear implication is that boundaries have been transgressed
However, by being personal, not legal, these last count for less

In this reckoning, the internally displaced
At first glance, must still be within the vicinity
Of their former homes and abodes they left in haste
A surely maddening circumstance, this notional proximity

This points to the distinction that ostensibly exists
Albeit the same deprivation persists
Between the internally displaced and the refugee
Still, you can't say that either cohort have it easy

Mankind, when they departed Eden, were seen as refugees
   - up to no good
Thus it was written in those early chapters
   of what we know as the good book
But their postmodern predicament, call it their bereft outlook
Is that of the internally displaced, forever off the hook

The immediate problem is a practical one when rendered homeless
Previous certainties are upended, the essence of being dispossessed
Even if it's merely psychological, the trauma affects one's identity
The internally displaced quickly become aficionados of precarity

Unwillingly itinerant, internal displacement is forced movement
The road of distressed fellow travelers in a season of discontent
Fundamental freedoms denied to those now subject to the great longing
An intimation of futility and the sense that no one is coming

Uneasy lies the head that wears the frayed hat of the internally displaced
Resigned in contemplation,
   each meal unsatisfactory with that sour aftertaste
Holding fast to mementos grasped in a rush in the instants before leaving
The few trinkets, the salvaged memories, those prized belongings

From your own nest, you find yourself summarily chased
A stillness is time amid fevered attempts to locate a new home base
Off kilter, the internally displaced are favored scions of unease
They roam maladjusted, as if infected with a deficiency disease

Repatriation is not an option, not with your personal history
As the days progress you realize that this state is not temporary
You collected your bags and stamps
   - sadly the latter were revoked abruptly
Thus you joined the ranks of the sans papier,
   branded as men of no country

Many in America bear the trait as an underlying condition
The balm the internally displaced seek is leave for homesteading
Pride of place in this endeavor goes to those of my skintone
Our migration was to a perpetual life in the torrid zone

Home, a playlist

A soundtrack for the great longing
The sense of wist can be all consuming
Music therefore to settle the soul
Aural pointers to the comforts of home

spotify version

• Home by Stephanie Mills
• Everything I Miss At Home by Cherrelle
• Closer to Home by Courtney Pine
• Wherever I Lay My Hat (That's My Home) by Marvin Gaye
• A House is not a Home by Luther Vandross
• Bedda at home by Jill Scott
• Bring me home by Sade
• Bring it on home to me by Sam Cooke
• A House is not a Home by Dionne Warwick
• Wherever I Lay My Hat (That's My Home) by Paul Young
• A Long Ways from Home by Hugh Masekela
• Going Home by Jonathan Butler
• I'm Comin' Home by New Edition
• I'm Comin' Home by Herb Alpert & Hugh Masekela
• Take me Home by Jonathan Butler
• Home by Cherrelle

Timing is everything
Observers are worried

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

File under: culture, observation, poetry, perception, displacement, immigration, identity, exile, Africa, Observers are worried, covidious, toli

Writing log: December 2, 2017, March 24, 2021