Friday, July 22, 2011

Koteka--abo Oyinbo: (ogun orixa+freyja shipping)

nets of naija
entangle me:
being an object
is now my fate?
but here i am
a special THING~
royal regalia
the "yellow gourd."
my curiosity
brought me here
to you, great one.
and you took me
to be your bride.
but now i see
i must be trained:
golden hair
and pink skin
do not kneel well
or hold burnt umber
with lissome lips
without experience (!).
i will be special
i will have value
(so you say)
for you are a god
as well as king~
creative fire!
a burning god
that i must cool,
sheath to a morsel
fit for a goddess...
northern ice
for tropical fire!


Friday, July 15, 2011

Ten years after...

He stumbled across the campus toward the line of robed and hatted graduates, still cursing under his breath the fact that he had to come back in the spring to get his diploma. Why couldn't they have given it to him in December when he finished! He didn't know these people, they weren't in his class. They only stared at him as he tried to find his place at the head of the M's.

God! This was long and he was bored. Well he never likes sitting too long, or standing too long if there was nothing for him to do. So many other things he could be doing..like..like... But he couldn't think of any. And those five rum-n-cokes weren't helping either. At last...the line up for the diplomas. He kept it together pretty well, till he saw the celebrity guest speaker. John Houseman was a special favorite for his work in The Paper Chase, both movie and TV series. "Tdhey come in hrere wid a SKULL full of MOOSH..and go out thienking like a Law-yer..hehe..ha.." He stumbled, gave Mr Houseman a wink, then collected his cum laude diploma in Ancient and Medieval History and Literature. As useless as a used tissue now, he thought....

No one was here to see him graduate..that was part of the problem. Everyone else had family and friends to share the moment, but no not him. Nobody gave a damn. Dad was dead, Mom was drunk or stoned, and the kind people who had raised him had put him out the summer he turned 18 with a slap on the back and a "good luck there, kid!" Oo...he had tried to fit in places..any place really but it never worked out. He got disgusted with the worst and self-sabotaged the best. It was his way, after all.

At the core of it all was her. No, it wasn't her fault, even he at his worst knew that. It was the fact that she had been taken from him and he could do nothing..nothing! What a fool of a protector he had been. He couldn't save her even though he had...had... Aah, he could not think about it, it was a black hole on his soul that could never be repaired. He had tried to find her. Even braving the two hour drive to Bethlehem as soon as he got his licence. But the less said about that the better. Gone to California was all he had learned. California! Might as well be Timbuktu or Outer Mongolia. He could never find her now, and even if he could, he was no longer the person she had known. He was a lonely, angry young man with no prospects and no friends. Nobody would want him; nobody would need him. He was beyond the pale of salvation this time.

When it was all over he tore off the gown and left it in the trash. In the lot, after a great struggle he found his car. Wait! Someone...no, two people were following him. What did they want! leave me alone dammit! But the words somehow didn't come. he unlocked the door, but he still felt their eyes right on him. All right...fine then! he turned to let them have it, both barrels of his ten years of pent up frustration and inadequacy. But what he saw amazed him beyond his dreams! A slender blonde woman stared at him with the bluest of eyes, reading and judging his very soul it seemed. And she did not turn away! The girl, about nine or ten he supposed tossed her brown hair and blinked her happy brown eyes as she pulled away and did a little dance in the lot. He could not speak..what could he say? The woman smiled and said at last. "Hello Sammy, ...this is our daughter."

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Birthday Eve

Far back in the days between the advent of Elvis and the sad day when Marilyn left us, Ma and Pa sat in their one room shack behind Quinn's Market. With Jack Paar on the small b&w, Pa slept off his bender while Ma fretted nervously. Ooh Pa did work in the shoe factory and this place was better than the West Gettysburg Inn (where Ma had been mistaken for one of the "working girls" and Pa had pulled his knife and...oo that's more of a springtime story). But Ma was nine months along now, and as the good book says: 'the days were accomplished when she should be delivered." Ah, what to do!! Pa dint have his license cause of the DUIs and hunting out of season dint endear him to the local police (he was part indin after all!!) Oo..the Plan!! Ma dragged herself up and went next door but one to Clyde's home. he said he'd drive them and he did take Pa to work most every day. But now he was dead drunk on the floor! Humph! Well the first thing that Pa's sis had taught Ma about managing menfolks is how to get them sobered up for the 'portant things in life, like work, suppers at the fire house, and when Oliver B. Green's Tent Revival came to town. So Ma made a pot of black coffee and poured it in Clyde. His wife heard the commotion and came out to help. "C'mon ya dam fool, Suzie's havin the baby!" So off they went, Clyde to get the '47 Ford Truck on the road and Ma to drag Pa out of his confy chair (the very chair where only three years later Pa would...aah but that's more of a new years' eve story). Anyhoo, they were all tumbled in and off down the road to Chambersburg Hospital they went, arriving some time after midnight. Pa and Clyde got in the door with Ma's help, then sank into two plastic chairs, where they snored and drooled. Ma went back with the nurse to the delivery room, where they met the doctor. About quarter past three the doctor came out, covered in blood to tell Pa that he was now the father of a baby boy. And Ma said he shall be called Sam since Pa calls everyone he dont know 'Sam'. "Honestly," she told her son years later, "whatever I would have called you your Pa would have called you Sam."