Thursday June 16, 2005 11:29PM - Cave Canem

Last night i went to Wal-Mart. I wanted frozen fry chicken for the late night session where we would drink and talk a little retire to write the next day's poems, come back and drink a bit. i was traumatized. one should be traumatized by anyplace in which it is possible to get underwear, a gun AND a Big Mac. Further, an able-bodied couple and their ten-year old son entered the facility. The parents proceeded to sit down in motorized scooters - Mart-Carts (like the kind reserved for those who can't walk well on their own), so they could peruse Wal-Mart in a more leisurely fashion. Their big-headed child ran alongside them...

...i am NEVER moving to the suburbs.

We just returned from Pittsburgh, where there was a faculty reading in the Mattress Factory. Kwame Dawes is a god amongst men. The man's poetry is so absolutely FLY!!!! that i found myself in that sort of exhausted frame of mind for the entire reading; the one in which youo find yourself, when the ability of the work provokes such profound emotional responses (and so many of them) that you feel like there isn't much more you can take. In addition, Cyrus Cassells, Cecil Giscombe and Marilyn Nelson read; and for sure they were all superb (and i do mean UTTERLY so), but for me tongiht Kwame soared. i still have to figure out how to come up with a poem for 10AM tomorrow. This is the poem i handed in yesterday...

If one day the ancestors should return, honor them
(for David Rudder)

Ile Ife
Ile Ife
Ile Ife

Say it three times anywhere
from San 'do to Palatouvier
from Manzanilla to Pointe-a-Pierre

Make a circle in the center of the cane
Tie the cock foot and place it in the center
Wear white and leave your head incovered
Make sure the drummers have plenty rum
Make sure the drummers are sweating

Take off your shoes and pound the dust
Let your bare feet pound the dust
let your black feet pound the dust
Let id dig up the ground and turn the soil fresh

Dance the calinda
Dance the congo
swing the skirt and wet the gayelle floor
swing the boie and wet the gayelle floor
Make sure the dancers have plenty white rum
Make sure the dancers are sweating

chant a psalm
chant a psalm
chant a psalm
call for 'Batala Shango Ogun
call the spirit to come in your head

Drop the beat on the first dambleh
Jump high chantuel song from the throat
swing your stick and pour the rum heavy

Light the match
Light the match
Watch the cane take flame
Watch the cane take flame

Pass the cutlass slow on the cock-neck
Drain it upside down in the dirt
Let the blood run free

Have at it if you wish. there'll be another update telling you about the poem i handed in today etc, and the spades game in the bus on the way from Pittsburg...