Cesaire

1913 - 2008


I was introduced to Aime Cesaire's work circa 1994, in particular Cahiers..., I came via the surrealist movement, into negritude and the depth of Caribbean feeling. In my most recent book, The African Origins of UFOs one of the 3 sections that comprise the text - that deals with a return home from exile is called 'Journal of a return to a floating Island', again inspired by Cesaire's seminal work of diasporic identity. A floating island, this is how I still see home; as an island afloat in the sea of memory. Aime inspired that title. He inspired us all, diasporic poets, not simply poetically but politically.
Came home tonight after guesting with the Heliocentrics at Cargo, and then Mulatu Astatke came on with his rolling soul and I knew that that was the closest we would get to see someone like Fela. Came home to read Aime Cesaire passed. May spirits build nests in his beard.

Spasm Band Textology

Spasm Band at Cargo March 2008, pic by Lexxie.
More pics from Cargo Mar 11 08

Early next week The Spasm Band go to Paris to play at the Banlieues Bleues Festival. The next day we go into a sky lit studio on the outskirts of Paris to record our new album with a 10 piece band which includes Joseph Bowie, Keziah Jones, Adrian 'Sun Blooz'Owusu and Jamika Ajalon. The legendary sophomore album blues is upon us but we are blessed by the weight of heavy music and liquid textology.

Rubber Orchestras

Presence Africane

I visit rubber orchestras – Ted Joans


Joan’s velvet
landscape
disorients
shadow/s
expresses its form
as electrical forests


Cesaire’s
virgins
of presence
promises
metamorphasis
initiates
itinerant parades
becoming
engines of cease-
less and fugitive

transperence

engines of
Egypt and suprise



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From a recent experiment with surrealist technique.
Unfortunately the formatting has been lost so you can't
experience the spacing and tabbing which is as much
part of the poem as the words themselves. I will try
to correct it, eventually. Although I think it also
works well as it is.
-----------------------------------------------------

A poem is a machine made of words - William Carlos Williams

New Poem from 'Bird Head Son'

NURSE



Nurse?

Nurse who used to goal keep for Hilltop United?
Knock knee Nurse who brother was a gangster
an get shoot up down south in San Fernando?
Nurse from Febeau?
Nurse who used to ride with Loaf and Lochan?
An carry ting to chook man? Nurse,
he mother was a teacher.

He self.

Crossing by South Quay in front Royal Bank
where the drag mall used to be. He
poor and humble down in this ketch arse town
where man killing man like mapepire.
He neck like a straw in the bottle he holdin.

Rollin

It like a swan.
In the bitter light.

And the verbs of his eyes: sun wash that out.






..............................


This is a work in progress but it may get included in my fortcoming collection 'Bird Head Son'. More about the title another time. This was started in Trinidad last August, it was my 1st time back in 6 years and I saw an old badjohn I used to know, crossing a port of spain street in the late afternoon light.

Curtis

when I see curtis in august dat yellowbone day after de rain in five rivers

leaning against dat blue wood door and he show me he sore foot how it ban up

say it pain him like hell and creak the hinge so ah peep it how it bandage

and how foot fly does zoot there so in his earthen room with the linoleum and smoke

I never did know dat 2 month later I getting this message in winter

when the cold have teeth and the grey does come down like a ol’man resting after lunch.

it choke me right here so and a couldn’t ‘ven talk

never thought it would hol’ me so

but no matter how you stretch and bend it

family come first

that same curtis we did love the same rockers and roots

that was heavy down in 79

is he who uses to ram bass on eight track and tape tape gi mi

is he one dusk in new street by the ravine say fellas leh we go an get some dead

dead as in chicken fried! and had us walk all round the indian farmlands of tacarigua

past unfinished villages and the unprimed masonary of slow houses

red brick dust and the dirt road we trod

seeking the smell of burning oil

and creole seasoning

and was take curtis take us to some backyard place like a slaughtery

and buy up a few bag a frozen fowl

and we now glum and despondent but laughing all the way home about how we been got

dead mean chicken live or dead back then but dead mean curtis dead today

and today I put on my long coat and went out into the night to teach

and all the while feeling the rumble of this dead

this sudden tug as if curtis and I were attached by some tough gossamer web

that sudden so it snap

and he gone reeling

reeling

that august day I snap him leaning on the brown bottom door, he had plans

said he woulda break down the ol house he father built with my mother and rebuild it

because the wood was rot and the rain did leak and this land is ours

and I wondered then, wee poopa , but you foot

you foot like it weeping black rain and I know sorefoot from long time

when it so it doh heal

mother mabel from champs fleur had one a bad one that never heal

it use to run pus

and she often bouce it on a bench when she ketch spirt with goblet in hand

in church on Sunday night

is curtis he father give the keys to the truck when forklift did jook out he life on the port

and curtis turn man

see him they

he did always love car an mechanical thing

Dr Roi Kwabena 1956 - 1958

Dr Roi Kwabena born 23/7/1956 Trinidad died 9/1/2008 England

I never had the good fortune of meeting Dr Kwabena but I was introduced to his work via a mutual friend. Another Trini poet man done.

LETTER FROM SEA LOTS

“........only five pounds yuh send?
bread, sugar an’ milk gone up.........
buses doh run.... water still go
now severe-threat in charge ah de water in maraval
so we looking out fuh poison...

money hard to come by....we down here suffering
sure..we have gas, oil, menthanol....
....steel, an’ sugar exporting..
buh mangrove still vamping...
factories not hiring.....even race horse protesting....
crime rampant as jurors hunted
laws improvising an’ english q-cees hustling..
buh teachers’ money still owing...

yuh ask for news? any news is sad news.....
doubles-man an’ market vendors still on de run
kidnapping an’ family murders add to dis shame
while meh OLE gran still worried sick ‘bout she pension...

cable an’ wireful, wid sure-hell come back...
even powertake an’ brit grasp follow fashion
buh maxi still accept short change
yet parts expensive..so only insurance profittin’
as sprangers still roam in de night

de only difference is de den opposition
must now salute for de independence parade...

senator..ah sure yuh would ah like tha....”

Roi Kwabena (from Selected Poems)

and that new day's coming soon...

Dulwich Park, Jan 2 2008