"Somewhere in the process of obedience to the law, in the turning to scriptures to discover more from them, the sight and sound of the living – active and moving – God whose Word dictated their deeds was replaced by the ritual itself. There he stood amongst them, unknown to them, lamenting their self-blinkered hearts, ready to intervene and bare the cost".
ACT 1
Scene 1
ALFIERI:
What you have is an illusion, a whisper, nothing more. You’re clinging onto a dream old friend: Let it go.
EDDIE:
If a whisper, how loud: I hear nothing else, if a breath, how profound: I feel nothing else… You call it a dream but it haunts my waking steps. I can, but cannot and must; let it go
© Denis Adide 2011
ps: Might be worth having a look at Arthur Millers A View From The Bridge.
Autumn
His hands clung to his walking stick
As though to loosen his grip
Would loosen his fraying flesh’s
Clasp on life.
Wrung was his skin by the wind.
His clothes, more a burden than a help,
As sails swung from his trembling trunk.
Watching was his helpless wife
As with a yelp he gave up,
Was blown within a fingertip of the salvaging scaffold,
And tipping past the barriers fell
Into the ditch left by the tea-sipping road-workers.
Teary his spouse, wrestling her umbrella
Walked toward his grave.
Her hands too feeble to save.
In haste I came to stay the hearse
The bride to death, clung onto her purse.
Solemn I thrust my hand to the nabe
“Fuck off! … Fuck off you ape!” He said
© Denis Adide 2010
Color: The Falling Leaves
It had been a cold and windy day. I was on my way home from university. there was a gaping hole in the pavement bordered by the plastic barriers that the road-workers had left when they clocked out. I remember thinking, as I made my way past the hole, that with the wind as strong as it was blowing, it wouldn’t take much to blow someone into the whole. It was at this point that the idea for the poem crossed my mind.
The dominant thought while fleshing the concept of Autumn had to with the manner in which human tragedy is colorless: we, like the leaves, all lose color and fall. The hole provided the scene within which to show how futile as well as ignorant racism can be.
This one was chosen by my lovely wife.
Justing Timberlake: My love
This one is to celebrate the news from the palace. Prince William, I know the feeling. Congratulations dude!
Had to go way back for this one.
Frank Sinatra: It had to be you
I must say, this totally pepped me up! I was literally on my feet. Reminded me that it was almost friday!
Godfather of Soul!
James Brown: Get up offa that thing
I spent the latter half of today with an eight month old baby in an office that was eighty percent female. You would have thought it a nightmare, to have all the swooners pass by and take their fair share of the baby’s chuckle. It was however, a lot of fun because he was great company to have. Unlike the rest of us there, he was open, unguarded and honest about how he felt. He farted when he felt like it, cried when he felt sad or deprived, laughed when he found something funny, and never once hid his desire to learn new things. I ended the evening, on my way away from the child – someone else was going to look after him now – comforted away from the anxiety surrounding my own children (potentially on their way via stalks from heaven): it seems the biggest swooner of the day was myself.
The comfort however, was twinned with an aching heart. There was a thought emerging, a concern for the millions of children who – in that very vulnerable phase of life – are left to endure extreme hardships. It felt in my heart – and this is the image I had – as though the adult hidden inside that small body was being pounded out of shape by the various circumstances that the child was forced to go through – circumstances that we, society and their parents, are supposed to shelter them from. There was a sorrow for the abused, neglected, forgotten, as well as murdered children. This sunk me and almost brought me to tears – I didn’t cry though, I stopped for a minute to compose myself, tears didn’t seem becoming of a tall, hooded, black man.
To all the parents – potential and actual – think on this. I heard it said somewhere that we are possibly the only animals that require others in their species to survive for the first ten or so years of life. Nearly all other animals can survive on their own after the first year. We however require assistance for much longer. That level of fragility is one that we should look to cater for and cradle with as much love, affection, and care as our human potential can muster. It’s far from a question of instinct, our brains are more developed than the rest of the animal species: there is the depth and wealth of love that we must tap into and discipline ourselves in the acknowledgement of our weakness, with a view to change or seek assistance. It takes two to conceive but more than two to parent: we are all hollow in some areas, knit the web that’ll cradle our children.
To the rest of us ‘adults’, here is a thought. Why is it that as we grow older, the things we lose are the very things that kept us happy? I was shocked at my dishonesty when close to tears I turned away from view and took a few breaths: the image of composure was one I was desperate to keep; as though weakness was somehow an inhuman trait. What happened to the nakedness of out youth: the tears and laughter, the dependency and honesty, the vulnerability that made us carefree, and the peaceful sleep. In my experience, they are cultured away by the rod of pretence. The more we learn deception and pretence, the more we mask who we are, using the tools to our freedom to hide our scars – when our scars are the marks that make us uniquely beautiful.
I yearn to be attached again to that child inside, to be free again; attached to branches of life: unique and yet part of something bigger. Happy and honest, that’s the aim.
Adideism number one.
“Love fiercely, freely, and without compromise; but begin with yourself”
It's Complicated 