Calypso In Rumshops
for Ian McDonald
have to make a poem, an apology
must apologize to Ian McDonald
who, in the company of, in the presence of
David Dabydeen, of Derek Walcott,
I, with a gesture of disgust, dismissed
not wanting his admiration or appreciation
of something I said, considered clever, timely
in a session with Dabydeen, with Walcott
at Carifesta X, in Guyana
elated to be in dialogue, in the same room
with these giants, to be meeting them
a dream come true, my heart beating,
meeting them, opportunity to get to know them
and to be known by them
Dabydeen introduces me to this white man
Caucasian from the Caribbean
uninterested in his kind
in someplace inside me, accusing him still
for what I write to climb out of
use my pen to dig my way out of
dignity my destination and he pops up
and I shut off and he shuts up
stops whatever it was he’d commenced saying
don’t recall the point at which I realized
that that white man was Ian McDonald
whom I had been loving a long time
longing to meet a long time
author of Jaffo the Calypsonian
poem taught to BJC classes years before
I ended up falling into it, being baptized in it
I’d have kissed his hand had it clicked
I kissed my teeth instead, cussed, disgusted
cussing myself ever since, wanting to
needing to apologize
wanting to meet him still to thank him
for Jaffo, his rumshops, his gift
© Obediah Michael Smith, 2009
9:24 p.m. 25.06.09
Michael Jackson
i.
in spite of what is said of him
what’s been said of him
what’s believed by some of him
never have I stopped believing in him
loving his music, needing this witness
it’s just that he blew up too big
in this state, living, strained,
suffering for decades
who is without it has no concept
of the pain, of the strain of fame
living too large, too full, too taut
now he’s popped
pin or some point he bumped into
came up against and burst
ii.
Michael has died attempting to outdo himself
but it was difficult to
it proved impossible to out jump himself
after you’ve climbed Everest
you’ve gotten to the very top of the world
only death is a higher peak
speechless when you get to its summit
summer only just started
© Obediah Michael Smith, 2009
26.06.09
Lollypop Stick
seeing me in the clothes I wear
people must assume that my clothes, or that something
like a snake, is swallowing me down
in most of the clothes I wear it certainly seems
that there is much less of me left
life or something sucking me down
down down down to the dry bone
in clothes I wear, do I look like I’m stricken with some disease
as if struck by a vehicle which cannot, will not reverse
carrying me along
not seen or seen by a physician in a long time, not since some years ago
not since some time before my physician died
about my clothes though, about how I look in them
the collars much too large, pants hitched up about my waist
belt pulled tight, material enough almost, to make another pants
go around again, enough room remaining
for a second person to climb in join me in them
these are not clothes which fitted me once, fitted me like a body suit
they are not mine or were not always
what I wear are hand-me-down, clothes given to me
I like the poetry as well as the humility
see pictures though, see what others see
wonder what they must be wondering
am I being shunned because of it
is this why I am not having a dray load of sex
in my termite-ridden house, I scratch, I itch
are they getting rid of me or trying to
numbers unimaginable, drinking my substance
sucking it through straws
are they working tirelessly as they are
working on, working in all the wood
of which my house is made
© Obediah Michael Smith, 2009
2:39 p.m. 26.06.09
Jardin d’Amour
for Barbara Kanam
i.
it is all subtle with this woman
Barbara I could love, I do love
just met, not yet met, yet how intimate
is she receiving me, feeling me
in her skin, in her country
though we may be continents apart
languages apart
though she might be a millions miles away
or however far, how present she is
like blood running through me
she is coursing through me
want her circling similarly, constantly
I have only her song, her singing
bewitching me with what gestures
with words I am but partially able
to comprehend
it is all about what a woman can do
to a man, do for a man
able to couple and complete
able to direct him to ecstasy
go with him there
how many along with me, around the world
is she bewitching similarly, simultaneously
though here at home, we’re all alone
even if she is unaware
ii.
on the edge of my seat
uncomfortable as hell
and so near ecstasy
this woman and me,
and I’m unwilling to let her go
though I suffer: sore spots to sit on
I click back, how many dozen times
to get the hottest bits, most enjoyable bits
of this woman in song,
swaying to song, swaying while she sings
at times wet, at times dry
I drip, affected by this, by her
only woman in all the world
all the women in the world
and I am enchanted,
unable to pull away or go away
while she performs
she gyrates just for me
evokes memories
once I had a woman
as meaty, as juicy, as fleshy
to make love with, to make love to
to screw to my mattress
she’d screw me too
we would cry out
when we went to heaven
without passing away
iii.
Sunday and intercourse
she causes me to recall
long since I’ve had sex with Sunday dinner
without the sex, without the dinner
bin like this, since just before Carifesta,
last year
went to Guyana itching and concerned
I’ve not had sex since, apart from with myself
and women who are unaware and miles away
this woman with fleshy arms, with large breasts
and I remember when that arrangement was best
was a big bowl of heaven
in love with this woman on my computer screen
image in glass
how starved I am for a woman
fresh as vegetables to wash, to make salad with
fleshy as mango to cut into with sharp knife
iv.
with eyes bathe her
like the water showering her
woman willing to get her dress wet
I could take places, could take me places
woman willing to risk, a daring woman
to embrace, to face the world with
step into it, leave wet foot prints
v.
cabbage-green dress, she wears, she wets
wet as well with song and dance
with singing and dancing
how her wet dress clings to her
water dripping from her
like wet leaves in rain, in her jardin d’amour
where on earth still is such a place
in such a place, could I find her,
join her, enjoy her even more
than YouTube allows
in three dimensions together
like my book, my pen and me in my house
Haitian next door constructs a cesspit for Jef
he digs with grub hoe, he shovels,
he pauses to rest
the water’s off, I’m due more rest
I sneeze, I’m wearing only T-shirt
I’m crazy about Barbara from the Congo
difficult to let her go
since she grabbed hold of me
just want to dance nonstop
without end, with this woman
in her wet, cabbage-green dress
© Obediah Michael Smith, 2009
Written between 10: 44 p.m.,
Wednesday, June 17 and 11:41 a.m.,
Saturday, June 20.06.09
Anya Antonovych Metcalf
"There is a Crack in Everything"
And now there is a crack in everything which is about the worst news I’ve heard since hearing that my friend from childhood, Humpty Dumpty, had been pushed. Humpty Dumpty though might be a different case as he broke into many pieces, like a vase, made of ceramics.
Is the implication also that there is a flaw in everything?
This thought or report does open quite a variety of things and start them breaking apart or coming apart – like zips – like runs in stockings – like roots rising up and cracking sidewalks, walls, buildings.
To what cracks though are Anya and her exhibition of paintings referring? This artist’s gaze seems turned upon cracks in roads, cracks in streets. What come to mind in addition and immediately though are the metaphors – the crack before for birth and intercourse – the crack behind for defecation which is also otherwise made use of.
There is a crack in everything calls to mind the metaphor to do with the heart – with its being broken. No heart ever was though and no heart ever can be. Hearts are not made of stuff that breaks. This does bring to mind the man having problems with his mind who went to his Zen master to complain of it. “Bring out your mind before me!” he was told, “I’d pacify it.” His mind which was troubling him, though he searched for it, he had to confess, he could not find.
What therefore of Anya’s crack in everything? Is it like the broken heart which cannot break? Has this crack been attributed to what cannot crack of be cracked - the way lightening cracks the sky or the way the Red Sea was cracked for the children of Israel to cross? Is it the crack of a whip?
Is it about fracture though and is therefore about pain – like a cracked tooth or a cracked or fractured skull and about broken bones?
What Anya’s exhibition is about and is reference to as well is what had been fractured and in time mends and a scar remains – indicating where raw injury once was.
Art is about beauty. There is a crack in everything therefore is not meant to be bad news. It is about wholeness in spite of flaws and fissures and fractures. It is about the crack of dawn and the crack of birth – about the place of orgasm – the screams of lovers and of babies, drawn into the world and into light out of the dark.
Putting Humpty Dumpty together again is the business artists must be in. We must commit to doing what all the king’s horses and all the king’s men could not accomplish.
What pleases me is the sense of golden rectangles – the wonderfully made frames – echoing the shapes upon which Anya has painted. And these exquisite shapes of frames and papers they frame, argue with the art and the idea of fracture and the dynamics of what breaks and what mends.
Ultimately though is the crack about being crack or cracked as in insane, wholly or partially, or is it about crack cocaine and altered perception?
This artist has two hands though and in Hungry, in 1989, in a museum, standing before a painting, a portrait of a girl, the thought occurred to me, “We use our hands to put things together, to take things apart.”
I like very much what Anya, in this exhibition has put together or assembled. Certainly when purchased, these will be pulled apart again. What each buyer takes away though will be something whole – something beautiful, with a crack in it, like the cracks in a broken heart which actually has no cracks at all and the pain as well is no more than illusion.
I asked Anya, the evening her exhibition opened, at The Hub, Friday, June 12, about the fact that all her paintings in this exhibition are squares. Drawn away by her son, running about until he was sound asleep in his grandmother’s arms, Anya’s answer begun, was never concluded. The answer comes to me now, after 2 in the morning, two days later. Squares are circles. It is the same 360 degrees and within a square a circle can be drawn from the very same centre and a circle, like the earth or like a wheel, can revolve. Is traffic why the roads are cracked after all, coupled with neglect?
Anya’s cracks are about time though, about aging. Anya’s paintings are just done or painted not long ago. Some are on paper, some are acrylics, and others are oil on canvas. What is indicated by the title of the exhibition is what happens after decades or after several hundred years.
It implies the paintings we see in museums, in the Louvre and elsewhere, painted by Rembrandt, The Dutch Masters, by Caravaggio or even Venus de Milo, without arms. Here is what is new, pointing to antiquity, to what happens after these masters are long dead and time, as it were, is continuing to work on their paintings, their works of art. It is what happens to the paint upon old building in the oldest cities in the world.
By Obediah Michael Smith.
June 15, 2009.
Sylvia Plath Could Not Imagine
Putting Tooth Brushes In Poems
for Desmond Draville
a boy wants a poem
to put in his pipe or into his mouth
or into his mind
write me a poem
an unusual request
from a man in this culture
call upon me to call up a poem
to feel deeply, think deeply about him
only recently though
I thought, I must write a poem
about Patrick Rahming
whom I’ve admired and loved
a long time
big brother to me, big inspiration
as much an inspiration
as Cedric Scott, as Sidney Poitier
I sense he’s fading like the sun
which once was as bright
and as high as midday
he’s going down now
though he’s still tall, he droops a bit
a little
heard him recently
guitar in his lap and in his arms
perform Yellow Bird
for the wife of our Ambassador
to Haiti to sing
he was listening, silent, profound
as he strummed
as his fingers found chords
what chords on what instrument
to represent, re-present
this man who has invited
a poem out of me
like tooth paste I squeeze
onto my tooth brush
I brush mud off my feet
I enter an abode out of the rain
there is a welcome mat
cat in the rain to rescue, to towel dry
Hemingway, another man I love dearly
deeply
© Obediah Michael Smith, 2009
6:44 p.m. 10.02.09
Am I Concluding Prematurely
E.M.L.
answer to, will you marry me, I suppose
is a big-fat, big-flat, fuckin’, “No!”
© Obediah Michael Smith, 2009
12:15 a.m. 13.06.09
Once Upon A Napkin
for Marian Eikelhof
i.
as hungry as birds, these fuckin’ poets
in no seconds flat, they’ve pecked everything up
ii.
as hungry as birds,
these let-loose poets
two seconds flat, they’ve pecked everything up
picked everything up
not even scraps left for a slow swift from Holland
for a rooster from New Providence
left to cluck out a poem upon a napkin
meant for cookies and cakes
© Obediah Michael Smith, 2009
12:26 p.m. 27.05.09
Fallen Star
for Robert Johnson
he’s been on the street, on crack cocaine
for going on three decades
how can I go there or get there
without having gone through that
through those streets, those feats
without having walked in those shoes
upon his feet
can I possibly write what he can
see as he sees
how can I or whomever decide
who is a better writer, a better poet
and does better have to do with words
upon a page or with event verse unfolds
grip of the pen or upon how we grip life
knowledge of language, its grammar
or the grammar of life
I envy him his alley ways, his dark days,
his fireflies, his falling stars
© Obediah Michael Smith, 2009
8:16 p.m. 04.06.09
Pools Lakes
for Marlon Van de Sande
magical pools, her eyes
to dive in, to die in
blue holes are bottomless
or flow out to sea
icy eyes
I see eyes I could get lost in
I could lose my way in
angles her head just right
for an onlooker to slip into
the deep
fall, even if in love,
would have to kick and kick
to avoid going under,
to avoid going down
leaping tadpoles, small boys
gather round to gape
this old man is as curious
about these pools
© Obediah Michael Smith, 2009
11:26 p.m. 26.05.09
8 Petals of A Flower
for Aitana Alberti
& Nancy Morejón
i.
with blinders on in pursuit of verse
unable to look to right or left
unable to reverse
ii.
the price of meals on time
rusty nuts and bolts, unable to turn
iii.
developing a taste for liver, for living, for life
late in the night, liver and cassava
and black beans and rice
iv.
don’t want to be a footstool any more
want to be a headrest
are you deserving of such a promotion
v.
no longer do I write down water
I write down wine
vi.
the turning of the pages of the story of life
flowers in abundance boiled down to a drop
vii.
attach herself to me
screw herself into my ceiling like a bulb
viii.
baby with his mother’s breast
sucking himself to sleep
sucking his lights out
© Obediah Michael Smith, 2009
May 27, 2009
Dutch Tits
of Melanie Van Lankveld
milk-white, milk shake
to add strawberries to
cherries too
© Obediah Michael Smith, 2009
11:05 p.m. 26.05.09
