the gumptious sage posits –
posits while
the bird is principally
unprincipled
in chirp she posits the
undoing of
her positing positioned
as she is
between a chirp and a hard
place –
—
Use the poem as you would a
hammer, a
chisel put them on a pedestal
worship the
bam and cut of it and you have
the cult of
hammer&chisel put the poet/m
up on high
& you have armies led by pen led
by the thrum
of beauty, benevolence, bravado &
truth (off, coarse)
the poem at rest has not yet
begun it has gripped some tentacle
of rage the toxic filigrees
adorning paths to be laid bare
by outrage, necessary eye, hull
of iron built a fond foundation
of soft tempests going about
its merry fiery wordways
How far does the knuckle need
how distant is my
ear from the parrot’s ruin how
true is the lure
of wonder from the point where
the forest departs
& asks, “are you the stare or the
gaze of my ask?”
—
Not I, says the I-word
becoming is
begetting the I the
Naught is the beginning
of sorrow the fire is
the anvil’s companion
Even before the sense of
word began Not I, says
the word-I/becoming/begetting
The consonant is not-I not
weary of the verb’s inaction
as becoming/begetting not-I
the poem at the center of burn attentive to
each edge the prerogative of silence &
beginning of yearn the poem as child I
have begun the rule as gate rule as arrow
and then the mouth of song comes to a dot I
have begun to read the strung syllables as sentinel/
breach of grief/want of the late arrow the
sound gate & center of burn deep night negating I
negating the other ax of becoming ax of return
and bond the voice the poem at the center of burn
Yesterday, an old university friend, Saqib, asked me if I would join him and another friend for a trip to Senegal. In reply I narrated the travails of my 2007 visit there while making sure that none of the enthusiasm is dampened.
Incidentally, Senegal was put by Eqbal Ahmed under the same category as Cameroon, i.e., pragmatic-authoritarian (in his research paper that I covered in my last post). Interesting too, that the regime covered by Ahmed is that of Léopold Sédar Senghor who was a poet! So I read him and a few more Senegalese poets from a collection of African poems and came up with the following poem:
I ask of the dream song unfettered
promise as it rained night rained night as
as you dared to sing your warrior
song wounded worded as wound what
then of the sword forgot to sheathe
forgot the hearth of song? I ask
of the dream song unfettered night.
Here is what I messaged (verbatim):
To say that getting a visa to Senegal on a Pakistani passport is difficult is an understatement. I tried to get one in Togo in 2007. The officer at the consulate said he could stamp a visa right there, but since I was from Pakistan, it would have to go through a security check. After some time, I got the clearance, and then I used that clearance number to apply for the visa in Gambia. I got the visa. When I reached Dakar, I was not allowed entry on that visa saying it was not valid. They kept my passport and allowed me to leave the airport only because I was accompanied by two goras and after speaking with someone from the ministry. Next morning, after receiving a letter from the ministry, they gave me back my passport. When I was waiting at the airport, a guy from Bangladesh told me nobody comes to Senegal on a Pakistani passport (they either use Canadian/Australian/American etc. passports to come to Senegal). I figured either because of drugs or illegal crossing over by sea. That said, I found Dakar to be quite electric. The captivating music is a giveaway to something stirring. It has been the shadiest African city I have been to. And hence closest in comparison to Karachi. We were mugged the last night we were there, but my colleague caught the guy and took him to the police station; a lady was in charge; she prayed her isha while we waited in the room. Couldn’t catch the conversation as it was all in French… so I wouldn’t be able to come, but you guys will definitely find it very very interesting.
Saqib then asked me why wasn’t the above a blog post. So I posted this as a sequel to my last one emphasizing the continuity on West African and Eqbal Ahmed’s pragmatic-authoritarian themes. Of course, this post is memory from way back in 2007 unlike the Yaoundé one which snapshots fresh impressions from last week. Saqib is an author/filmmaker. His debut book, The Warehouse was published last year.
PS: I realize that it was in 2008 and not 2007. Instead of changing the year in the text and title, I will let it be, a reminder of how memory stands in relation to fact.
A short 5 day work trip to Yaoundé, Cameroon. This was my first central African state so I was curious as to what is common and what sets it apart from the 9 others I have visited since 2002 starting with Ghana, my most frequented African state.
– attendant in bakery: you are from China?
– bureaucrat in his office, after I get his last name right on first attempt: I am surprised you can pronounce my name; most people get it wrong. Me: if the name is in your local language, I will get it right.
Not speaking French was a handicap also a source of amusement for the women working in the bakery.
what is common: the quintessential African green the booming laugh the roadside stall mud old cars 70s architecture at ease with unlit spaces
what sets it apart: too bureaucratic policewomen at breakfast
I wrote my last post while in Yaoundé, and just before leaving the hotel room wrote this:
need of the forest burn
of the
ashen past will wilnot
the bread
of fury and tread of summer
these are
kind, various, available as
pastime
—
To get some background, there have been two presidents since independence in 1962. The current one is in power since 1982. This bit of information alone might go some way in explaining the high bureaucratization and security. The late Eqbal Ahmed in his 1980 paper, “Post colonial systems of power” (which I visualized here), categorized Cameroon then as pragmatic-authoritarian. This is how he defines pragmatic-authoritarian:
This highly personalized system of power enjoys a certain legitimacy and the support of significant sections of the population by virtue of the historical nationalist credentials of the leader.
Two noteworthy characteristics: these deeply pro-Western regimes tend to prefer strong political, economic and cultural ties with the ex-colonial metropolis rather than the United States. The strength of the armed forces remains circumscribed and, in comparison with civilians, military officers are assigned lower status in the official hierarchy.
wing of my risen word/flight
of swell
and will the dark has
polish
it remains the needed friend
wind of
my wizened word/flight of
swell & will
– i –
has the
door of maul begun? to
my sound, there is a beginning has
the
maul begun? to my belonging there is a stair
has the maul
begun? to my lack of eye there is the nectar
no place under the sun has begun to seek has
the maul begun?
“You might as well answer the door, my child, the truth is furiously knocking.” – Lucille Clifton
– oo –
have I stolen dreamlight off
your eyelids
shine off your sense of breath
or has
dust welcomed you once again
to breathe,
to meet the thin edges of possibility
again where
night knows only the pounce of
day to
greet that possibility with an
ancient cheer?
“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” – Lucille Clifton
– xxx –
a deceased poetic space where
swarm of privilege
mobs the otherVoice where
night coopts as day
and no one cares to call it
out a diseased
poetic space where the club
of law is high
ness standing over & above
lowfulness
“Poems come out of wonder, not out of knowing.” – Lucille Clifton
the elemental surrender where peace
is the point
in silence space a plenitude of
happening still –
the elemental small reaching into
forbidden space
a plenitude of happening still –
the elementally
restful piecing together loss
memoratively
—
Would you be able to steal rest away
from its rest
ful nest catch it glimpsing at a
lazy noon edge
of the panther’s easy eye grasping
the full measure
of the poet’s voice midstream
before inkdry?
—
whereas magic has no number
whereas
truth is grounded in the beast’s calling whereas
my eye is the knot through which
your vision calls
whereas the ground believes only what can be remembered
Gathering just-a-bit-o moss 