SONGS
Songs?
Songs,
obdurately slithering sounds
Creeping
between silent voids,
Sleekly
sickening, sleazy sounds?
Songs
mouthing true lies
Which
appeal to your too complacent, yammering pasts,
And bellow
words that will hold untrue for the rest of time
After their
penetrating meaning
Has pierced
you
And opened
a space roomy enough
To host
another soul?
Songs that
leave you solidly empty,
Just brave
enough
To drown
into your own weakness
Throughout
the dirge of life,
Subliminal
messages that sublimate
Your
solitude
Into
phantoms of an empty future?
Songs you
hearken to
Not with your
heart, but with your bowels?
Songs that
defile you
Below word
level?
Or songs
shared,
Elaborate
illuminations from voices hailing
From the
other side,
The other
ride,
Songs that
heave into hope sight,
And take
you to a friendly heat,
Flank to
flank,
To leave
you gasping for love,
Panting
from love?
Calabar Dancer -- Jimoh Buraimoh
The word “bead” comes from the Old English “bede” (prayer). Beads have long been an important part of Yoruba culture, heavily adorning religious objects such as masks, figures, staffs, and charms to ward off evil forces that could bring sickness, war, misfortune, and so forth. Beaded crowns, robes, sandals, flywhisks, staffs of office, hand fans, walking sticks, and and wrist and ankle bangles were the constituent elements of Yoruba royal araphernalia, as indicated in the proverb, “Ade ori l’a fi n mo oba, ileke orun ni t'awon ijoy” (the beaded crown is the king’s, the string of beads is the chief’s.) Likewise, music (especially dance) has been one of the oldest and most important expressions of recreation, art, and ritual, especially rites of passage such as birth, initiation, graduation, courtship, marriage, succession to political office, and death. These traditions influenced Jimoh Buraimoh to develop an art form called “bead painting,” which appear to create a three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional surface by overlapping shapes and using light-to-dark shading to create the overall shape. Though descended from Tìmehin, the founder of Òsogbo (one of Nigeria’s main dyeing centers), he learned about molding figures from his silversmith father and choosing and combining colors from his mat weaver mother. “Calabar Dancer” depicts a figure in the foreground and a female dancer in the background. The dance of the Efik people of Calabar is "abang" (pot, symbolizing fertility) and originated from the worship of the water goddess Ndem and is also associated with the earth goddess Abasi Isong, who is credited with clay for pottery and for fertility; during the course of the performance, the dancer undergoes a transformation and takes on the spiritual and physical identity of ancestors or spirits.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, art, ritual, poetry, prayer All intermingle in the mental realm to express or celebrate the essence of life.
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