OCCUPATION GaMEs
Art - Expression - Resistance - Pride | A poetic response following a visit to the African style archives open book exhibit. Not written for black history month but it feels fitting to post it now...
I hope this piece will connect with you - whoever you are and wherever you come from.
Consider leaving a comment to share your thoughts and feelings. Let’s connect!
I am arriving later than I should
Arrivals closer to closings and departure times
Because there is infinity to get lost in and a stratosphere to curate
Where one beauty ends another begins
We do not respect the borders of these maps
The blood lets itself like a cocktail of magic and tears
Blend, blend, and blossom
New fruit to seed with it new truths
The unstoppable scorned weed
We keep rising, repopulating, reproducing
The unstoppable scorned weed
We keep rising, repopulating, reproducing
The unstoppable, scorned weed
We keep rising, repopulating, reproducing through the gaps and cracks
Fertility fights back
Breaking open the seams they thought they’d stitched us out of when they were cloaked in the fashion of our feast
Happily forgotten yet endlessly sought after
Called for from the other room
Beyond the wall, across the ocean
Our stories, our GRANDcestors lives, mostly unbooked and unpaged exist in the spoken imprints of our mother tongues
And so spirit opens her legs to bear the womb of the endless,
The eternal
Of the ordained
The inheritors of the earth
Humming hush child and seek ye first, read not the stories of the mockingbird
On the paper planes, in our minds, and the rush hour of our art, we begin, we venture, we find Buzzzzzzzzzzzz…..
Watch, watch, watch
See, See, See
Hear, hear, hear what you cannot help but feel
The wonder that smells like melanin skin, draping itself over crescendo
Syncopated movement
Feet that find rhythm and release in every struggle and on any polarising narrative
Giving us, us, us, us, us, us, us, us, us,
Our own free
Wave a flag
Choose one from many or carry them all at once
The weight of the world’s watchman
The weight of the wise
The weight of the wonder of our mothers and sisters carrying
But WEIGHT does not always write what it feels
Today, he paints, Mondays she cuts cloth, Thursday teases clay, and on Saturdays we cook and continue to eat through our Sundays
But WEIGHT does not always write what it knows
Then sing it will
Dance it must
Communion it promises
Because what is art without the ones it was made for?
Humanity
The audience, we are
The one we subscribe to
Wake
Stand
Watch…..
Wait
Occupy
Our presence is GREAT
Thank you for taking the time to read this piece.
I must admit to feeling emboldened every time I come back to it.
Apology & acknowledgement: I should have had all the book titles and authors to credit against the images used. That’s a failure on my part. It is a wonderful collection of images and I’d love for you to be able to access source information. For those interested please refer to the book covers photographed and also make contact with The African Style Archive for more information.
