12 Nov 10 Heart of Darkness

Heart of Darkness

November 12, 2010

A griot woman, robes and calabash flowing in the air, takes the Persona into the heart of darkness.  Sogolon, Sunjata’s mother. A dense jungle, a village in a clearing. A compound, a round, mud-brick hut.

Raped and brutalized, bodies, and a refugee camp. Hutus and Tutsis, Rwandans and Ugandans, Congolese and many factions.

A grieving, healing griot song, rings out above the human misery.

Mbeku, the Flying Tortoise, lifts the Persona to skyland, back to the Moon.

Out of America, out of Africa, back to the Moon.

Frederick Glaysher

Tags: Africa, Congo, epic poetry, Flying Tortoise, Frederick Glaysher, Griot, Heart of Darkness, Mbeku, Sogolon, Sunjata

05 Nov 10 Ezeulu in Igboland, Nigeria

Ezeulu in Igboland, Nigeria

November 5, 2010

Ezeulu, a priest. A compound in Igboland. A dirt floor and a kola nut. Wearied by a long journey, an illness overwhelms the Persona, a heart of darkness dark as the darkest human heart.  Clara, a nurse. Bitterleaf and palm nut soups, foofoo, yam potlage, cassava lightened with green banana.

Chalked half white, a circle around one eye. Words of Ezeulu to the Poet of the Moon. Drums, song, dance. Feet pound the earth, the village moves… Masks.

A Griot woman, a calabash…

Frederick Glaysher

Tags: Africa, Chinua Achebe, Ezeulu, Griot, Ibo, Igboland, Nigeria

25 Oct 10 Blombos Cave

Blombos Cave

Blombos Cave

October 25, 2010

Out of moon beams into Africa. A cave beyond ancient, Blombos Cave, on the Southern Cape. 72,000 years ago. Bifacial stone points, seashell necklaces, tools of bone, a cross-hatched chunk of ochre.

From a midden in the dunes, Homo sapiens outside the cave. Moon over what would one day be the Indian Ocean.

Frederick Glaysher

Tags: Africa, Blombos Cave, Frederick Glaysher, homo sapiens, South Africa, Southern Cape

22 May 10 Borges. Moon Mirror. Mirror Moon.

Borges. Moon Mirror. Mirror Moon.

On the pampas. Buenos Aires. “O Poet of the Moon!” Under the Southern Cross, bitter juntas of the soul.

And so I find myself standing before what I’ve thought of for decades but have not been able to confront, write about. Thinking of it, year after year. An omnipresent obstacle, challenge, too hot to handle, stepping around it, sensing always its presence, why me, why me, who assigned this to me? A choice, an answer to a call, by default, delegation, destiny, long refused, evaded, a sense of futility overwhelming, filling me with a loathing for its very terms, find another scapegoat….

Mirror moon draws me in, and I cannot refuse to go, on to another continent… time come… its arduous demands, relentless, sacrifice of self, safety and content, all past, receding, far away now…

Frederick Glaysher

Tags: Africa, Buenos Aires, Epic, epic poetry, Frederick Glaysher, Jorge Luis Borges, South America