Piece In Rest 12/17/08

Africa is a fuchsia wall covered in charcoal dust, ten fingers and toes, seven without tips, a man with both arms, but no hands. It's a thousand smoldering eyes watching every direction from one head at the same time. A white hen died on it's back. The trailer of a big rig balanced on a perfect diagonal between curb and street. Nothing fell. Everyone stopped and watched. Black babies w/ fake hair use white dolls as ammunition. White Jesus walks with almost everyone.

There's a fossit attached to the back of the well. I thought someone had to fill it up by hand when it got empty. Everything doesn't always have to be so hard. A wheelbarrow turned into a wheelchair/bicycle helps a cripple man move from car to car asking for money. The railroad-crossing bar doesn't always go down at Abveno, but everyone knows when the train is coming. They all stand clear.

Van in front the yard. (Accra, Ghana 2008)

Africa is a streak of light running across a freeway, mangled metal melted into plastic, a black rooster's cry ripping through the dawn and crying morning into my eyes. It's four beats on the side of the shoes shiner's box, then a space, a bell, and a coconut man's kiss in the air while he swings a machete. An old man carries a sewing machine on his head and plays a song on scissors. Africa is finally understanding "Black Star Power". It is loving the most beautiful and undesirable things about yourself at once.

Green gourds with poisonous insides grow under trees where flat leaves hang low. Reading shadows squeezes space into places where there seems to be none.

Africa is a cracked calabash played with perfect sound, an iron rod jutting out horizontally after everyone has agreed on lateral motion. It's plastic on furniture, extravagant and intricately designed hair weaves on heads, under head wraps, and balled up in the dirt next to pee and shit. The four year old across the street is wearing a "weave-on" that looks just like her grandmother's. Her name is Anita. She shouts "Obibini!" (Black person) every time I leave the house. I laugh and say "Yes Love!".

Anita and 'nem across the street.
(Accra, Ghana 2008)

Africa is opening every part of yourself just enough to close and carve legacy. I've never seen so many twins. Mostly identical. Mr. Amoo's mother had four sets. Only one set was girls. A child's toy directs traffic, pain is a part of every game. You have to concentrate.

Africa is juju so powerful that if you go to where it lives, you might not come back. Bible verses with bruised knuckles beat black eyes into children that laugh too loud, love too much, and can not yet balance a bucket of water on their head. They are trying to make them strong. A "Mother's Love" is the rock of Sisyphus and in a Ga' house, the "Father's Love" is all that matters. Everything means something and has a purpose. I saw another monkey today. This time in the city. It was sitting on a concrete wall.

Faustina says, " It's so funny. Africans are scared of rain and the sea, but not cars. lol." Reggie Rockstone says, " Ghana should make a statue in honor of the mosquito. Malaria chased the white folks away...", but today I saw them at the Accra Mall. I went there just so I could be around people. I miss Ben so much.

Somedays the porcelain vases at the roadside are the same color as the imported apples they sell in traffic. The bats are in the sky again. Time was flying by, but now it's moving way too slow. Oh, and the not so small spider came out. Yesterday I went to bed early, woke up to fight a water bug, then the lights came back on. This morning I waited for wind to blow through the corn and visited Kwame Nkrumah's grave.