Black Convocation/Ramen Shop.

     Black Convocation

Poem.

clarity about this very real figment

of my imagination is

not possible,                      (pigment)

actually, I don’t want to think

I don’t want to think about this

these problems never go away

I’m not black my name’s OJ

        okay

I can’t breathe

I can’t breathe

I can’t breathe 

        okay

Poem.

Not everything coheres.

          Remember: not everything

                         coheres

Poem. 

Regret is such a useless thing

I’d so prefer it, if

you did not, look!,

                    at me

                    that very

                        , if

regret is such a useless thing

why preface it with the word

              (poem)

why preface it with eyes.

I will never forget the word

-even if it messes my head. 

          

Poem.

I mean, yes, of course, yes

I’m so, so hungry

but I will not eat you, no, not

no, of course, not like that.

      I otherwise like you,

                I promise. 

Poem. 

A few more words about: coherence, 

it doesn’t exist for me, I’m so hungry

for everyone else and their platitudes.

It must be nice to avoid existential breathlessness.

I like that word: breathlessness.

I resent that platitude: existential.

I am not bitter, I promise.

It’s just that the air…

it tastes so…

                      …(blue.)

Poem.

I don’t believe in you but

                             your face.

***

     Ramen Shop

Poem.

Tomatoes are nice 

fruits or vegetables, I like them.

I eat now. It is nice.

Cheese has a fullness.

Meat a warm blankness.

And my tongue- 

The business of living makes me be.

And it is often simple,

         I would cry.

         Could, but can't,

         I could.

Poem.

Okay, so, that didn't bother me that much

anyway, people are nightmares,

but that's okay, okay?

that wasn't even the problem.

I think it was the gleam,

ass-light.

People think that there's a sun,

a whole ball of it,

up their asses.

So, yeah, it's hard to say:

maybe you should stuff it

maybe you kinda suck.

There was another light.

It wasn't so bad. 

I sort of liked it.

It was nice.

It didn't wake me too harshly.

How can I explain:

     stained glass, church

     small solution, math book

     small ocean, vagina

     curved shaft, penis 

that sort of thing. I guess.

the perfect sunny of not giving a fuck.

     

Poem.

People are enthusiastically boring

I wish I could get more sleep

Sex isn't interesting: neither are my hands

It doesn't matter when you cum

I believe in the Bible once

Physics doesn't make much sense to me

I'm saying that I tried

I don't like the sort of questions you ask me

Ask better questions

Maybe one day people might fit together

until then, please, ask better questions

Poem.

I'm like, one person

How is there never enough space for me

You talk and your mouth is...

listen, I'm like one person

The air sort of passes by

from time to time

        sort of how

your mouths do. 

Whose mouth was first on whom?

I thought it would feel better.

You asked more than once,

if it feels good. Stop

asking questions that aren't 

                 good. Stop,

no, not like that. Yes,

       maybe like that.

Words, Words, Words.

The most obvious note to self is to never do anything for the wrong reasons. Yes, moral relativity is a thing, but I think, intuitively, deep down within us, we all know what is wrong, what is right, what we really want. I don't know if I want to be an artist- do I honestly have the genuine temperament for it?-  but I have words. And I think they're for the right reasons. Here's a few, this time a few raps (not that I haven't already said this before, but I can) instead of the usual written poetry. Oh, and Vince, if you just happen to be reading this: I was the guy wearing the yellow 'Adventure Time' beanie. It was nice to meet you, and thanks for checking this out. What a wonderful talk you did at Harvard. 


Spirit Tree [Working Title]

I.

Listen to the glimmers of the solar system
Simmering murmurings stretching cross the universe, this is my vision
as a poet as a prophet with the lyrics man I copped it
caught a wave, detected it, and to this beat I drop it

this is the knowledge  I want you to acknowledge
the mystery the history delivery don't stop it
the project of this poetry demands your attention
so straighten up your back  as I take to you the 4th dimension

did I mention? did I mention? did I mention?
the marvelous sarcophagus of symphony I'm resurrecting?
bread that I'm baking and breaking; body be aching and shaking
savior's blood split into cups of wine the earth is quaking

fall back for a moment 'fore I go rogue like a ronin
cut you up and dice you up as smoothly as I'm flowing
fall back for moment 'fore I go that rolling stoning
inevitable, impenetrable mass of mass an ocean

a poet be a force that's mysterious
words stretching to the heavens is what constitutes a lyricist

a poet be a force that's mysterious
words stretching to the heavens is what constitutes a lyricist

A poet is a prophet
A rapper more than profit
the paper that I trap for
for's  this canvas boy that's honest

A poet is a prophet
A rapper more than profit
the paper that I trap for
for's  this canvas boy that's honest


II.

Take a wave of light and pass it through a double slit;
What do you get?  A world that we don't comprehend
Forget about it let's just go and cop those bands again
Money chasing 'nother way to stop asking ourselves again

Who are we? What is the space around me?
Pretty selfie on Instagram, we frozen dead we're zombies
Look at me, I'm not the captain, but I'm tired of these captions
What are we hoping to find in a world where we're the only thing we capture

Rap is the start of rapture; turn to the last chapter
Revelatory thoughts on this spacetime and matter
Wanna talk 'bout things that matter, not to ourselves flatter
Wanna make like a butterfly and metamorphosize and shatter

Our fake expectations and statements of the haters
Turn our shamelessness and fecklessness to breathlessness with paper
Talking' about dat poetry I talk it over beats
This is the end of fake news and the start of real philosophy

a poet be a force that's mysterious
words stretching to the heavens is what constitutes a lyricist

a poet be a force that's mysterious
words stretching to the heavens is what constitutes a lyricist

A poet is a prophet
A rapper more than profit
the paper that I trap for
for's  this canvas boy that's honest

A poet is a prophet
A rapper more than profit
the paper that I trap for
for's  this canvas boy that's honest

Image credit to whoever the hell was the fire photographer at Verbal Emancipation, thanks for making my Tinder profile a tad bit more interesting yay.

Verse from 'Lesson in Oppression' 

Young black brother from the motherland
Who plays stereotypes for Ariel Heights
Folk as they touch my hair and treat me like a no man
A nomad, who ventured to America through flights

(Leggo)
I spit all these bars 'hind systematic bars
And I spar with the fates of my stars as they spin
They spun years ago as they span ‘cross the skies
Navigating slaves ships with (        ) no oxygen
The blades cut yesterday, the wound bleeds today
Historical precedence don't simply fly away
When the winds of time sway only one way
To the moment when only through a song we can say

That all the paper stacked by the rappers and all the ballers
Is all blown away by the wind at the end of every autumn
I'm still recalling when the floods of Katrina had strange fruit falling
From the tops of houses to escape the waters
Then broke and drowning in their surroundings
Yet, still can't breathe when there ain't no mountain

High enough that we can't climb
High enough that we can't climb
All year I been on my grind
All year I been on my grind

They be lookin' at me crazy
Like my mind is hazy
'ginning of the year they called me Black Slim Shady
Never in the heads did they ever understand that who I wanna be is a young Jay-Z

But rapping's what's expected of someone as dark as me
Truth be told no respect from y’all 'til Harvard called me
But complaining's what's expected of someone as self aware as me
Truth be told half of y'all have eyes but can't see

That I've got a dream but I struggle to fulfill it
That I've been to the mountaintop and found that they still killing us
That to be judged by the content of my character
Only brings about laughter of a judge holding a gavel
That is clearly labeled 'master' so I been running faster
To kill slavery of thought so that I break apart this vault

(Here's the actual track courtesy of my friend, Audyo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJzfAZPo_NI . Check out the rest of his work here: https://www.soundcloud.com/aodillard ) Also, shout to Audyo  for getting me back to rappin' after nearly two years off it. Shout out to my current work partner Marcelo for getting me back to rappin' for nearly half a year off it. Let's see how long not off it I can make it this time.)

And thus concludes our brief interlude of the Ivy League wannabe rapper who still has overdue essays to complete. 

An Adventure with the Buddha in Connecticut.

Hi all. I had an assignment for my Buddhism class which asked us to compare our journey to The Taft School with that of the protagonist of Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse and also with the Buddha himself. Anyhow, here's a little summary of my adventures in American prep-school through the lens of Buddhist philosophy. Have fun. 

An Adventure with the Buddha in Connecticut.

I.

“We know that egotism is a bad thing; we know that all the great world traditions- not just Buddhism- urge us to transcend our selfishness. But when we seek liberation- in either a religious or a secular guise- we really want to enhance our own sense of self.” – Karen Armstrong, ‘Buddha’

Now that it’s started snowing, I’ll go ahead and tell you about my little journey here and somehow link it to The Buddha. Before I begin, I have a thousand apologies to make but I’ll just mention two of them. One: I’m sorry for the horribly colloquial tone of this paper, but the assignment called for a personal response- and, unfortunately, what I feel is far less nuanced than what I think. Two: this assignment also asked about our goals and I’m sorry to say that I’ve already failed in fulfilling the goals of my little journey here... But that’s okay. It’s started snowing and that means I can finally get around to talking about my little journey here, so-

Here we go.

II.

“Then he suddenly saw clearly that he was leading a strange life, that he was doing many things that were only a game, that he was quite cheerful and sometimes experienced pleasure, but that real life was flowing past him and did not touch him”- Hermann Hesse, ‘Siddhartha’

My favourite poets used to hang around in New England, especially at Harvard- and so did a few of my favourite scientists and philosophers. So when I, a Lower-Sixth Form student at Maru-a-Pula School, was selected as part of the US Scholars to come to Taft, I relished my luck to pursue the footsteps of my American legends. I saw it as my great chance to chase the legacies of Cummings, of Eliot, of Ashbery- and even Thomas Kuhn- the radical philosopher of science who graduated from both Taft and Harvard. This may sound all terribly simplistic and hackneyed and pretentious but this was essentially what I thought the purpose of my life to be: just like every other one of my peers that I have learned to criticize for sharing such similar, basic fantasies: go to college, get my degree, pursue a career that I can be violently successful in. For a long time, I deluded myself with thinking that my version of this surface goal-chasing was deeper than everyone else’s- after all, I was dreaming of getting a PhD in physics and/or philosophy and/or literature and becoming a poorly paid academic who would write books and give lectures and be well-known for looking like Cornel West but instead be from Africa. There were a few rare moments where I would pause to think that I was, perhaps, being a raging hypocrite. I figured that craving for success was lofty and admirable because my desires lay in books and art rather than in money and land. I became very good at ignoring the fact that my desperate wanting, my lusty craving to be ever-more intelligent was essentially and fundamentally the same as buying individually tailored suits and trading stock prices. But still! I was coming to the land of Big Dreams, to America itself, and Taft was my orgasmic green light at the other side of the world; the Daisy to my Gatsby and that was all that mattered.

The really sad part is that I knew all along that I was full of it.

III.

“Without knowing it, he had endeavoured and longed all these years to be like these other people, like these children, and yet his life had been much more wretched and poorer than theirs, for their arms were not his, nor their sorrows his... Were they not playing a game without end? Was it necessary to live for it? No. This game was called Samsara, a game for children,  a game which was perhaps enjoyable played once, twice, ten times- but was it worth playing continually?” ­–Herman Hesse, Siddhartha

Underneath my excitement for America was a dark sense of unease. In the land of dreams, people who looked like me were being shot for looking like me; people who didn’t look like me were losing their jobs because other people who looked even less like me were controlling the economy; on the TV screen a president who almost looks like me was wrinkling and greying because all these people still can’t get over the fact that they don’t look like each other. Meanwhile the Harvard website spoke of this strange oddity called ‘opportunity’ while their acceptance rates plummeted annually. I spent more than a few hours refreshing the Taft website wondering whether their words had double-meanings as well and further wondered about the casual messiness of the world around me. In Botswana, I was beginning to hear hints of the same globalized double-speak of ‘opportunity’ as the wealth-gap between citizens increased. I was moving on from one private school to the next, one ‘opportunity’ to the next; and the only thing that I started appreciating about my opportunities was the fact that I only had to theorize about the casual messiness of the world around me rather than directly experience it. But still, even at a distance I could tell something was off with the reality I was living in. Was I so special that I deserved to be given a scholarship to Taft while some of my friends wondered and still wonder how they’ll pay for university? Was I so special that my parents were able to afford the tuition of my old private-school in Botswana which led to my scholarship to Taft when my government’s educational funding becomes increasingly out-of-reach for my friends? And then the biggest questions of them all- my little brother and my high school poetry-prodigy friend both died before they had the chance to be further offended by the ugly suffering of this reality: does my survival make me more special than them? Obviously not- so why the hell am I here in Connecticut watching snow fall on the ground when they aren’t? And how the hell am I supposed to continue living in the nonsensical pain of this meaningless world?

Why is it that we call samsara ‘opportunity’?

IV.

“...he was still plagued by desire and still immersed in the toils of consciousness. He had begun to wonder if the sacred Self was a delusion. He was, perhaps, beginning to think that it was not a helpful symbol of the eternal, unconditioned Reality he sought. To seek an enhanced Self might even endorse the egotism that he needed to abolish.” – Karen Armstrong, “Buddha”.

I mentioned earlier that I failed in fulfilling the goals of my journey here. While my goals changed shiftlessly in the murky wind of my mind, I still failed to reach any one of them. The most obvious (and most pathetic) goal was to get into Harvard. The other goal was then not to care about getting into Harvard or not (ongoing; also pathetic). Another was to make High Honors. Yet another was to finally finish my first collection of poetry, ‘First Adventures in Adolescent Heartbreak’ (also pathetic). Yet another goal was to learn how to forgive myself for harbouring such awkwardly elitist goals while being a self-proclaimed humanist. And then  there was the goal to finally kill of my awkward elitist goals so I could become an actual humanist, rather than a self-proclaimed one. I was also supposed to call my mother every Sunday and stay in contact with my friends. Write delicate, philosophical and self-effacing poetry about the trees in New England. Do my physics homework. Hand in assignments on time. Go the gym. Find myself. Love myself. Try not to get over-involved with the black struggle.

All of them: failed.

V.

“But today he only saw one of the river’s secrets, one that gripped his soul. He saw that the water continually flowed and flowed yet it was always there; it was always the same and yet every moment it was new. Who could understand, conceive this? He did not understand it; he was only aware of a dim suspicion, a faint memory, divine voices.” –Herman Hesse, Siddhartha

There’s one more goal that I want to talk about. It was the reason I signed up Honors Humanities, for Philosophy and eventually, for Buddhism. Also, this is the part of the essay where I actually relate my experience to Siddartha and the Buddha. I didn’t mention this goal earlier because I would be lying to you if I said that I came to America with the explicit purpose of fulfilling this particular goal in mind. Rather, I became very skilled at convincing myself that the reason I came to America was for the sake of adventure. Adventure. That’s the word I had in my head when my visa came through and when my Taft acceptance letter came through and when it started snowing. It’s the same word I’ve had in mind with every conversation and every book I’ve read here. I’ve referred to adventure in various forms, all awkward and needlessly intellectualized to make it seem like a bigger deal that it actually is. Last semester, in our Philosophy classed I called this adventure the ‘space between the physical and the metaphysical realms’. This semester, Siddhartha calls it ‘Atman’ and Gotama calls it the ‘Self.’ I chose not to include this goal in the preceding sections of this essay because I earnestly believe that the quest for this mysterious adventure is separate from the samsara I’ve been trapped in since birth- much of these entrapments of suffering being self-constructed. And I really, really, really do believe that this is the case otherwise I wouldn’t have saved this section for last. I wish I could give a better reason than that, but, like I said earlier, what I feel is far less nuanced than what I think. Yet even if feeling is less nuanced than thought (which you know I think I know is true), the unfiltered quality of feeling can be nurtured into thought. The depthlessness of my academic success-chasing still could not kill this implicit and fundamental goal of adventure that I had in my mind when coming to Taft. Even if my philosophical ponderings about the nature of life and being are not the actual occupations of my feelings- for I have spent a great deal lying to myself thinking that they are- they, in essence, remain the true occupation of my feelings; for it is these same ponderings of faith and wonder that have kept me alive in the shameless samsara of America. I don’t know how else to unpack this argument, but this simplification might help: I came to America saying that what I wanted was adventure; but what I really wanted was a Harvard acceptance later;  but what I really wanted even if I thought I was lying to myself about it was actually the adventure because that’s the only goal that survives failure because it never ends.

VI.

“He had begun to wonder if the sacred Self was a delusion. He was perhaps, beginning to think that it was not a helpful symbol of the eternal, unconditioned reality he sought. To seek an enhanced Self might even endorse the egotism that he needed to abolish. Nevertheless Gotama had not lost hope. He was still certain that it was possible for human beings to reach the final liberation of enlightenment.” – Karen Armstrong, ‘Buddha’.

I don’t expect to ever reach Nirvana and I’m not trying to. I am, however, curious about whether such a thing exists or not. Does Nirvana look like Plato’s World of Ideas?  Does Nirvana have shape or form? Does the ‘Nothingness’ of Nirvana constitute Somethingness? You see, unless I stop asking these sorts of questions, and I promise I won’t, I’m probably not going to experience the brilliant hyper-consciousness hiding away in the folds of space-time. That’s fine with me- I think too much and I’m happy with that. My fundamental disagreement with The Buddha thusly lies here: I don’t want the experience of Nirvana, I want the proof of Nirvana.  But then again, that’s what I think; not what I feel.

What if...