upfromsumdirt

abstrackafricana: quick digital sketch inspired by the anon who...

Sat, 18 May 2013 14:43:08 -0400

quick digital sketch inspired by the anon who asked how i perceived my own blog… “stripclub spaceship” - imagine ~~Don “Magic” Juan~~ Andre 3000 with his own Tardis with Nina Simone and Don Draper as his sidekicks traveling through space and time…. i’m pitching that shit to hollywood! i mean, if they can do “hot tub time machine” then surely this.

Photo

Fri, 17 May 2013 13:18:18 -0400

- havent been very creative lately. thinking about writing...

Mon, 13 May 2013 09:05:36 -0400

- havent been very creative lately. thinking about writing again, been really inspired here lately reading some of the French-African Négritude poets, so my penhand is starting to itch. but my arthand has been lazy as hell. BUT i am thinking about doing a nudity/porn-based ‘bad photoshop’ series. hafta give it a little more thought….

Photo

Wed, 08 May 2013 11:22:10 -0400

bookplate for the bookstore using an old image from my...

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 08:43:16 -0400

bookplate for the bookstore using an old image from my ‘awaken your gods’ series.

Louisville Cardinals

Sun, 31 Mar 2013 20:35:30 -0400

prayers to Kevin Ware for a complete and full recovery.

then FYEAH! louisville’s beatdown of the duke bluedevils…. and… and… CAN THIS BE RIGHT: the louisville women’s team is currently up big over baylor and Griner?!?! never had much use for easter, but this so far is a great one!

abstrackafricana: original pencil illustration via browse the...

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 11:40:22 -0400

abstrackafricana:

original pencil illustration via browse the stacks - amateurishly colored by me.

the more i look at this the more i like the colorization i did… definitely feeling re-inspired about getting back into figure drawing and producing 100% original work. god, i havent had my own exhibit or participated in a gallery in nearly 3 years now! that’s fucked up.

Eye Exam to Test for Spoilage in the Soil Samples of Your...

Sun, 24 Mar 2013 16:41:15 -0400

Eye Exam to Test for Spoilage in the Soil Samples of Your Diaspora (partial)

on newsstands everywhere!

Sat, 23 Feb 2013 16:25:27 -0500

on newsstands everywhere!

protoplasmic phrenology

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 02:50:00 -0500

from my old morethanmud.blogspot.com page….

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2010 (edited feb 12 2013 at 2:damn-early a.m.)

this pathos-by-proxy still twitches

at the mere mention of paterollers

storming the gate / neanderthals with

knuckles dragging - swarming the stanza;

dupes in white robes, haute-couture dunces

capped in trivial pursuits; they’ve come for

the gardenias, the organza. and the penumbra

spills over every edge, haunted / daunted

by a post-slavery stress disorder that’s anything

but paint-by-the-numbers. voices told me

to buckle up; that work was to be done.

but who knew i’d be the one

to grow up mapping the spinal cortex

of yoruba-oblongata / talking the dead down

from the ledges of ivory towers, stalking

spirit-guides on chalkboards, and in chatrooms,

and in chapbooks always in a state of rough-draft

that outlines the underlaying pedagogy

of a sun-people who’ve been told for years

that melanin undermines

their accomplishments,

their merit,

their every seat

at the table.

money changed hands.

the bets placed on the crowd-pleasers

and social networking favorites. but who thought

it would come down to this: - me - taking

the witness stand as public defender

for africa’s stolen property; one

of 200 million

“exhibit a’s”.

(recess)

the story goes i was born

the son of an egun-runner and fell

shadow-first from several wombs all at once;

was assembled on a single line / stitched into sorcery

by the gnarled hands of an unseen seamstress,

but i digress.

this poem is my mess-of-pieces

and in haste i assumed you already knew

the elemental weight of sankofa. the dna of most

nursery rhymes are made of angst and atoms,

but mine are composed of some poro mask’s whittled

remains, of the wolof wail of tears, of robert johnson’s

cigarette ash, of blood spray from whip’s lash,

was told by high school guidance counselors to be

“a gash man” but i write trash/rehash/a whole rash

of broken teeth / tonsils / rhythms / wisdom,

etc.

anyway,

the banana in the pocket

of this poem is a poltergeist.

but i’m not a ghostbuster

whispering the echos

of the dead…

i’m the doorman for the dearly dormant.

it’s a tough trade. not as in demand

as you would think…

(court is back in session)

i was born

to translate tarbaby’s morse code

into a canonical course (jes grew 101), my dissertation

was on head-lump reading. baron saturday was

my first instructor, paid me to re-edit the wiki-page

for the pot-liquor sciences. he taught me to be

everywhere you want to be. that’s why i’m known

as prometheus backwash on facebook and, by luck

of the drawl, i’m jujuchagalia on twitter…

i’ve been told that “upfromsumdirt” is kiswahili

for “switchblade renaissance” (or “this meat done turned”)

and my hand writing looks like basquiat’s long lost rorschach,

my john-hancock the sonogram for incomplete cultures

in red, white, and blue…

woo-shit! - you should just see my cat-scan!

no lie, my medulla is a fun-house mirror.

i see saint octavia’s image on toast and tree-bark

or when connecting the moles on the back of my lover’s

neck. i was hit by a marching band as a baby and

that’s why i see everything so clearly.

just didnt know i’d be the one to grow up re-inventing

a wonderland, where kentucky replaces Ile-Ife as

uncle tom’s backdrop where cabins are shingled in bluegrass,

bourbon glasses, and the soul’s weight in cowry shells…

does anyone know the trajectory for a black poet

profiling himself? then again, it’s not like i was born

for recognition, my mug adorning the t-shirts of drunken

frat boys and feministas on the college courtyards across

the land. in me is not the tradition for upholding

a metered dialog; i was born an act of reclamation

so what need i for “social progress” if the thought-process

is afraid of flames?

you:

continue taming your lions and chasing

gazelles; i was fed the breastmilk of hyenas born

in a cage - don’t mind my jagged teeth and breath

every bit rancid, the brochure says the rabies

will only kill you

if left untreated.

(the plea)

it’s my nature to alert you to aneurysm;

when i curl up at your feet it means

a conniption is coming.

i’m only trying to save your life:

your lover’s husband has a knife,

the midwife is on birth-strike, little timmy

is stuck in the whale….

my words:

the harpoon you need / the playbill

for a pitiful revolution.

Photo

Fri, 11 Jan 2013 19:57:38 -0500

(via TumbleOn)

Sat, 05 Jan 2013 10:37:38 -0500

(via TumbleOn)

If you have to choose between being a pretentious smart-ass or a smug son of a bitch then go with...

Fri, 28 Dec 2012 06:57:46 -0500

If you have to choose between being a pretentious smart-ass or a smug son of a bitch then go with the one that will get you laid the fastest, depending on the circumstances, because chances are you’ll have nothing else going for you.

a black man jumps the shark

Sat, 15 Dec 2012 09:30:00 -0500

i want a bar mitzvah.

or something. i’m 43. watching

boyz in da hood with my homies

while checking email from a cell

phone does not count

as “rite of passage”

“In traditional societies there was little room for the “unplaced person” who had yet come to terms with his/her society. In part the creation and extension of adolescence is a reflection of a casual motif in modern social structures. The distinctions between the developmental stages of a person’s life in American culture have become blurred. A chasm has been created with respect to an individual’s development from childhood to maturity; it has been filled by a loosely defined adolescence that can appear to have no end. This casual motif is further evidenced by the decline of ritual and ceremony in a secularized world. Formalized definitions of transition such as graduation or religious confirmations play a relatively minor role in our social life. The function of ritual is supposedly to imbue an event with meaning; in a modern context, ritual seems to trivialize an event. Nevertheless, there is no evidence that a secularized urban world has lessened the need for ritualized expression of an individual’s transition from one status to another. An increasing number of individuals are forced to accomplish their transition alone and with private symbols. The casual motif in modern society may eliminate the dramatizations of the passage from childhood to adulthood, but it does not necessarily eliminate the felt need for the individual to undergo that transition. The failure of modern society to dramatize or take serious the need for such transition during adolescence has contributed to disruptive social groups such as youth gangs and the mid-life crisis of the “unplaced” or “uninitiated” persons.”

- ritesofpassage.org/rites

before the end of day

i will slay a bull (not on wii, but

in real life)… i’ll lay in its blood

and coagulate myself into the role

of Higher Creator. i’ll drink its bile

from my granddaughter’s sippy cup.

i will make this america look

a little bit like me… if not

in the face, then beneath its nails.

and if not the brow, then its hands

will at least remind me

of my own.

"see eyes / rainbows boiling within retinas / eye jellies a rolling black hole / what an..."

Tue, 04 Dec 2012 14:36:54 -0500

“

see eyes / rainbows boiling
within retinas / eye jellies a rolling
black hole / what an event-horizon
my daydreams; captain crest,
mr. crunch and chaos; 100%
crescendo. keep calm and
ring the alarm.

i flounder in fantasy.
the phantasmagoric-american / black
jet. ink. obsidian pink. the usurper
of all things eclectic - look at me,
huddled in aloneness in puddles
of shade: “the Neverglades”.
the skeet of trusty Black Pete;
Petey Wheatstraw;
Peter Pandemonium -
the lovechild of Tinker
and Stringer Bell.

i came of age with Mansa
Musa as muse, but now
i am immiscible; the emulgent from
imaginary africa; my cauls are colluvial;
stolen identities gather at my feet,
heat-seeking with the holy day jingle
of jungle-gods seared into skin.
if i may Bush it down:
i’m a recanter… that means
i chant a negative; i decant
dialogue and keep a log of
lullabies. you know, i’m a
lie decrier and anguish over
lost languages….

for years, i believed
myself to be ‘errf-bound’, but
that’s unfounded; i’m grounded
in atmosphere. afrospheric, i suppose.
creators gather deep in the skull,
light-bearers in dark congress / queer
councilmen culling solar flare from
abstract laws used as shawls for
the fairy tales i tell myself: not
on paper. not via touch screens.
only to father elegba, the zenith
of all of my elucidated
hallucinations.

my alphabet gathers - like
a libation or interior locution
to all of my elders / my ancestors.
just for them: yesterday i will write
a new ritual, declare ourselves
as out-of-body-aboriginals. i will float
into the eardrums of foreign gods
and defecate a thesis = my magma carta.
yesterday i will call myself the king
of sub-cosmic street sweepers,
a non de plume for pauper-me,
penniless, the henchman for new orishas.

and because i’m an occultist,
the souls i’ve eaten require that i
archive every anachronism (single-celled)
because there is a calculated science
to being a heathen. and yes,
i am indeed a heathen.

watch as i glad-hand every golem,
each of my egun:

hey now / how are you doing?
good… that’s good. is that your baby?
may i kiss him? may i kiss you? can i
date you? you look good… i will
eat you now (cannibal lecture)

this is why my hair styles all grow
toward the sun. i lean into life, real
close-like, and steal a kiss, its bliss,
and its wallet - but honestly, i only
wanted the billfold to begin with.

there is no power or thrill in holding
idols indentured to another culture’s
mass illusion - i laugh at your dollar / it
isn’t ‘treasure’, it is taxidermy.
if i declare myself to be a voice,
then i am a wealth of vibrations.

if i wrap my soul in language
it is not because of any richness
offered. but. because my origin-stories
require a sacrificial slogan. i am not
here to flay the skin, praying for reign…
i come to slay the self you
had given me when you said
how now you see me; how proud
you are that i have stepped out of slavery
and into this system of gilded
patriarchy weighing us down.

that in my surrender i’d be one of you.

i slay the self and step out the skin - if
you mourn my death then so be it… but
rainbows boil within my retinas. i see.
the death of my society-sanctioned self
is not the dispersion of my soul
into the sun - i am fine-tuning invisibility.

i drop from sight and
become a solid. become
an obelisk for the ancestors.
for me, poetry is a soapbox,
i cairn on every street corner;
the kahn of ghost post-decolonialism,
a spectrum from the rectum of god,
i’m the son of rainbow excrement.

i run into the ruins-in-progress
and become a peer amid. yes,
i will drop from your line of sight
until you learn to walk
around me - the recognition
of another man’s genesis.

this indigenous redesign / me
and my orishas, the droids
you are not looking for.
welcome to the matrimony
of isolation and of all things
considered but never
conceived. this is reprieve.

you beg. i pardon.

abstrackafricana: tumblr beast dinner (orange) Oldie but...

Thu, 22 Nov 2012 12:11:34 -0500

abstrackafricana:

tumblr beast dinner (orange)

Oldie but goodie.

always within reach (via TumbleOn)

Wed, 21 Nov 2012 11:58:12 -0500

always within reach

(via TumbleOn)

promotional poster, mostly for online use but hopefully will be...

Thu, 25 Oct 2012 09:07:16 -0400

promotional poster, mostly for online use but hopefully will be one of the tshirts available this fall.

- srsly

Sun, 21 Oct 2012 19:14:18 -0400

- srsly

another mock cover for the collection of poetry published deep...

Sun, 21 Oct 2012 15:34:27 -0400

another mock cover for the collection of poetry published deep inside my head….