M2 W5
After Kendrick Lamar’s “Sing About Me, I’m Dying of Thirst“
The night is sure as hell not starry. I sit outside my room. Bullfrogs croak in the distance. The motion-activated streetlamp strikes a lonely figure in a field of weeds, the soil of which I only just discovered to be soft, sinking, a week ago.
There’s a mosque straight ahead, minaret visible against the night sky. Within might be a few faithful. In five hours, there will be a multiplication, and more will arrive to worship. A smaller building is nestled just behind the mosque and just before the fence that separates the Hall from the rest of the hospital. What it’s for? I can’t say. And not in an “I’m not permitted to” manner. I genuinely have no clue (fault my poor spatial orientation skills).
In the time it’s taken to write the paragraphs above, the temperature has dropped another few degrees. It’s not so cold that I can’t remain outside another half hour. But just that, a half-hour. Being forced to write about what’s in front of me has been grounding. It’s not as captivating as other attempts at capturing the emotion of the moment in short, unedited bursts. And given that I have done none of that capturing so far, it would be fair to call this an empirical fail.
This is where trying comes in. I was physically exhausted. Encumbered by the shirt I had on. I wasn’t in the same state of mind as the song’s title but I did feel a certain longing for depth. Playing SAMIDOT was an attempt at submersion into those depths. ‘Depths’. It is that which stumped me. I can’t access depth if there’s no definition. It’s the difference between winning a medal for swimming and delving far into the ocean for a swim with no one to witness and no measures to ascertain where, or how far you’ve swam. Faulty analogy, I must admit, but it’s the best my brain can produce at this point in time.
It’s raining. It’s pouring. The old man is not snoring. He didn’t brush his teeth. He’ll go to bed. And he’ll wake up in the morning.
Republic of the Word
After Kendrick Lamar’s “LOVE.”
The beauty of a sentence is varied and dependent on the wielder’s expertise. They are ‘Officer’, higher than the ideas imprisoned in the vibrant place called the mind. They are ‘Warden’, determining who is treated well. And why.
This is the People’s Republic of the Word.
In a section of that small island-country reside the words of love, emotions that separate the school boy and the old-timer. Kendrick sings that LOVE. feels like that. Like what? That. And ever since his bottom left the earth and ascended, like homo-erectus-and-beyond are wont to do, he wanted to be a gun man. But that’s not what love feels like.
It is stuttering and dishevelled and characterised by unbelief. It’s in the sanctity of a twosome, unionising in that section of the island-country, banding together to demand freedom. A release.
They go guerilla on the government of the day and murder the Prime Minister, Logic. And no one knows why or how, but they make the caged bird sing. Two songs; of freedom and the right to be damp in someone’s arms.
Maracana (or when Guilt Drinks Gordons)
As he walks away, I look inward,
A vacuum awaits,
There’s nothing but husk,
A shadow and a false god many call on,
Confessions to assuage tipsy comrades,
Testosterone,
A poem in its infancy,
There are no songs,
As I look inward.
If meh-di-o-kar artists make poor music,
And I dance to it,
Do I have an excuse?
Do I have an excuse?
