I remember taking the obligatory tours through Cape Coast and Elmina. You have to dig a bit through the grand narrative to get at the real truth. The smell of mold in the dungeons is still with me to this day.And it's as if the walls carry that stain.
I like the way the image draws the eye upwards, one needs some breathing space after going through the museum space.
TO SLAP the past with a name To bring the story to its senses To engage the living heat To beat urgency out of the last gasp The familiar confessing its blank secrets
Flake them for blood For the walls are the dust of flesh
God is this one of the castles?
ReplyDeleteI remember taking the obligatory tours through Cape Coast and Elmina. You have to dig a bit through the grand narrative to get at the real truth. The smell of mold in the dungeons is still with me to this day.And it's as if the walls carry that stain.
I like the way the image draws the eye upwards, one needs some breathing space after going through the museum space.
There is not much sky though.
Here's a poem by Kwadwo Opoku-Agyeman:
ReplyDeleteCastle Wall, wailing wall
TO SLAP the past with a name
To bring the story to its senses
To engage the living heat
To beat urgency out of the last gasp
The familiar confessing its blank secrets
Flake them for blood
For the walls are the dust of flesh
(Cape Coast Castle; Kwadwo Opoku-Agyeman Afram Publications 1996)
What a way to open a poem! Thanks for sharing it, LS.
ReplyDeleteYeah Rob,
ReplyDeleteIt's one of those poems where the lines circle the title, and the title chases the lines; no real beginning/ending.
Cheers