Snaps of Ghana by Van G. Garrett - brick and mortar



some places are misleading like castles
embracing skies like mothers
yet holding histories like grudges
unwritten in their bowels

4 comments:

LS said...

God is this one of the castles?

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.

There is not much sky though.

LS said...

Here's a poem by Kwadwo Opoku-Agyeman:

Castle 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)

Rob Taylor said...

What a way to open a poem! Thanks for sharing it, LS.

LS said...

Yeah Rob,

It's one of those poems where the lines circle the title, and the title chases the lines; no real beginning/ending.

Cheers