Where is your book?
In a lock-down world
in which information production
and dissemination has changed.
I use the books to build a wall
to distance me socially because
The library as we knew it
has become a museum.
The museum has become a morgue.
The morgue became extinct:
How did a virus
that doesn’t bug books
end up closing down
the Central Library?
Your new book?
Get out of class free, my friend.
Captive No More V
14
The baale of Apaara,
My great grandfather
returned on horseback
only to discover that
His favorite child was gone
swept along the rabid rapids
of the slavers’ path
into the abyss of time.
So much to say!
Gist plenty.
Ọ̀rọ́ pọ̀ láti sọ.
HOUSE OF THE HEAD: ÒRÙLÉ ORÍ
The latest addition to the Àkòdì Òrìṣà
is the ÒRÙLÉ ORÍ,
the House of the Head.
Órí is the most important òrìṣà
in Yoruba divinity.
Captive No More
1
What you are reading is not poetry. It is not fiction. It is my true family history.
I am an ascendant from slavery. Yes.
It means I am a descendant of enslaved bodies. Yes.
Inside me, they locked iron collars,
leg fetters, and hand lockers. Yes.
Yes. Does it sound weird? Yes.
Slavery was real in Africa. Yes
Africa was the Ground Zero of slavery. Yes.
I’m on sabbatical leave this spring semester.
Forward to my origin
I will go for the next year
to learn Ifa computation,
in which my ancestors
have hidden the secrets of life
knowing that one day my eyes would open
and see the truth hidden in plain sight.
Who owns your body?
Would you be shocked to learn
you don’t own your body?
Ten things, I hate to tell you,
claim ownership of your body
The first owner of your body
is your name.