Last night, I went to get some fruits at the groceries.
As I returned, there was an unusual line at the intersection with a gas station.
Rather than wait, I cut through the gas station and joined the road to my house.
Immediately, a police car followed me, it’s light flashing like it was Christmas, commanding me to pull over.
Born in the Kòró era,
my granddaughter knows only two faces:
her mother and her father.
These kids born in the United States
to parents who are isolating
only know two faces.
I am a grandpa now
and I feel good about it.
Happy Father’s Day
to all the fathers—may you become grandpas.
And to those of us grandpas
Could Black life matter,
without Black thoughts
and values mattering?
The indigenous African traditions
cannot breathe:
invasive viral forces
have placed their morbid knees
on the throats of indigenous African philosophy,
science, pedagogy, technology,
Two New African Proverbs:
1. The same people who place their knee on your neck will also be the first to ask “Why can’t you breathe?”
2. The same people who are causing your sadness will also be the first to ask “Why can’t you laugh?”
(Adapted from the Yoruba proverb, “Ẹ́ni tí ó bá sọ ni di olóríburúkú ni ó kọ́kọ́ má a ń fi bú ni:
Three weeks of painting. It started as a butterfly.
Day and night, for three weeks.
And finally, it is done.
I just completed this painting
as a tribute to
The Birth of a Beautiful Divinity, Ajé
Ajé (The Divinity of Profit, Prosperity and Wealth)
Acrylic on canvas
I turn the same painting upside down, as Iya Afilaka instructed me. And it still remains legible.
Why?
Because we have paid Iba (homage)
to the vagina that is turned
upside down, yet
does not drip
I studied with the Ìyàmi,
the Power Mothers who
suspend the global ball
on a single frail string,
yet it cannot snap.
After they gave me the name Ọ̀rìságbèmí Arígbábuwó, I transcend the boundaries of gender, race, time, and geography.
Here is the story of that transcendental embodiment, in its most concise form.
Title: Lyrics of Joy
Medium: acrylic on canvas
Date: 2018
Where art you joy
that we all seek you
and find you not?
Joy is in eating less,
and eating carefully, simply.
Joy lives in giving more,
and consuming little.
Title: Lyrics of JoyMedium: acrylic on canvasDate: 2018Where art you joythat we all seek youand find you not?Joy is in eating less,and eating carefully, simply.Joy lives in giving more,Title: Lyrics of JoyMedium: acrylic on canvasDate: 2018Where art you joythat we all seek youand find you not?Joy is in eating less,and eating carefully, simply.Joy lives in giving more,