Word, Sound, Power: TriUne (Tribute to Rastafari in Transition)

"Rastafari in Transition : The Politics of Cultural Confrontation in Africa and the Caribbean, 1966-1988 : A Pan-African Perspective" by Ikael Tafari (Never Gone! Never Forgotten!)

Word, Sound, Power: TriUne (Tribute to the Rastafari in Transition )

copyright K. Omodele 2011 

 Man, Know Thyself

Physically, Mentally, Spiritually

Eye and Eye

i. i n I

Prophet, Priest, King

Word, Sound, Power

Kete, Fundeh, Bass

Second, Minute, Hour

Ites (Red), Gold, Green

Knowledge, Wise-mind, Overstanding

One! One! One!

  Aim,       God,     Destiny

Air, Water, Fire

(EARTH)

Breath, Chalice, Fire

(SACRAMENT)

Man, Wombman, Child

(FAMILY ESSENCE)

 Light, Love, Life

(LIVE)

Man, Know Thyself

Africa, Carry beyond (Caribbean), Americas

Prophet, Priest, King

Word, Sound, Power

Sun, Moon, World

Second, Minute, Hour 

Head, Body, Soul
 Justice, Livity, Truth
Father, Mother, Child

the Elders, The Movement , the Youth
the Abeng, the Shaker/shak shak, the Akete

Word, Sound, Power

Wake Up! LIVE-aspora

cyaan dis di Tri-Unity

Conceptualize...

Beyond...

the Box.

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Top Seventeen Sayings and Quotes by Marcus Mosiah Garvey

Marcus Garvey was born on August the seventeenth, and so this is a blessed day in my Journey. On this day a man was born in 1887 who would affect the way I perceive my SELF in relation to my community and my place in the world in general. Black Marcus screamed Self-identity, Self-worth, Self-reliance, Self-improvement, not just in the context of the singular person, but in the greater context of Black Community. In honor of the most Right and Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey's earthstrong/earthlight/earthday (birthday), I have composed this list of seventeen immensely memorable phrases, sayings and quotes from the Prophet that have influenced I, Kaya. SALUTE, Black Marcus!

17. Having had the wrong kind of education, the Negro has become his own greatest enemy.

16. The ends you serve that are selfish will take you no further than yourself but the ends you serve that are for all, in common, will take you into eternity.

15. Chance has never yet satisfied the hope of a suffering people.

14. We must canonize our own saints, create our own martyrs, and elevate to positions of fame and honor black men and women who have made their distinct contributions to our racial history. Sojourner Truth is worthy of the place of sainthood alongside of Joan of Arc; Crispus Attucks and George William Gordon are entitled to the halo of martyrdom with no less glory than that of the martyrs of any other race. Toussaint L'Ouverture's brilliancy as a soldier and statesman outshone that of a Cromwell, Napoleon and Washington; hence, he is entitled to the highest place as a hero among men. Africa has produced countless numbers of men and women, in war and in peace, whose lustre and bravery outshine that of any other people. Then why not see good and perfection in ourselves?

13. If you haven't confidence in self, you are twice defeated in the race of life. With confidence, you have won even before you have started.

12. I do not speak carelessly or recklessly but with a definite object of helping the people, especially those of my race, to know, to understand, and to realize themselves.

11. Lift up yourselves, men, take yourselves out of the mire and hitch your hopes to the very stars themselves. Let no man pull you down, let no man destroy your ambition, because man is but your companion, your equal; man is your brother; he is not your Lord, he is not your sovereign master.

10. The Mystic Touch Many years ago we fell asleep by the sedative of the superman, but the mystic magic of nature wand says awake and rise again. Too long has thou slumbered, too long has time passed you by, your work on earth is delinquent and you cannot reign on high. If it's true that you've awaken, good for you,

9. We must give up the silly idea of folding our hands and waiting on God to do everything for us.If God had intended for that, then he would not have given us a mind. Whatever you want in life, you must make up your mind to do it for yourself

  

8. Liberate the minds of men and ultimately you will liberate the bodies of men.

  

7. We Are Arbiters of Our Own Destiny. God and Nature first made us what we are, and then out of our own creative genius we make ourselves what we want to be. Follow always that great law.

  

6. Our UNION MUST KNOW NO CLIME, BOUNDARY, or NATIONALITY… PRACTICE ONE FAITH, that of Confidence in themselves, with One God! One Aim! One Destiny! Let no religious scruples, no political machination divide us.

  

5. If the white man has the idea of a white God, let him worship his God as he desires. If the yellow man's God is of his race let him worship his God as he sees fit. We, as Negroes, have found a new ideal. Whilst our God has no color, yet it is human to see everything through one's own spectacles, and since the white people have seen their God through white spectacles, we have only now started out (late though it be) to see our God through our own spectacles.The God of Isaac and the God of Jacob let Him exist for the race that believes in the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. We Negroes believe in the God of Ethiopia…

4. I know no national boundary where the Negro is concerned. The whole world is my province until Africa is free.

  

3. Look to Africa for the crowning of a Black king; for the day of deliverance is near.

  

2. A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.

  

1. A reading man and woman is a ready man and woman, but a writing man and woman is exact.

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Tempting Irie: II

©2007 K. Omodele (Tempting Irie)

 First read Part I

Part II

Irie fluffs the sliced-up ganja. Fingering the ring on the ratchet, in a single, fluid motion, he flicks the blade shut and pockets it. Then he retrieves a challawa from the desk and packs the kutchie with herb. He begins chanting.
“Let Jah arise and let his enemies be scattered; let those that hate him flee before him; as smoke is driven away, so drive dem away; as wax melteth by the fire so let the wicked perish at the presence of Rastafari…Extol H.I.M who reigneth inna Zion by His name OH JAH Rastafari…”
Sukunya quakes like Port Royal just before it crumbled and tumbled into the Caribbean Sea.
He won’t so much as even poop on me, she thinks.

Seducing Ratta had played out much smoother than this. Ratta had yearned for her, longed for her gift. He had done discarded his conscience long, long time-way back when he was a younger youth hustling fi Blacka. Ratta woulda jukked down (stuck up/robbed) Israel and all Twelve Tribes to earn couple stripes. If Blacka ever said, “Mr. Big Mouth fi hold some FAT shot in his FAT rass!;” then, that was no problem.
Ratta was a fiend for notoriety.
So one night, almost a full year ago, Sukunya had offered herself to Ratta at Blacka’s Boxing Day Bashment. Blacka, with Ratta and the whole crew, marched in shining. As they flowed through the crowd like a fighter and his entourage at a prizefight, the crew sang out, “Blacka Knights.” People murmured and nodded and Sukunya pumped through Blacka’s veins, his heart, his brain. She consumed him and he wielded her triumphantly as he waved his eagle-head cane in the air like a scepter in time to The Bruck Out riddim.
As Ratta watched, he brindled with envy. Blacka was king.
Sukunya chuckled and approached Ratta. Few men had ever resisted and she doubted he would be anything special.
“Blacka cyaan (can’t) hold mi, yuh know,” she said matter-of-factly. “He cyaan control me.”
The music wound low and the crowd movement slowed like a trek to perdition. The club scene had fallen catatonic- which was a perfect canvass for Sukunya.
Ratta’s eyes brooded wickedness. He clenched his fists, raising them in front his face. “I want yuh so bad I’da rip out mi own mother heart out her chest. I want this-”he circled his hands around the room and shrugged “- I want all this fi me- RATTA.” He laughed, deep, from within a rotten soul.
“I know. Yuh feel me now, mi Boy? Blacka come like nuttn to you. Imagine, the world is yours.” She winked, and then added. “Drink up. Just accept mi. FEEL me. Taste me. ”
Sukunya giggled uncontrollably as the music and the crowd catapulted back to life.

A few early mornings later, before sunrise, Ratta and his side-kick Tully waylaid Blacka outside his home in Flatlands. Around 5:30 a big, bad, midnight Escalade barreled up the street like a powerful tidal wave. As his driver squeezed back and forth into a tight parking spot, the Boss lit a bighead spliff and took a deep pull.
Ratta and Tully crept silently, low in the valley of shadows between the building and parked cars. As they came up to the Escalade, Ratta raised up two forty-fives and -BLAM.BLAM.BLAM…bust them rapidly through the passenger window while Tullo unloaded six booming shots from a pump shotty around on the driver side. The Escalade’s engine vroomed hard and the SUV lunged forward, plunging into a Lincoln Town car.
The car alarm wailed.
Tullo ran around the SUV, and unloaded one more in the Boss’s head.
In all, twenty-seven shots blared.
The two assassins looked for any movement from the slumped over men.
Satisfied, they sprinted up the block.

Back in the apartment, the clock reads 11:45. Sukunya top lip quivers.
Irie is sealing up his chanting. “…Oh Great and Thunderable I- JAH RASTAFAR I.”
Sukunya shakes. When Irie thumbs a lighter and a single flame spurts up dancing in the dark, she cringes.
He lifts the fire to the kutchie and draws long and deep on the pipe. The flame climbs in, flooding over the herb, igniting it to sizzling orange embers. He holds his breath, letting his meditation ascend to higher heights.

Growing more restless, Sukunya pops up and sashays over to Irie. Leers over his shoulder, anxiously checking the clock.
11:47
She whispers:
“Yeah man, smoke up. I perform best on the unconscious. My ride go take you higher than that Indica, Irie Dread. Trust mi, you see.”
Finally he exhales, a smoke plume flaring from his nostrils.
Sukunya chokes on the congregation of smoke inundating her like judgment ‘pon the land.
“UGH-Ugh-UGGGHH.”
Irie doesn’t even stir. He holds firm.
Sukunya moans. “Taste me once, just once; you never get enough.”
She kisses his neck. OWW. Scalded, she cowers back.
What in di hell-?
Irie beams.
You need me Irie. Relax. Take me and men will tremble when they hear your name. Women will bow-She reaches for him again. But now awakened, he leans away.
No, Harlot. All is vanity
Relax; she repeats and brushes scorching fingertips down his chest. Claw-like fingernails soaked with the blood of martyrs leaves trails on his shirt.
Look at me! Her eyes are drunken, blood-red like her nails. Surely you want what I offer. Behold my fullness. Render your heart, nuh, I’ll bring you ecstasy. Discard your clothes of righteousness and I will give you the world.
Slowly and jerkily, she leans in and presses her lips to his.
Irie twitches and breaks away. The radiator steams, loud and vexed.
Sukunya is dripping wet.
Irie sticks out his chest. I AM-Jah blessed. He smiles and bounces to a song in his heart. Di hungry shall be fed/ Jah know di blind shall be led…
But Irie, you don’t know me yet. Yuh never wonder? I’ve lain with kings. Great men have drunk my wine. Here, thrusting her golden cup at him.
No! He refuses, shaking his head. I DO know you.
She spins around, grabbing a glance at the clock.
11:56.
No. You don’t. You may have seen me around, with Ratta, Blacka…other dons. They’re like grains of sand beneath the Great Pyramids. But you, I want you more intimately. Like Napoleon. Like Julius Caesar.
Her eyes dart back to the clock. It clicks to 11:57. Her heart begins to trot. She continues:
Like Nimrod and Nebuchadnezzar, I’ll lift you high, high, high-like pharaohs. Make you great. People will call your name through the ages. Just kiss me; taste me; SEIZE ME. HURRY Irie!
She’s panting.
But Irie remains rooted, firm, like a tree. Smirking, I know your mystery.
Wha? She snatches the time off the clock.
11:58.
She gasps. Begins pacing back and forth like a penned-up beast.
LISTEN, she snarls, drenched all over. Gulps down the last of her Brunell and flings away the cup. Paces some more. You want a Bentley? Fine silks? Linens? Islands in the sea? Souls of men?
Irie chuckles. Flashes his mane, remembering, "...leaves shall not wither."
She flails her hands in the air. Her pacing quickens to a frantic gallop around the room. She stops. Points a finger. Is about to say something, but presses her lips together. Shakes the finger at him.
What? Tell me wha yuh want!
11:59
Her lips are parched. She gallops around again, circling him. Fast. Faster.
Tell me. Hurry. Quick nuh Irie.
Irie remains still, grinning with the challawa (chalice pipe) in hand.
She brakes suddenly. She opens her arms. IRRIIEEeee!! Come to me nuh? Tell me wha yuh waaaant?
Irie delights. "FIRE! For Purification. Gimmie FIYAH!"

From downstairs, young voices cry out. “TEN, NINE, EIGHT-”
Sukunya falls to her knees and rips away her soaking garments. She kneels desolate and naked.
Irie stands over her and can hear the weeping and moaning and mourning of those who had slept with her. She looked up at him imploringly.
The voices outside sing:
“FIVE, FOUR-”
Sukunya bursts into flames.
“THREE, TWO, ONE.”
Great volleys of gunfire erupt outside around the whole Flatbush, on and on, a thundering salute to the new millennium.
Now Sukunya is a blazing inferno. She crumbles to ashes as Irie watches standing over her, bemused, burning his chalice pipe as gunshots pound outside like falling brimstone.
And now it is done.
Rastafari stands alone.

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Short Story: Tempting Irie

Copyright 2007 K.Omodele (Tempting Irie)

Part I

(Introducing Irie and Sukunya)

Old year’s night and one millennium hurtles toward the next. The depths of a Flatbush studio apartment whisper blackness. In the front, scarce streetlight tumbles through a monolithic window and falls flat a couple feet beyond the sill. 11:37 PM glows neon blue against the darkness. Overworked, a radiator hisses in protest.

Sukunya fidgets on a wicker settee. She grins, but her eyes scurry about the room like a condemned woman, strapped in, dreading the marching time. She squints as she settles on a figure planted behind the desk by the window, which frames Prospect Park’s skeletal landscape.
Outside, down two floors of corroding fire escape, teens gaggle and shriek on the stoop. They stumble drunkenly in and out of the building’s vestibule.

Jay-Z crackles through a Phil Collins sample. “You belong to the city/You belong to the night…” A horn screams, brakes EEK and upstairs a mother shrills from a window. “ MEEKA. Haul yuh rass in this house. NOW!!!”

"prospect park, brooklyn 2005" by postopp1 
is marked with CC BY-ND 2.0.

These sounds limp through the half open window and nudge the stillness in the apartment. Sukunya spills more Brunello di Montalcino into her golden cup.

She sips.

She slurs:
“So Irie, you don’t never think bout me- why men always fighting over me?” She strums her swells- breasts, hips, curve of her butt. Prattling, she arches her back and cocks her legs limberly up on the settee. A purple, silken camisole clings to her bronze skin which glistens like melting ice.
But Irie doesn’t notice. On a stacked milk-crate throne, he hunches over an unpolished, raw-pine desk. Light from outside feebly captures the concentration carving his features. Whittled brows glower as he slices a half-dozen Indica buds with a ratchet so keen, it can divide light from the darkness. Each drag of the knife scars the Steel Pulse “Armageddon” album cover he uses as a cutting board. He pauses. Removes his leather buckas-styled tam and Congo-natty locks cascade heavily over his stone-cut shoulders. A worn reprint of Bob’s “Confrontation” shield’s his chest.

Sukunya splays her thighs, bracing an elbow on a knee.
“I know you feel me, Irie. Can’t ig me forever.” Snaking fingers twine the gold, precious stones and pearls coiling up her neck.
She slips a glimpse off the clock. 11:40.
A light sliver ignites her cat eyes for an emerald second. “I see you watching me when I’m with Blacka. And Lenky. Or, when I’m hugging up Worries over in New Lots.” Puckering scarlet lips, she puffs him an air kiss. “Yep! I know you want me, Irie Dread. Act like you don’t, but you need me.”

Irie fluffs the sliced up ganja. Fingering the ring on the ratchet, in a single, fluid motion he flicks the blade shut and pockets it. Then he retrieves a challawa from the desk and packs the kutchie with herb. He begins chanting...

(To Be Continued...)

READ TEMPTING IRIE PART II (The lit up finale)

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Ital Stew

©K.Omodele 2007  

Ital stew is that book you cannot put down. The flavor excites. You anticipate the climax, and then savor it. You dread the denouement.
Vegetables and ground provisions are colorful characters brought to life in the folds of a good ital stew. Bright, upbeat yams, dutty-tinted sweet potatoes, irate orange pumpkins and simple off-white Irish potatoes conspire to supplant stringy, strenuous cassava- who for me is starboy.
There on the side lurks envious-green Calaloo, sulking, knowing she is only a side character. The whole mix is antagonized by an angry gang of fiery peppers, flagging colors red, yellow and green. Adding even more spice to this intricate plot is scallion and a piece a ginger. And the foil is golden-ripe plantains-sweet and tender. All these characters bubble in an aromatic theme of creamy coconut milk, the essence of Ital stew-the taste so exciting, you dread the impending end.

Induction of My Past

I heard, "No man is an island," many times in my life, but only processed the words from one perspective- that as human beings, we all need other people in our lives; i.e., we aren't seperate entities totally independent of others. This is true, of course, but I found out first hand that this guinnep is a "twinnie"-there's more than one seed here. It is bigger than the small i and, through experience, I found a Universal truth that transcends the statement's surface meaning.

Our actions affect those around us. That's it. Every single thing we do in life, in some way, no matter how small, affects someone. Simple; but I never used to really study that. As a result of my oversight, I unintentionally caused a lot of pain and hurt and confusion amongst the people closest to me...innocent people. The results of the choices I've made in life have strained some of my relationships. That's the price...Regret. Jay-Z said you gotta learn to live with them. I have to tek lil time and rebuild bridges and tear down couple fence.  Jah know, I hope its not too late.

Induction of My Past

©K.Omodele 11-07

Society's exiled outcasts

Numbered sheeple, penned to the side

Chattel once more, bounded self-pride

Dignity waves but at half-mast

Can we escape a haunting past

which sew the seeds- our souls' demise?

Pine box, cell blox, our grace denied?

Induction of our ruff neck past.

Is there redemption for sordid souls?

Confined by our pasts, perdition nothing more

Striped with contrition, confusion, neglect

Will bloodstained hands ever grow cold?

Find peace in the robe the Emperor wore

summation of our past-live with regret.

©K.Omodele 11-07

Resilience Through Icestorms

"Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall." -Confucius

"There is no better teacher than adversity. Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance next time." -Malcolm X 

The thing I love most about lyrical word play is its ability to inspire. Word-Sound-Power. One of my favorite poems of all times is Maya Angelou’s “Still I Rise.” The Elder painted the resiliency of the Human I-rit (spirit) with such crimson emotion and golden underlining conviction; I hung her masterpiece in my personal Louvre (Locker 212, along with other works by lyrical artists). Her imagery makes me want to get up, stand up…rise like the Phoenix outta despairing ashes.

Jah knows people need inspiration in these jagged times of socio-economic strife. Some of us looking to the sky for a messiah and praying to heavens that a solution soon fall from above. Nothing nah goh (not going to) drop from the sky, Bredren and Sistren-the Most High reigns from within. We all have an inherent spirit of resilience because Divinity is within us, just tap into it and let the energy flow. Word-Sound drums up Power. Positive lyrics can uplift during the wickedest trials and tribulations… Writers, singers, wordsmiths, better know-ledge!

-© K. Omodele 2009

Even Icestorms in July (Intro)

©K. Omodele April 2003

Tomorrow morning I begin the rest of my life. Man, if you could feel how cold it gets in here, you'd overstand my anxiety for the gradual thawing that my tomorrow promises. As late as the night is, my anticipation for this promise of warmth is what deprives me sleep. It has kept me awake at night, 3,128 to be exact. That's how long I've been exposed to this frigidness. That's a long time-a minute. A looong minute, I know. Something inside me should have died by now, you know-from exposure.

I can barely stand it. Especially at night when I'm on my bunk, alone with my thoughts, the reflections of memories-some vague with the passing of time, others sharp despite it. Only the voice from my radio and solemn songs from the 70's keep me company. This is when the cold is at its lonely worst. It seeps through me, penetrating flesh and bone, until it is imbedded in my spirit, causing my soul to shiver at the steel and concrete and razor wire that engulf it.

Seasons change, but the cold is omnipresent. Something inside me should've died by now.

But, like the sun, it burns continuously in the midst of an algid, empty galaxy, obstinately refusing to succumb to the icy nothingness. And tonight, as I await the dawn, I feel it-this thing that is enflamed deep within me. Is it a ray of emotion ... a spark of hope? ... It is an antiquated remembrance ...

-© K. Omodele April 2003

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