{"id":213,"date":"2011-05-19T10:14:35","date_gmt":"2011-05-19T10:14:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/?page_id=213"},"modified":"2011-05-19T10:14:35","modified_gmt":"2011-05-19T10:14:35","slug":"tade-ipadeola","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/writings\/poetry\/tade-ipadeola\/","title":{"rendered":"Tade Ipadeola"},"content":{"rendered":"

Annals of the Gambia<\/strong><\/h1>\n

I<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

James Island:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That frozen phallus of a canon stares<\/p>\n

Endlessly upon a fecund, ageless sea.<\/p>\n

Witness trees, weather beaten and gnarled<\/p>\n

Affinitize with the elements,<\/p>\n

Whispering the songs<\/p>\n

Of Neptune when the wind is high.<\/p>\n

This is James Island,<\/p>\n

Spartan as the sun<\/p>\n

Where the fittest marched in chains to merge<\/p>\n

With futures alien as the skin of shipmasters.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

History was here, woven into syntax<\/p>\n

Of the rolling, intrepid waves. History,<\/p>\n

Ghostly now and fading, was here<\/p>\n

Material as the mineral of the sea.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

II<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There is a dappled song of rust<\/p>\n

Trembling in the stricken throat<\/p>\n

Of silenced guns,<\/p>\n

There is a russet song of sorrow<\/p>\n

Whimpering<\/p>\n

Upon this beachhead of the Middle Passage.<\/p>\n

The very soil of the Island hums the song<\/p>\n

When the last tourist must have left<\/p>\n

Echoing the sorrow of the song in shades<\/p>\n

Incandescent and tortured as the memory.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And you can hear this Island lamenting and lost<\/p>\n

Haunted like the eyes of scattered children<\/p>\n

Seeking shelter in a strange and rattled world<\/p>\n

Thrust out at turns by traitors and aliens<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

III<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Here, Fofana, friend of all my fathers,<\/p>\n

Still inhales the Atlantic<\/p>\n

Mingled with the scent of Kambiya Bolongo.<\/p>\n

Conjuring ruptured memories, singing<\/p>\n

A long song of this vanishing island<\/p>\n

Strumming the khalam and the drum<\/p>\n

For drums speak the language of spirits<\/p>\n

And khalam\u2019s music is the ransom for lost souls\u2026<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

King Niumi\u2019s Island, St Andrews Island, Fort James.<\/p>\n

So many names for one island of sorrow<\/p>\n

So many wars to own a phantom in the end.<\/p>\n

Our congeries tend the tripod of hope<\/p>\n

As tourists survey the remnants of the Island<\/p>\n

Like probe instruments on a strange planet.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

IV<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We exhale with the metals on this anniversary \u2013<\/p>\n

Metals of cannons, ores of cannon balls.<\/p>\n

We exhale with metals laid to rest, metals<\/p>\n

On the pyre of the sun. Sighing metals<\/p>\n

Strangled of speech, steel of human resolve.<\/p>\n

We join a century of metals exhaling here<\/p>\n

And each shaft of the sun sings as we<\/p>\n

Exhale. A choir of the cosmos joins the hymn.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And now, Fofana, friend of all my fathers,<\/p>\n

Let us inhale with the trees, the grass<\/p>\n

The very island and the sea. And strum<\/p>\n

The silent khalam, muse of living souls,<\/p>\n

Muse of redemption and the life. Strum<\/p>\n

Beyond the sighs and sorrows and the pain.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Annals of the Gambia I   James Island:   That frozen phallus of a canon stares Endlessly upon a fecund, ageless sea. Witness trees, weather beaten and gnarled Affinitize with the elements, Whispering the songs Of Neptune when the wind is high. This is James Island, Spartan as the sun Where the fittest marched in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":203,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"authorpoetry.php","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-213","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/213\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}