atelier
bd—2486
34–91–71
34–91–71
séance de travail
document A
hellfire and damnation, 1250kg
Wearin short jackets and heavily cropped trousers, slouchin towards the pan-African revolution, carryin leatherbound books in brown paper bags. Wayward livin. Perfect disorder. A cup of black java. After each sip, threads of oil from my waxed lips glide into the bowl of the cup. Untipped vintage ties circa 40s and 50s from some forgotten textile mill. Regal, dandy, rough around the edges. A community intellectual in chinos and denims, knotted ties askew, bloomin like silken banners.
Some mornings i wake as though the century itself were my skin, woven with the ancestral husbandry of dreams and the murmurs of a thousand migrations. My jacket carries the scent of rain drenched hamlets and the amber of nightbound iron; the fabric collects memories. Ink stains coil around my fingers like prayer in a darkened chapel. The words come before the breath.
I walk through markets of sunlight and exhaust haulin fragments of both scripture and scandal in leatherbound notebooks. My collar is open to the wind, my mind a lantern flickerin between thoughts. A poet drifts beside me barefoot and blasphemous whisperin poems to the ancestors who never waited for permission.
The mirror shows no one. It shows a slow procession. Exiles and prophets and dancers caught in the cinders of light. Gold dust hangs heavy at my throat. My eyes are restless as the Atlantic holding the memory of every ship that ever crossed its dark waters.
I live in contradictions regal and ragged, laughing in the ruins, inventin new alphabets with each inhale. Coffee smoke, and prophecy mix in my veins. I dress as if summoning a storm, silk and tweed, talisman and thread, and i speak in the syntax of burnin things.
The world turns. I remain luminous, ungovernable, untranslatable.