In Memoriam
mama
Those eyes are deep with tales of learned past, I once heard described as wisdom due to downfall, mistake and regret. While lingering on the small battles she lost, she hides with both hands squeezed against her forehead, she sighs so deep she seems to deflate, she’s lost in an old mistake, possibly when young when mistakes are rampant, when mistakes are necessary, but that layer of moisture that coats her eyes when she lingers on the thought, as though it were a crime, I feel it inside myself. Staring back my eyes hit the ground like a hard gust of fast wind whipping through my flesh, I feel I can’t handle what she’s had to.
But when I look again, I see those eyes are like gentle hugs, like warm smiles...
The mirror offers only a backward image of your own self, to look into it you can never see yourself. If she looked through my eyes she’d know what I know, she’d smile forever, her muscles would form the expression for her to carry throughout her life.
If she knew what I knew she’s know I know she is the epitome of unconditional, to do what you can regardless of the strands of sweat, the ache in calves, the push back, the stumble forward…for the sake of calming the ping in your heart you feel when witnessing tears dripping down cheeks.
That black magic woman, her stable gaze inviting images, a story laid against her brain of who you are becoming, who you’ve always been. The plushness of her fingers pressing into your palm, into your spirit, and you can feel it. its comforting, its inspiring, and upon releasing yourself you can still recount the moment she looked at you, embedded in the goosebumps that flourish when you think back on it.
If she knew what I knew she wouldn’t categorize herself, there is no category for someone like her. She would lift both arms above, fingers spread wide, head tilted back to feel the warmth of the radiant light pouring out of every pore inside her, breathing in the thick scent of her energy like static tingling every being that passes by her.
If she knew what I knew, she would probably fly…
pamela
James-Arthur Maynie Jr, like many men, had to juggle manhood with the uncertain grip of youthful hands.
Only handed the fragile concept, his only way to learn the dance from the dancer was to watch, to find the steps that’d keep him from wincing when fumbled pieces shattered at his toes. He weathered the ever-present danger, the cruel reality. He lived that hopeless, eternal trek through a battlefield of shots directed toward him and the maddening diatribe on how there is no battle surrounding him.
He held his back upright, he held his chin up high, he did his level best.
He lived by the philosophy that experience is meant to be immersive, expanded. You’re meant to leave learned. You’re meant to grasp something, no matter how minuscule, and meditate on it, wrap yourself in it. A cloak, a shield, additions to the mystery, the enigmatic man that he was.
Always surprised by what he knows, what he did, where he’d been. But to even know you had to handle it as he handled life, maybe elaborate, maybe hyperbolic, but always engaging, enveloping…fun. Nothing could kill it, not the blinding blows he braved attempting to be a man and not his color, not the stab wounds of war turning to permanent pink keloids on his skin, not the bullets buried in his heart from the losses of those dead and alive, not the recurring rewrite of the person he knew he was and the person the mirror of outside eyes showed him.
Who can’t recall that chuckle, seeming to empty his lungs to deflation? That way his voice dipped and dragged, like vocals roaming pitches, determining its own way of expression? Freedom in uninhibited joy, uninhibited existence, the true meaning of manhood, of happiness. That pinch of the nerve that draws tears, the chord that tickles out laughter, the tendon that lifts and curls joints into unbreakable handshakes and hugs, the muscle that tugs that unforgettable smile.
Skim the many pages of his existence and see the resilience, the meticulous maintenance of so, so much happiness.
James was many things to many people; son, brother, father, true friend and true love. For me, he was more than just my Abba, he was the reminder of the heaviness of a mans existence, the presentation of pure familial love, the reminder that my mind will always be malleable.
He was the craftsman of the fierce desire to debate, the love of debauched comedy, the determination, the discipline and the stubborn grip on my dreams woven into the tapestry of me.
(Now I’d like to read a poem by John Donne)
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.
Shalom, Abba
High lighted lime light bursting with the jovial explosion from her thick rapid thumping heart, through a throat so booming, a voice never able to forget.
Did she always love to talk? Sometimes when near you hear her inner conversation spoken into the open air, and if you stood close by, you could hear the accents, sometimes southern, sometimes Irish, sometimes the regular hiss of a Chicago tongue …
And what is she talking about? She says an endless list of things to do are placed in order when spoken into the air, that sudden squeaking pitch switch when she’s cooking, that dragging baritone tremble when she’s cleaning, that gentle finger tip touch tone when she’s offering advice, even after you’ve turned away…
Always around, wake to her and sleep to her, her sounds, always wet and heavy, never distant, as though she were standing over your shoulder. That strength exposed in those bold and beaming eyes, that pale yellow skin, shining as though threaded with sunlight, arms expanded as she spins to motown, head back, eyes shut and still there was an energy unmatched.
You get attracted and its intimidating, and you can’t understand so you don’t even try. You let her be, be who you are because the foundation is obviously unbreakable, no words will sway, no actions will tear it down.
And we offer a resounding applause for that resiliance we received just by watching.
When I speak to myself, I think of her voice and how could I mimic it?
When I hear a certain song, I see how she danced to it, light on her feet, backward and forward, up and down, side to side, freedom in physical
When I walk, I wish to walk with that strong heavy foot, that thumping “here I come” unable to ignore
When I think, I hear a voice behind them wondering what she’d think if they were her thoughts…
You’ll always be curious, what with the way her pen draws words on paper, the lines that drag and shape a face or hand, the eyes dancing darting and the lips held loose with focus, everything so quickly done as though a second thought is unnecessary, this first one is right, the first mind followed, and the genious envied. How does she do that? And even with the wobble curve of her penmanship, even with the over use of loops around the upper cased and how much it was a semblance of her mind, her train of thought, and like that train horn it blasts out, from the page, from the throat…
We feel an emotion under our skin, pinching nerve endings, sparks in our brain, how to react? At least now we know it was love that moved us, however the love was shown, because she loved us, she just did.
abba
James-Arthur Maynie Jr, like many men, had to juggle manhood with the uncertain grip of youthful hands.
Only handed the fragile concept, his only way to learn the dance from the dancer was to watch, to find the steps that’d keep him from wincing when fumbled pieces shattered at his toes. He weathered the ever-present danger, the cruel reality. He lived that hopeless, eternal trek through a battlefield of shots directed toward him and the maddening diatribe on how there is no battle surrounding him.
He held his back upright, he held his chin up high, he did his level best.
He lived by the philosophy that experience is meant to be immersive, expanded. You’re meant to leave learned. You’re meant to grasp something, no matter how minuscule, and meditate on it, wrap yourself in it. A cloak, a shield, additions to the mystery, the enigmatic man that he was.
Always surprised by what he knows, what he did, where he’d been. But to even know you had to handle it as he handled life, maybe elaborate, maybe hyperbolic, but always engaging, enveloping…fun. Nothing could kill it, not the blinding blows he braved attempting to be a man and not his color, not the stab wounds of war turning to permanent pink keloids on his skin, not the bullets buried in his heart from the losses of those dead and alive, not the recurring rewrite of the person he knew he was and the person the mirror of outside eyes showed him.
Who can’t recall that chuckle, seeming to empty his lungs to deflation? That way his voice dipped and dragged, like vocals roaming pitches, determining its own way of expression? Freedom in uninhibited joy, uninhibited existence, the true meaning of manhood, of happiness. That pinch of the nerve that draws tears, the chord that tickles out laughter, the tendon that lifts and curls joints into unbreakable handshakes and hugs, the muscle that tugs that unforgettable smile.
Skim the many pages of his existence and see the resilience, the meticulous maintenance of so, so much happiness.
James was many things to many people; son, brother, father, true friend and true love. For me, he was more than just my Abba, he was the reminder of the heaviness of a mans existence, the presentation of pure familial love, the reminder that my mind will always be malleable.
He was the craftsman of the fierce desire to debate, the love of debauched comedy, the determination, the discipline and the stubborn grip on my dreams woven into the tapestry of me.
Shalom, Abba