The Geez by Nii Parkes (little red riding hood read aloud txt) 📕

blue, measure their circumference against my skin:

calibre, quantity per dark double, drawing a map of round

fissures where my flesh should be,

flood of projectiles at my feet. The view

clears as I squint,

my reflection shines

like water at sunset.

The whole widens.

One night, I am all mirror – no flesh.

Defences

i

You must learn to walk on water, if you want

to live in a place that does not flood.

You raise your eyebrows levée-like and I nod

thinking of how beneath the highs of cities

like Paris and New York, beyond the accessible depths

of Metro and Subway, the mapped grids where

you can pay to travel to hearth or heartbreak,

there are conduits for liquid: tunnels, storm

drains large enough to harbour a parade of liars.

ii

When my uncle Freddie dies

you hold my hand in a damp grip,

which reminds me of our first sweat-

heavy coupling in Accra under a fan,

while I tell you stories my father told

me about Freddie’s incredible prowess

at sport, how he later escaped

a kidnap plot by a corrupt government

by hiding in the boot of a Welsh

lecturer’s car as she drove to Abidjan

for a weekend tryst. But we are

both stunned at his funeral as three

previously unknown children of his

emerge from beneath the high pitch

of the voice reading his obituary,

their eyes damp with love that belies

distance. They will later reveal

that one weekend a month he collected

each of them from their mothers,

took them to a quiet beach house

with a view of the stars. He fed them

breakfasts of fresh fish, grilled

on the shore, taught them sprinting

and salsa, talked about physics

and politics. Strange but wonderful

father, they say, after you have

wiped my tears with your pinky.

iii

One day, when we are no longer together

I find myself under a fan in Singapore

thinking about the sheen of sweat that brewed

on your skin when we made love, the glow

fired from the blood vessels beneath it –

all ten thousand kilometres of them alive

to the transition we were making from steady

to ecstatic; how you tried to hold in your screams

and dissolved into manic giggles – your thighs clamps,

my body iron. I reflect on those moments anew

because the woman resting on my bare back

in the humid Straits afternoon has sweat

far less salty than yours and it set me

thinking about storm drains and what secrets

lie in the water they carry, the seas they empty

into, how you can never tell how much

salt hides in a tear

or a drop of sweat

without letting it ride

the ridges of your tongue.

And if the heart pumps blood

and blood is ninety-two percent water,

how much salt

will sour a heart?

Whose water gets walked on?

sub.marine.blues

sub

This one

is like midnight sea

dark and powerful

lashed

with ripples over an age-

old soul.

There are grey foam patches

in the night

of his head.

That one

is like midnight seen,

predictably dense,

hunched

over his own seed,

unaware of time,

determined still to change

everything ductile

to string ends.

And this one goes still to sea,

though less now.

He has taken what he can

and mainly mends nets

in blue arcs

contoured by experience

to eke the best years

out of a fishing net.

Yet that one rips them

far too frequently;

dragging smiles

from this one who knows

failure is heard

louder than advice.

That

one will learn.

and who knows

if midnight is the child

of midnight sea

since neither is permanent

though one is more

tangible.

But these men pull both in

from seventeen to seventy;

hand following hand

father after son

and never have their boats lacked

a man

to go

to sea.

marine

The story is told of one

old fisherman who woke up

in the dead of night, yelled

ee’ba eei, ee’ba kɛ loo

(“it is coming

it is laden with fish.”)

So deep

did the rhythm of the tides throb

in his veins, that he sensed

the moment

the jubilant buoys

began

to drift back to shore

sure;

these men don’t see

in the submarine darkness

of their calling, they feel.

Isolated from the stability of land,

they use stars for landmarks

and seek their dreams in the reflections

of heaven. In the old man’s youth

they would push their canoes out

until half submerged

in blue, then they paddled smooth

as beaten leather, leaving

lather in their wake

and messages sketched

on the sea’s veneer

by their trailing nets.

Now, the guttural grunts of gunmetal

black outboard motors

violate air and sea

as they Doppler

in and out of view

at double the speed;

the canoes stabbing

urgently against the horizon.

The old men sit

at the water’s end

barefoot

on the battered shells of worn out vessels

sharing tales of those who did not return.

weaving webs of blue into broken nets.

Occasionally they help pull in the laden nets.

“Ee’ba eei,” they yell “it is coming”

watching the nearing boats, the buoys marking

the net edges. taking care not to wade out

too far.

blues

Greek mythological claims

of the greatest beauties

and most powerful gods

stem from saved documents.

but truth cannot be written.

The many nets of interpretation

it filters through before it pen drops

onto sheet extracts

its solid claims

like fish from a hyperbolic sea.

These men’s catch is passed on

to their wives for sale

and most are happy with this

arrangement.

So the wives dot the shoreline

with grin-like glints angling off

their hand-beaten aluminium pans

as their voices soar

over the collusion of waves

to sing out the price of fish.

the women wrap patterned cloth around

their breasts; the knots of which serve

as carriers for their earnings.

At night these women slide

money like dreams

into the men’s hands

to buy comfort

in alcoholic volumes.

and volumes of these sea blue

blooded men have passed unseen

to the other side.

it is said

that water maidens

in glowing raiment listen in

on their drunken speech

and cast blue spells

upon the disgruntled.

with woven diamond fingers

and meshes of cotton onyx hair

they hypnotise, their cowrie

beaded hips sinuous as waves

Their complexion is whatever the water gives

their touch is the toe caress of dying waves

their smile is sunset on an overturned horizon

and their kiss is a blend of amnesia and ambrosia.

These are the world’s greatest

beauties!

they leave men dumb-founded

floundering in invisible waves.

The disgruntled never re-emerge

they vanish after consecutive evenings seen

staring out over the sea – copper blue

like sub marine greek

statues.

Zest

Our Love is Here to Stay

Clouds gather under a blue moon,

like trouble brewing as strange fruit

continues to swing – keeping time –

while Columbia turntables refuse to spin

the song; is vinyl too black, too flash to be

sleeved in white prisons? The answer lies

like white gardenia petals on a bruise

too subtle to separate from wind; like

a trumpet caught in the ill wind of a jet’s

prejudice in the company of clouds – a

rumble in a jungle of noise, the forgotten