Thursday 28 June 2007

Coffee house discourses*

I
The dilemma of Mr. Smith of sunset valley

Fiery dawn, capricious dawn, let down dawn
What do I do with her?
What do I do about her?
Maybe I shall let her set out
Maybe I shall let her dawn on me.


II
At the shores of poetry

Yeats*, Joyce*, Plath*
Now trickling, now flowing, now flooding
This river runs deep, runs strong, runs fast along
Outpourings of Shakespearean* iambic pentameter to drown me,
These they flood into the river, to break down my dam of illiteracy.

III
Insomnia


At the coffee house,
Time escapes my watch,
Like sleep escapes my coffee drowned eyes

IV
The Caribbean express


On and on he goes,
Like the chook chook train
Trainloads of words, never broken, never derailed

Dickson E Wasake
28 June 2007
2.36 am

*The Coffee house discourses are written following what has now become a routine where together with Obie and Dawn (two of Nassau’s greatest artists) we often sit at Starbucks coffee(Crystal Palace Hotel, Nassau) on Wednesday night, and sail on the long winding rivers of literature until we reach the delta of time’s end and then we split off, to our homes, for a while.

*James Joyce, Irish writer and author of Ulysses, the modern library considers it the best English language novel of the 20th Century
*William Butler Yeats, Irish poet and won nobel prize for literature(1923)
*Sylvia Plath, American poet credited with advancing confessional poetry
*William Shakespeare, English poet wrote some of his sonnets in iambic pentameter a form of writing(predominantly neoclassical and renaissance) with rhythmic syllables that go from a stressed to an unstressed part.

9 comments:

feather said...

first time at yours, liking the poetry

Cheri said...

U split off to your homes for a while....? then after.....????!!!

The idea of an open mic session with great and aspiring poets makes my mouth water. It'd be cool to have that somewhere here.

Esquire of the mountain said...

@feather:heartiest welcome, you will find that these gigabitic grasslands may be hard to leave..have you seen my recommended poetry in the archive..see top right hand for recommendations to start you off on this journey into Nirvana, on the East African Savannah
@Samantha: You pour way too much alabaster oil on this humble soul..am most grateful
@Cheri..just how much have you been reading on me my dear..i mention "open mic" only in the other blog..hmmm nevertheless am pleased that you reading... indeed its after our wed open mic that we go for coffee hence these discourses(we split off for a while to our homes, and then return...the next wed!!) and yeah it would be fab to have those coz in Ug and for me i never miss wed for anything.. But i think there is a musicians club something on Mon at the national theatre, if you enquire there,maybe you will find something indeed does go on...

Anonymous said...

I love this so much that I had to post my first comment. "In Osaka sipping sake" officially has competition.

Esquire of the mountain said...

@ms blown cover..well finally someone has courage to show up officially after operating below the radar for so long..am so glad you loved it, i was worried it would not meet your "great expectations"

Cheri said...

Esquire, yeah I really really visit! I love poetry so much. I wish I'd be a great poet sometime.

started my own poem blog....got fed up of incorporating them within the other ordinary posts.

Please visit.... coffeecandies.wordpress.com
buttercookie.wordpress.com

Obie Quiet said...

Break of Day
for Dickson Wasake

happy if she alights on me
if she dawns on me
let her alight upon him
afraid as if she were a bumble bee
brushing, frantic

as if this dawn were full of bees
fell of these and bees bight

all right if I were up to my neck
in these, in bees
big joke to laugh at
once he's behind glass

looking out upon the sun
coming up rather than outside
up to his neck in honey


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2007
8:42 p.m. 28/07/07

Esquire of the mountain said...

@cheri,will visit you some more..
@Obie my friend, thank you for that..most appreciative

~ScotchBiscuits~ said...

starbucks and poetry, quite an addictive pair!!
I know the world said so already...
and I agree. dude you are awesome!