In the plink

Cherries

Le temps des cerises.

Contrast between the usual connotations of an annual ritual that is aesthetic, poetic and nostalgic and has something languorous about it – Japan – take your time to drink tea – draw back the bow string, hold onto it, don't be impatient for the twang, admire time passing…

And the absolute urgency of eating the damn things as soon as they are ripe, in an extremely narrow window of time from the moment they become deep red and ripe enough to eat and the moment, very soon after,  they turn brown and blue mould appears.

 

Wurds.

On radio 4 the other day I noticed that “interstices” is pronounced “Interstice-seize”. Reminds me of Tom & Jerry and “I hate these me-seize to pea-seize”

J’ai eu quelques frayères – at the spawning grounds?

Superfétatoire – big Greek salad for party?

cudgerie

a large tropical rutaceous tree, Flindersia schottina, having light-coloured wood. Also called pink poplar.

the agalma

Europe's top banker calls for calm - Jean-Claude Trichet wants more…  - Tricher means to cheat

invidious

 Streets that follow like a tedious argument Of insidious intent...

So when your friends arrive with a huge bag of cherries and you take a bowl out of the cupboard (love that word) thinking to yourself oooooooooo yes, life is a bowl of cherries – but not just that, luckily - then you are already starting to feel guilty about not being able to eat them all quickly enough, as if it was somehow your shameful fault that they were going to rot.

Input as to tickle

Not easy to start up again after stopping. The stop seems to get bigger and exert some kind of inertia, preventing me from starting again the longer I'm stopped. I jot down words that intrigue me or other things I want to write about and as the weeks pass some of them don't seem so relevant or important anymore.

Swinging the search beam away from content to process. A small trickle of a stream (the proverbial babbling Brooke) is somehow what I want now rather than a mass of water behind a dam I can't bust.

So here is a picture of an Iris, the first sign of spring, taken when it came into bloom ages ago. 

oops ! wrong image...

and a picture of a map because I am still trying to find my way around my blog...  euh... non, two pictures are enough for one post. I'll keep the map over for the next one, along with my backlog of lexicographic miscellanea.

Oh, and Thank You, anonymous, for sending me a message in response to Vitis Vinifera. This gave me the impetus to trickle.

Fenetre sur la lumière

New Year Ditty

Nothing could please me more than your submission.

In fact, your absolute reddition.

But you don’t even have to give in; just cooperate, as I’m sure you will, and all those years waiting for change to instil

a happening … will be taking root, getting ready to shoot.

Baby screams stop when the pram moves.

The words come and flow, the pitter-patter of the keys pleases my ego, strokes my self, takes me back to a place I have not yet been to,

like a lean-to at the bottom of an imaginary garden.

Shed your past, come on, you can do it, go the whole way, don’t be sacred…

As if I cake-red. No-one, but no-one would will no! Anonymous bliss, this.

Time marches on, time dances on, time rolls on and I am not in it.

Once boarded a train, but that was in another lifetime, and besides, the swain is married now.

Such high hopes, expectations all behind, the disappointment and the ledgers. Now it is a question of hear. All fear rolled away, quite gone.

At last a clear space. Light and room to zoom in on it or you or whatever, the time to choose, pick and ooze, tell it as it really will be. The lie of the land is flat. I think I could have been a bat, just for the ultrasonic guidance system. Withholding some of the evidence, she tried her best to scrape the lipstick off my vest in the interests of some greater test but it was too deeply encrusted by the time this all came a bout.

I scan the horizon.

Nothing.

A time.

The machine guns silent, no barbed wire to speak of, - if not peace, at least a truce. This is what you ran for, strove for, fought for. This piece of treaty. Armisticeness.

And now the chance to savour, feel and wallow not in victory, not in a war won, in a mere ceasefire, a lull from which to set off in search of something worth.

While such a thing, such a value may exist, perhaps it all just leads to this,

To safety, the no need to fight, struggle or strive, and the words, though live, just are, here, now, still.

Twingling in the aftermath, lolling around in the subtle distillate.

Neither hate nor love, but all-glowing souls. No rivals, enemies, prizes or goals to be sought, battles to be fought, causes to be wrought like iron clad leggings. Tom Sneddin said you would never make it. Well I’m here, now, whole and in one peace. The golden fleece, trail, grophies galore don’t mean anything anymore.

the words

are not bullets fired at targets

nor hooks hoping to pull in prey, flares to attract attention, vibrations to effect abstention.

the words are just words.

free of dare, free of the snares of animosity, reciprocity, agropophosy, lascivoscoty…

like pebbles plopped into the well to sound the depths, probe in ripples… frôlent some nipples

serendipity reigns down in a shower of gravitdas

Backbone

 Fatou Keita is a writer and English Literature lecturer at Abidjan University. 

 I met her in Caen, when we were both doing a postgraduate diploma (DEA) in English Literature. We are the same age.

Yesterday she sent me an email with a letter attached, an open letter to Laurent Gbagbo. When I had finished reading it I was scared for her. Today she is going to join the march to the television headquarters.

Here is the letter:

LETTRE OUVERTE AU PRÉSIDENT GBAGBO LAURENT

POURQUOI J’IRAI MARCHER SUR LA RTI

Demain Jeudi 16 Décembre 2010, s’il plaît à Dieu, j’irai marcher sur la RTI  que certains ont surnommée RTMP (Radio Télévision Mouvance Présidentielle).

Non, ce n’est pas un acte de bravoure ni de défiance. Parce que oui, j’ai peur. Mais c’est un devoir.

Nous payons tous la redevance télé et ce que cette télévision nous donne à voir aujourd’hui est insupportable. Nous avons reculé au-delà de tout et les intellectuels, notamment, ne devraient pas l’admettre. Comment peut-on chercher à imposer la pensée unique, la manipulation, le mensonge, l’incitation à la haine et j’en passe ? Oublie-t-on que notre télévision est visionnée dans le monde entier ? Ce qui se passe aujourd’hui va au delà de tout ce qu’on aurait pu imaginer. Monsieur Ouattara Gnonsié, votre Ministre de la Communication commence son mandat avec un gros mensonge en affirmant haut et fort que la radio ONUCI FM incite à la haine et demande aux gens de descendre dans la rue. Il va jusqu’à comparer cette radio à la tristement célèbre Radio Mille collines. C’est un mensonge inacceptable et cela n’augure rien de bon pour la « communication » en Côte d’Ivoire. Le démocrate que vous disiez être alors que vous militiez dans l’opposition peut-il raisonnablement accepter que la télévision nationale soit ainsi caporalisée et confisquée au profit de vos seuls défenseurs, sans contradiction aucune ? Vous qui écriviez qu’il fallait libérer la parole ?

Comment peut-on nous infantiliser à ce point ? En filtrant ce que nous regardons, ce que nous lisons ! La RTI nous projetait, il y a quelques jours un film montrant les atrocités au Rwanda, on y voyait comment les gens se faisaient découper froidement à la machette. Quel était le message de la RTI ? Était-ce une menace à peine voilée ? A l’endroit de qui ? Si ce malheur nous arrivait ne serions-nous pas tous logés à la même enseigne ? Vous accusez ONUCI FM d’incitation à la haine mais c’est la RTI qui aujourd’hui semble adopter une position qui rappelle fort celle des extrémiste Hutus de 1994 au Rwanda. Tous les torts sont attribués à un seul camp sans aucune possibilité de réplique et cela est dangereux pour la paix à laquelle nous aspirons.

Pensez-vous qu’il était opportun, avec cette diffusion, d’effrayer ainsi une population de Côte d’Ivoire déjà traumatisée par la situation actuelle ?

Les télévisons et radios étrangères nous sont interdites et pourtant c’est sur ces dernières que vos défenseurs s’expriment régulièrement. Pour qui nous prend-on ?

Monsieur le Président, je remets ma vie entre vos mains. Non je ne me sacrifie pas, non je ne veux pas mourir. Je veux tout simplement revendiquer mon droit de vivre dans une nation juste. Je ne veux pas mourir, ma vieille Maman, mes enfants et petits-enfants, tous ceux qui m’aiment et ont besoin de moi ne s’en remettraient pas, et d’avance je leur demande pardon pour cette décision….

Protégez-moi, protégez les enfants de Côte d’Ivoire, protégez-les tous puisque l’armée est à vos ordres.

Je prends le monde entier à témoin, je dis à mes amis du monde entier que je ne veux pas mourir et que demain, inch’Allah, je sortirai, en pleurant certainement, et en tremblant car j’ai en mémoire Mars 2004…. Mais je sortirai.

Fatou Keïta

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