Kalypsoul: The Other Self: Tiptoe

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Tiptoe

TIP-TOE

It was BIG, too!
Not huge –
for folks like you,
but to me -
yes, siree!
More than we could ever fill
And I was thrilled,
so thrilled that we
had to agree to. . .

Tip-toe, tip-toe gingerly
around his-story
in order to be.. .

divest myself urgently
of all that delineated me
shave head clean, for sure
change of nomenclature,
kill that mother twang,
forget all the latest slang
purify my very skin
from the likes of kith and kin,
ropa nueva was the price
acceptance of another Christ.

And it was clean
And so so green,
the kind you see
in fantasy
and envy’s eyes
romanticize.
And spot-out free.

And Yet . . .

Almost instantly,
engulfing me,
encapsulatingly,
enclosing mean Sargasso slime
pilfering rhythm and rhyme
force-feeding frenzy
gurgling gutter- a- lly.
Such indecent brevity
luna de miel sin honeybee.

Everywhere
A thousand sneers
grubby hands dart and dare
to sully this
unforced pair
of wistful bliss.
Mango pulp lips,
To caress and kiss.
And finally to slip
juicy ripened joyousness
onto warm expectant tongue.
Waiting too damn long. . .

But not raped uncut
from milky teat,
wasted life
on darkened street.
Rough shod in charge
on gutted stones –
with bruising,
unforgiving tones.

Tip-toe tip-toe silently
Even surreptitiously
Around, about, and in-between,
Safe from Mr Squeaky Clean.
No shut eye, no rock-back rest
No put’ em up, no lean-back fest
Must see the risen sun.

So I
had to just
up and run.
No backward gaze.
No time to laze
No shoes, no cardigan,
and such.
No contact lens, no keys, no watch
Under the gun,
Just had to run.

Until I
could breathe the air
of just one damn day without fear.
In country lane
And fluted panes
of tender scenes
and evergreen
where fairy queen
and lovers preen
adoringly.

Isn’t it fun-ny
how ‘tread carefully’
becomes
redundancy
when. . .
at last. . .
you are
FREE?

©Kalypsoul
05.06.07

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The Way I Use Language

Author’s Note: Codeflow

You will find that I have started to experiment with movement in communication referencing (in speech and thought patterns) from dialect to standard that is neither unidirectional nor formulaic. This is deliberate. The style used here is my experimentation with what I call code-flow. I find myself writing the way I speak – in a comfortable, fluid mixture of standard and dialect, often within the same sentence, the same thought. It is what we Caribbean people do in uncontrived everyday speech. It is not code-shifting with which the literary world is familiar. Code-switching or code- shifting tends to follow a certain pattern, dialect for speech and standard for description and narration as has been traditionally used in Caribbean fiction. I am taking it a step further, letting dialect flow into standard and back again in both dialogue and narration/description, mingling together in the same sentence, the same thought. To me this shows the true fluidity/reality of how we operate linguistically in everyday life. We do not think in standard English and converse in Trini dialect; we think in both and speak in both but not all the same time. I may begin a thought in the standard received form but suddenly I want to express surprise, hilarity, indignation, outrage and the standard does not have the right words. I flow effortlessly to that in which I can express those thought, those ideas, those sentiments most comfortably. I express them and, depending on what I wish to reference next, I either move back to standard, stay where I am or move deeper into another dialect comfort zone. I may say it in French Patois or Cocoa Panyol or a dialect of Hindi or of English or I may use a uniquely West African turn of phrase or grammatical construct or express m thoughts in a totally creative word or expression known only to my country or one group or individual within. Language gets created through use and new words and expressions all have a very specific starting point.

Code switching is an improvement on the outright rejection of the use of dialect as having no place in the written word or in Caribbean literature. It also differs from the outright rejection of the standard as a form of linguistic resistance to colonialism. Yet, code switching is a colonized, conformist mode that, in spite of itself, accepts the superiority of the standard and makes apologies for dialect by restricting its use only to direct speech. It reflects the pedagogy of colonial education which polarized the acceptable standard of the reading books and the classroom from the unacceptable dialect of everyday use by everyday people. It was a time when the whip was applied to purge the tendency towards dialect use in respectable settings.

Code sliding attempts a more integral blending of the two and brings together a variety of Caribbean dialects in one form. It moves in the direction of defining a distinct and decolonized Caribbean identity in the aftermath of colonialism. The term code-sliding, however, implies for me a lack of control, a downward sort of slippery slope movement, and a built-in acceptance of linguistic hierarchies. Instead I advance the concept of code-flow which conveys the sense of non-hierarchical fluidity and an effortlessness that defines acceptance of a unique identity in the context of postmodernity rather than deliberate conscious resistance in the context of coloniality or postcoloniality. It speaks of creativity, reinterpretation and transformation. The smooth fluidity of language that melds the standard with dialect in a thought, in a phrase, in a sentence, shows not so much a rejection of historic influences but an acceptance of the new self, the birth of a Caribbean identity in which colonialism and an ethos defined by resistance to it are merely blurred distant memories. Caribbean code-flow essentially involves and emerges from an unequivocal acceptance of all aspects of a new self: Africa, Europe, India and Mesoamerica, all integral to the new identity through reinterpretation and transformation. It is méstissajé, creolité, unrepentant.