'Just Another Windrushed Lonely Londoner Pun A One-Drop Riddim'

September 26, 2009


People in London are very odd when you encounter them on the street. They don't look others in the face; neither do they look directly down at their feet. They seem to look at an imaginary point on the sidewalk about two metres ahead of them. The number of times that this practice has nearly caused me to collide with another pedestrian are now countless in the few weeks that I have been in this country. I have also fallen into the practice of the hurried walk - had no choice - needed to avoid being run over by the moving masses.



So imagine me, Person A, scurrying along the sidewalk like some beach crab back in Bim, on the same path as Person B, foot catching a-fire from the opposite direction. The point of our potential intersection (and no doubt injury) I shall call 'C'. The onus is invaribly on me, the combatant with head upright and eyes face-front to stop just short of Point C. I screech to a halt, soles burning and heels smoking and avoid unnecessary stress layered on top of my already full day like excess cheese pun macaroni pie-top. Cahn remember when last my stomach allowed me to eat some o' dah. I digress - ammmmmm, oh! Right! So I stop short, de foolish so-and-so looks up alarmed and may or may not apologise and proceeds onwards by sidestepping me. Stuuppsse!!!



I just whip out my earphones, locate de Junior Gong pun my phone music player, lock in a riddim and blast off. Sunglasses on (regardless of light conditions), put a little bounce in my step to make de locs move in time to de tune and speed up. Somehow fewer people seem to get in my way when I am mouthing 'Welcome to Jamrock' with dreads flying.



Shawn Adderson Forde

London Odyssey '09

Consett Bay

I too
Wanted to Experience
That interminable agony
That they felt
So I sat,
And sat...
And pondered
How does one measure?
Is it in years?
Seasons?
Congealed blood, salt-less tears,
Or wrenched intestines
Forming an unbroken link across
The belly of the Atlantic?

I followed their gaze
And saw what they saw,
I hoped
Lived and breathed and laughed
As they
Inhaled and Exhaled
And learnt,
I thought.
Listened and listened…

As sunlight and shadow chased their tails
Over crest and trough
At my fingertips
And over Hills and valleys
In the distance
Early one clear, sparkling morning
That God had truly made one of the gems
In his crown
I heard and saw and felt and smelled
All that creation had ever known

It was then I knew
What they had
Intuitively perceived from boyhood
The sun adjusted his grip
And pulled himself up over
Another horizon
A lone migratory bird
Of unknown species
Deafened the silence in an operatic warm-up
It came on the wind
Cool and clear
Sweet to my understanding

Of myself as well

I knew.
Smiled in my complicity:
Bowed head and aching back
Returned to the present task
Of mending the dream-catcher’s aspirations.