and how do you warm

and how do you warm when you alone

By Asili Ya Nadhiri

what do you do when you alone and scared

cold there wait'n

you wait'n there by yourself

do you grab for those others

there just like you

trying to come all you can

'fore it time to go home

or do you hypnotize your eyes

in them little bitty dream lies

trying to run away from there

just as far as you can

or do you try and learn the names

and hold the tails of them things

when you strolling in there

on them slippery dirt paths

with moons and coons and soft spooned tunes

locking doors you pretending

to make believe faces

throwing bottles you breaking glass

for the sound splattering there

against the silence

of dry and empty spaces

begging for a corner

you in there somewhere

spinning 'round in dark and bubbular places

or do you just keep pausing while you running

spitting and cussing at them there too

'cause they looking and smelling

they there just like you

doing all you know how

just trying to make it go away

* * * * *

Source: Asili Ya Nadhiri. The Inner Recesses of an Abandoning Life: Tonal Drawings Written in Poetic Form. 2004

The language and rhythm of African people have been an obsession throughout my life. I can still vividly remember the heavy syrupy dialect that impregnated my ears as a small boy, the hypnotic rhythmning of the body movements of African people that continue to sang to me, and the depth of the wellsprings silently stirring inside the language forged in the North American experience of African people. By means of my tonal drawings, I am trying to actualize this experience-ing for the benefit of us all.

I am Asili Ya Nadhiri, born on August 29, 1944 in Durham, North Carolina and raised in a small tobacco town named Clinton, North Carolina. My undergraduate education took place at Hampton Institute and Ithaca College, Masters at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, and ABD (all but dissertation) at the University of Florida in Gainesville. I have been an instructor of vocational agriculture in the Orange County Public School System (Orlando, Florida) for the past twenty one years.

New book entitled the inner recesses of an abandoning life by Asili Ya Nadhiri available. For an excerpt and purchase visit www.hummdrummsung.com

A CD is inside the back cover of the book entitled the inner recesses of an abandoning life; and a cassette tape accompanies the book entitled HUMMING DRUMMM SUNG in soft pedal tones. Nadhiri Writesasil@aol.com