The palm drops
on the inside
of the skin
animal drumming
beating on the drum
drumbeating the night
beating on the eardrum
drum drumming deeply
drawing the heartbeat drumbeat.
My body is the drumbeat
drumbeating my skin
sweating, hot,
drumbeating my body's
percussion, rub, snare,
pounding, colliding of
musical pulses
lyrical sinewy
or staccato modern
or wild shamanic
hair flying
free.
Red shiny satin clinging,
wet
sweat.
The djembe hip bag that I scrubbed, suede dyed to emulate Holstein cow naugahyde, in black and cream, with a wild boar bristle brush and saddle soap because of the dark streaks, smells of animal hide.
I hold it to my nose, and smell. Animal. Hide.
The drumming of the jungle.
An animal skin.
Taut.
Primal beat bounding
resonating, resounding.
You gaze at me, though you haven't looked at me.
I am in your gaze without your seeing me.
It is my hunger you remember feeding,
that you want to feed.
Our heat burns hotly.
Drumbeating
the rhythms beating in us,
the African djembes
dance us.
__________________________
Lately I've been dancing to fabulous drumming. I'd like to thank the drummers at Toronto Tam Tam at Xing Dance Theatre, Shara Claire at 5Rhythms™, Gary Diggins, and Kwanza Msingwana at Tribal at Dovercourt House in Toronto, all in the last 3 weeks.
As a lyrical poet, I use the I-Thou relationship often in my writing. The "you" is a muse and doesn't refer to anyone in particular...
Sheath of feeling. Words groping to touch air.
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I don't know from djembe, but those words feel like hands on drums to me. I like it.
ReplyDeleteI can't recall the post or when I saw it, but these words remind me of a post I have seen here with images of you moving about freely in a room with others, each dancing alone. If you know which post I mean, you will know if those images were taken while you were "drum dancing."
ReplyDeletea.decker, thank you - I've been working on this piece, its rhythms, for a few weeks... how to put the drumbeat into the words that are the body that is dancing to the drumbeat heartbeat. Not easy! If a little of it comes across, that's great... xo
ReplyDeletesky, yes, that's the type of dance, dancing more-or-less alone, unless we're doing contact dance, and not talking, and spring water to replenish. If you click on the Tribal in the acknowledgements above you'll go to Julia Ray's website and there's a link to the video she had taped in the Summer, of which she offers 3 short clips. That particular session didn't have any live musicians, but was DJ'd, but, yes, it's similar, same group, same type of 'moving meditation'/'creative movement' dance that's utterly free and unstructured... here's a lovely quote from Gabrielle Roth that expresses how it feels:
"The language of movement is rhythm. Rhythm is our mother tongue, and everything is moving in a beat, in a pulse, in a pattern, in a cycle, in a wave. I began to notice that as people surrendered to their dance, their soul became more visible. And when that energy was visible, one could see the patterns of rhythm that were natural to the soul. These five rhythms are Flowing, Staccato, Chaos, Lyrical, and Stillness. And each one is like a state of being."
Thanks for remembering~ Portland is full of wonderful dance, too. xo
very sensual, Brenda. I love it. Could really feel the drumbeats and the music.
ReplyDeleteI posted a spontaneous poem response..but accidentally deleted it in preview...then I rewrote it to the best of my memory.
ReplyDeleteI will post it to the presim group.
You do inspire me Brenda. I love your work.