Stipples
(whispered)
––
for
Carson
my
foot steps
where
your foot steps
step,
standing
on the hollows of
absence
but
sand song s-
pool
where our feet
sink, s-
tipling
hollows full, sof-
t,
heeled over
Kafunda
– for Tim
in attempting to enter the meanings of this word, i break it down,
into 2 small words ka & funda
i start w/ ka, a diminutive, to mean miniature, small, tittle,
pocket-like. w/ diminutives, inferring the affection and intimacy of cracks
small things ...
i move on to funda, which comes from o’kufundikira/ kufunika
to mean the tucked in, the secret, the mesh shrunked in, or out, the enveloped,
the shawl, the wrapped, the pouched, the folded, the shrouded, the tender
smalls w/in smalls, the open-out ––fungua
meaning engulfs in the kafunda, meaning in the kafunda is multiple
… a kafunda
thus unalterably becomes bufunda, inferring a multitude of kafunda.
the kafunda is many but one, petalled, ––origami.
english doesn’t do the kafunda’s plurals justice, english won’t do the
contours of these folds justice; the grafting of grammars is wrong–– for
english is exterior, superficial
i can only describe the kafunda imperceptibly as one would describe the folds
of lovers, their strange familiar open-out places. perhaps, one shouldn’t even
(have to) describe another’s folds? Which is to say, one should only experience
them amorously
in relation, abutting, rubbing, scraping, ruffling w/, into, and beside them
a lover’s or a friend’s folds needn’t say much either …not much
initiation is necessary. they simply relate. they fold out. they hold out,
teaching one how to avow unconditionally, in a tangling without presuppositions
like ears, they “gap” &
pull one’s unmouthable secrets, quietly, with-in. The folds of those we love
never ‘straightforwardly’ emerge, no; they are lightly waiting, wavering,
faltering, always lightly waiting patiently, ––ka. like a likkle smile.
all folds arc into the emergent, waiting open-out for relation (i.e., an
involvement from within/without) revealing crannies of hospitality, kindly on,
from the very beginning
the potentiality for this relation is always there, silent, inward,
in the cracks of pockets already there, priorly welcome, already there, defying
time, always here, exigent, errant, playful, defying boundaries, supplely
passing & returning, passively yet
intently, never without delay, creeping
insurgently also
in this sense, the kafunda (un)folds itself flexibly, paring space,
orbiting, as its own parabola, past, present and futural, up, down &
sideways s w
inging sweetly also
bodies (un)fold within the kafunda in similar motions. bodies become bufunda
… in similar ways, they
crease, past, present&futural-up, down and sideways, all so yieldingly.
they s
offly flounce, emplaced, through small parallel-surface divisions
of selves, flexibly, receptively, never without delay, stealthily, always
there, haptic
when pushed to a far edge, we find comfort in the fragile crests of
the kafunda,
where we open-out, negotiating entrapments, boundaries,
rims, dents, partitions, considering all the different skeins of the kafunda’s-bufunda
that embed us. at the same time, we shrink (calibrating the gaps of death - exhaling
breath, its rhythmic quaver … for shrinking/funda also implies the gap, the crevice, the aperture
of kufa/closure/the
crypt/the-ultimate-leap) considering the ever-changing open-out space that the kafunda’s-bufunda
occupies (yet gives/ closes away/ & RESISTS) when its forms
cling, when its skins gently touch
this open-out-&- shrink space involves some kind of intervallic
folding, it involves a double unveiling, a balletic bind … a stitching of an
enveloped body to its flaps of emerging enveloping selves. It is a pliable
secret inflected gesture of sharing [for the texture of sharing which is a texture of kindness -
is a topology of flapped folds – perhaps, this is why one ‘wraps’ a gift? -] that
owes an interconnectedness to other body-non-body-spirits in their peculiar
dispositions, contortions, & (non)formations …
i flutter, you flutter,
we flutter
in the open-out-&-shrink, bodies move, bodies weft, mesh mosh,
enmarsh, rift, raft, bodies collapse, bodies scaffold, bodies enjoy-n-in their
super-imposed multitudes upside-bottom to top. bodies break; their
hearts-nerve, their ii’s-unlid, their lip-hips-lop, slippery,
their straight-thighs-curve, their front-behinds-clasp, their
pleats-frock-&-prong (jolting, all in the pocket) rub-a-dub-dub
2gether
all manner of social-elasticities unfold together in the
open-out-&-shrink of the kafunda: consummations, contemplations, confessions,
exploitations, frolics, evections, contaminations, waverings, deaths, debts, mournings,
wreckings, worries, langourings, ablutions, absences, silences, lapses,
perhapses, songs, arrivals, departures, dances:
over & over,
in crossing over, i take-all-off and in-
fold ;
né ––
fundikira
perhaps, in attempting to describe the recursive open-out, i’ve
crinkled this fold way too far, and revealed way too much incomprehensibly
ach, the fold always shrinks !
and so, i must remember the kafunda’s microscopic smalls. i must remember its
ability to entice, pouch & gather me into the oblique unknown, into the
elsewhere of the open-out-&-shrink
but perhaps most importantly, i must always remember that i
(shan’t) fold alone, that i can(’t) fold alone; [in-2 my own interiority]
& i say yes, i must remember that to kufunda
is to wholeheartedly embrace the never subsumable open-out-&-shrink
Things
having
things is talk is having things talking
about
is to talk having things about is to partake in
things
having talk is things to talk about having
Petero Kalulé @nkoyenkoyenkoye is a
composer, poet, and multi-instrumentalist. Their collection of poems Kalimba
was published by Guillemot Press in May 2019.
