NEVER GONNA QUIT!

NEVER GONNA QUIT!

A man calling himself AHusbandsman1on1 went online and posted this ad on several social media sites.  The ad was eventually removed after it became the focus of a great deal of controversy:

“I am a handsome, intelligent and successful Black professional who is looking for a husband.  I can work with a brotha on the husband thing, but I need you to know that is where I’m heading if we start a relationship.  Right now I’m not going to make any special requests of my future husband, I just want to see who responds, what they respond with and take it from there!  I am not making any promises to anyone right now except that if you sound, look and feel like somebody I think would be right for me I will devote my undivided attention to you in the hope that we might discover something truly remarkable.  I ask that you send your name, general location, list your favorite thing to do (honestly), and leave your cellular number with a time that you can best be reached.  If I do not respond within 12 hours of your post please continue living a beautiful life.  If I respond within minutes please be ready to at least receive a call so I can hear your voice”. 

PS… just let me convince you that I will make an excellent partner and husband for you and I promise you will not live to regret it!

Sincerely,

AHusbandsman1&1

The man known only as AHusbandsman1on1  woke up early one morning and realized that he was growing old and lonely.  He feared that if he did not cultivate the relationship that would one day lead to the companionship which would see him through to the end of his days he would die a bitter and disappointed man.  AHusbandsman1on1 had so much to offer the world, everyone who knew him said he was a true renaissance man but he knew that the world was not currently or presently having a renaissance, everybody was just trying to survive to the next goddamed second of the next goddamed minute of the next goddamed hour of the next goddamed day… Notwithstanding the shortcomings of the world he had managed to somehow exist outside of, he was really a grand old gentleman.

AHusbandsman1on1 trembled as he watched the posting affix itself to the expressionless membrane of his computer screen watching as the prompt populated in the form of a cartoon bubble, saying, “your message was successfully posted”! He had not been quite that excited about anything for as long as he could remember.  It was at that instant that the gravity of his desperation really hit him, he realized it was purely likely he might not ever get a response.  He referenced the clock at the lower right corner of his computer, it was 2:00 A.M.  For the first five minutes after posting he stared at the dumb glow of the unchanging screen daring it to notify hi of a response… but the screen just glared back at him emptily and began to go into sleep mode.  It was as if the screen refused to validate the shimmer of hopefulness which had ignited the purpose of his very being.  About 4:00 A.M.  the room began to light up  with virtual feedback from AHusbandsman’s cellular phone.  He had programmed his email address to play, “Never Gonna Give You Up” by Barry White when a new email hit his in-box.  The computer, which had also been programmed with this feature, began to echo his phone.  The room was awash with competing bursts of Never Gonna Give You Up at different points of execution but he lay motionless sleeping through the entire cacophony of thrill. 

A week later AHusbandsman1on1 was found dead in his small apartment.  There were no relatives to manage his affairs and he laid in the morgue until money was raised by some residents of his apartment building to have him humbly funeralized by manner of cremation.  One neighbor remembering he was not religious decided to hold his memorial services in her living room and after the ceremony she poured some votive essence of his ashes into the terra-cotta pots of the flowers on her balcony.  Her balcony which was really nothing more than a fire escape was where they would sit and talk about life but often they just sat noiselessly listening to the resonance of the outside world as it riveted off the walls of the narrow alley into which the fire escape encroached.  AHusbandsman1on1 had loved her plants many of which he had given to her over the years.  Before his belongings were removed to be set out on the sidewalk as if AHusbandsman1on1 had been evicted she confiscated his plants, noticing the landlord had left the door unsecured, and set them beside her own..  And there the plants flourished until she died five years and seven months, ten hours and  fifteen minutes, twenty-two seconds later…  

Written By David Vollin

REMOVING THE OLD SLAVE CEMETERY

“There used to be an old colored slave cemetery in Arlington Virginia at the terminus of the “Pike” but it was dug up in the early 1970’s to make way for a new hotel.  Many of my ancestors were buried there it being one of the few cemeteries for colored folk in the area.  Nobody knows what happened to the remains of those men and women…” D. Vollin

There used to be an old colored cemetery there,

Underneath the waist-high weeds… the empty eye-sockets of slaves,

looked up to the heavens from their graves,

though no reference remained to mark just where.

So long that field had lain without ceremony or gathering,

whilst poke weed climbed and quickly ripened in the spring,

when its sanguine berries swayed on withered stalks as the land was autumning,

and when the smooth snow leveled it, hiding it away from reckoning.

O’er time I imagine that every plot had been filled,

It being the only place around for burying the colored dead,

the land climbed a steep embankment flattening as the slope came to a level head,

but remained untended by the colored folk still living near that hill.

When time remembered where my father’s lay,

it knew their families had not died out or moved away,

we all watched as the green hillside was cut down deep beneath the clay,

so the wheels of progress could have their way.

By David Vollin

GALLERY OF RELATED IMAGES

I HAD TOUCHED THE FACE OF SLAVERY…

I HAD TOUCHED THE FACE OF SLAVERY…

Yesterday I took a trip back into history.  I visited three Virginia Plantations upon which Black men and women were enslaved from the eighteenth to the nineteenth centuries, nearly 200 years.  As I approached the grounds as a free and enlightened Black man I realized countless of my ancestors had trod the same steps from birth till death without any hope of escape.  Today we have no idea how they were actually treated, but as certain things emerge from the dust we catch a glimpse of the perverse hatred and mistrust that surely existed between slave and master.   One example was a relic plate used for slaves to serve their masters because it was considered to be socially degrading for a white person to take a cup or a glass, a book or pen or anything directly from the hand of a Black person or slave.  Yet in striking contradiction Black women were trained as midwives to deliver the offspring of their masters in one of the most personal and intimate rituals known to man, childbirth.  Such instances fully expose the superficiality of classism and racism.  The absurdity of such a practise is again exemplified by the fact that Black slaves prepared the food by hand having first grown and harvested it by hand only to serve it in its final form on a silver tray to create the ridiculous appearance that it had not had contact with a Black person and that there had not been any actual physical contact between slave and master in the merest of things such as the handing a drink of water from one person to another.  While musing over these and other peculiarities I was reminded of the hilarious British comedy, “Keeping Up Appearances” wherein the main character, Hyacinth, is eternally obsessed with the public affirmation of a her fantasized nobility.  The zaniness of Hyacinth’s pretension is justly mirrored here save that it is not just a harmless sitcom it actually played itself out in the enslavement and degradation of millions upon millions of men women and children.  In order to understand and appreciate slavery for the horror that it truly was one has to be able to measure it against simple, rational and ethical standards.  Simply because these were the established standards of the day does not absolve them from being wicked and evil practices because the standards of human dignity are universal and this is precisely why slavery was abolished with the American Civil War.  In simple, common terminology racism is “Doing Too-Much”!  Racism goes all the way across town and back to do something rather than just reaching out and doing it in a few seconds.  Racism expends unjustified resources in order to appear to prove a point that really does not exist.  Racism is all smoke and mirrors, hocus pocus, a mindfuck, a hoax a scam!  But when I think of the countless lives that were wasted just to prove a point that was never valid I cry tears of pain and sorrow. 

Visitation of America’s Plantations by Black Americans is a necessary pilgrimage that will serve to cleanse our hearts and souls of racism by bringing us full circle, face to face with the dirty, unfiltered truth.  Only time can hide the outrageous atrocities witnessed by these silent temples of inhumanity now calm and soft in the brilliant sun.  The stocks and whipping posts are long since rotted in the moist southern air, trees bearing the whips lashing are felled or dead.  Every eye that witnessed the horrors of slavery and every tongue that might have told its nightmarish stories has long since died and been buried in the wet sanguine clay.  What we now have to rely on for understanding are our instincts as human beings.  When we see the harsh relics of slavery no matter how gold or silver gilt they might be we see a mortal struggle between master and slave crushing and extinguishing any hope of dignity or freedom in Black people, a despicable war in which any means necessary to subdue a person of color was ethical.  When I return to those hallowed grounds, hallowed by the pain and sacrifice of Black slaves and I will return, I will do so to properly mourn them.  I will touch the face of the living earth and knowing that my ancestors remains are lying someplace beneath my feet I will touch my heart and then reach up into the sky to symbolically release them, a gesture I know is merely a personal sign of humility and understanding designed more so to free my own mind for surely they have already been set free by death itself…

Written by David Vollin

A BLACK AMERICAN MAN’S THOUGHTS ON THE 4TH OF JULY…

A BLACK AMERICAN MAN’S THOUGHTS ON THE 4^TH OF JULY…

The fourth of July is always a bittersweet day to me.  On July 4^th, 1776 Black people were effectively written out of the great socioeconomic promise of this country.  It took Black Americans 188 years to finally change turn the nation’s policy in the direction of their favor, an accomplishment earned with the most intensive of struggle… 

I like to believe that the founding fathers, enlightened as they were, embedded the kernels of freedom in the Declaration of Independence knowing that one day the hidden argument for freedom would finally be successfully argued.  But that is at best a poetic leap of faith, a romanticized maybe because at the end of the day it was only through struggle that freedom was finally achieved.  On July 4, 1776 the founding fathers opined not to invest in an historic opportunity to thoroughly realise their vision of freedom including their brothers in struggle who had fought beside them during the difficult American Revolutionary War, turning their backs on the Black American man.

Emancipation day appears to be a more appropriate time for Black Americans to join in celebration, with food, fellowship and colorful incendiaries… Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, John Brown and other activists rather than the founding fathers appear to be the appropriate icons for those votaries of freedom who trace their ancestry back to free African slaves stolen from their homes and civilizations and thrust into a hellish cycle of fear and inhuman brutality.  The sociopathic nature that characterized the enforcement methods of institutionalized enslavement continue to affect the psyche of Black Americans traumatized by centuries of abuse.  Likewise, the insanity and pathology typified by those who enforced institutionalized slavery upon innocent men, women and children continues to haunt the psyche of white Americans who must divorce themselves from the sociopathic traditions of racism.  Emancipation Day completes the bright but underdeveloped promise of July 4^th 1776 as does the Civil rights Acts of 1964 and 1968 bringing true freedom in America full circle... 

To a Black American man who is enlightened the fourth of July is represents a critical date in the evolution of human freedom, the culmination of centuries of social debate and evolution known as the Enlightenment but yet another stumbling block for the Black man in his continued struggle for freedom and equality in a land he has now earned the right to call home…

Written by David Vollin on July 4^th, 2013

HOUSE OF CARDS…

HOUSE OF CARDS…

When we met it was as if I was finally getting to know someone who might at least end up being a dependable friend.  Though our differences were pronounced I perceived that we had the maturity to balance our philosophical differences.  So we talked and talked and talked until we had virtually run through every possible scenario in our mutual lives but of course this was just the groundwork… nothing had been built, we were still in the conceptual design phases of our association.

We knew there were some challenges to our association but after a couple of years we revisited our interests and the very first layer of structure had got erected.  It was a delicate balance at best, we were wholly unfamiliar with one another so we had to literally hold the cards in place so that the occasional breezes and bumps of the table, the wind caused by casual passers’ by, etc., would not disturb what we had so patiently built.

It was a promising enterprise; we had developed a philosophical connection and a sexual sophistication that allowed us to construct additional levels above the ground floor of our relationship of cards.  The weight of each new level acted as ballast to hold the lower levels in place but the lateral forces pushing our eloquent but delicate structure ever so gently and at times with brutal strength threatened to overturn everything we had invested in.  Notwithstanding, it was still only a skeletal structure, a flimsy edifice composed of the singular paper cards.  Each card was an element of critical importance in our relationship but the only cement binding them together was the gravity of our compassion and desire to come together. If one of us let go the house of cards, vulnerable, would collapse leaving all we had painstakingly built in ruin.

We never had a chance to complete the wonderful edifice we conceived, only its skeletal frame, a wish, a desire, a dream but one utterly unfulfilled.  I never did figure out why you left the structure incomplete but I thought about an ancient building left by a civilisation that mysteriously disappeared in Pre-Colombian Latin America and I thought about a fabulous temple in ancient Khemet that had been revolutionary for its time but lay incomplete and ruined for thousands of years.  We never got to enclose our structure with any skin, there was no façade and no roof, no foundation, no interior rooms, all bare all empty all unfinished!  So as I looked through the fragile house of cards I realized it was now doomed to failure, it would inevitably fall and in time be utterly forgot… I realized then that what we had built was not love… it was only a house of cards…

Written by D. Vollin

THAINK’N BOUT DHEY WHARH…

THAINK’N BOUT DHEY WHARH…

SHUGUHFOOT:  I rekun’s whin we’z free I’s gown lay dhaun an sleep fowuh nigh own two year’n fo I’s gown git t’uh do’n any’thin.  Weyeh I’s spek dhat cotton gown grow so while an high cuz ain nobodheh gown be dheyah t’uh kut am dowhn.  I don spek dhem wheyeiht fowks gown  wont t’uh do no nigguh’s  wohwk, heyell I’s spek’s dhey jes sell’s d’uh fawm ow jes leave’s it  t’uh us nig’ruhs t’uh run whilst d’hey’s a sit’n pruddey en d’hey ciddehy…

FISHEHEAD:  Naw! You’z got t’et towl wrong deyah Shuguhfoot! Dhem wheyeiht debuhs ain nev’uh gown let no nig’ruhs git naw ress while dehyess aw sun n’ deyh sky!  Is think’n bout a take’n up wit dhem fed-rhets dhen a slip’n owf t’uh dehy uthuh side an when dhey whup dees rehbuls ass I’s a gown bak up nowth wit dhem.  Ain nuf’n  for no nigguh en dheese pawhts… ain nevuh been n’ ain nevuh gown be’s I says.

SHUGUHFOOT:  Wit chew dhenk dhem wheyeiht fowks wun wid chew? Wheyen dhey leave’s t’uh go home dhey’s a leave’n y’awl heyuh t’uh fix up dhis got-dayum mess!  Dhey ain brang’n dhey lhikes uh yoo t’uh fuk dhey dowtah’s an drank dhey beer!  An dhey ain got naw cott’n up dheyah neer t’ubaccah evah.  Awl dhey got’s es sum ole farms wit t’cup’le uh ole caaw’s n’ ghowt’s, nuff’n dhey could’n do bye dhey selfs.  You is bet owf dhawn hurr wheyah you’s know how t’uh make a liv’n hones n’uff.

FISHEAD:  I swarnee you’z wuz awlway a got-dayum slave nigguh think’n son of uh!  I’d send’s you a telegram dhown frum up nowth but I’s spek yo dum ass caint evun read it when’t comes!  I rekun you’z bes come with me cuz dhey ain got no use fo no lazy nigguh lhike  y’awl dhoun heyah no mo.  An dhey ain got no use fo y’awl up dheyah neithaw.  Y’all jes come wid me cuz ain nobody stud’n own no crops rhiyt naw, dhey’s awl get’n ret for dhis heyuh wharh. 

SHUGUFOOT:  Hell I ain fitt’n t’uh get maw heyhd bow’d owff n’ no wharh wit chew!  I spek I jes wait rhyht hurr till dhem Yankees burn dhis shit rhiyet dhown t’uh dehy grouwn.  Naw I’s spek dhese wheyeit fowks ain gown jes a let me wolk own out uh hurr but I’s sure gown try! An I rekon I’s gow’n out wess wheyeh dhey ain nevuh had no slav’ry out dheyah a’towl. 

FISHEAD:  Wheyeh Sugufoot, we’s still got’s sum thyme yet de souwf ain fowl’n yet so I spek we’z stiyeh gowt thime t’uh think bout t’it t’owl.

SUGUFOOT:  Wheyeh Fishead, I spek you’z a rhyht  bout dhat dheyah.  Pass dhat moonshine main I spek we’s got sum drink’n t’uh doo too tiyeh we has t’uh make up ow mines wit we gown do. 

FISHEAD:  Hey dheyah Sugafoot! Naw what dhat I sees ovuh yonduh, look lhyke uh Yankee uniform if’n I’s evuh has seed one! 

SUGUFOOT:  Fishead yo awnry ass nigguh, dheys duce if’n I’s a day owld and I’s spek dheys gown fit us bowth purt’n nice…

FIN

WRITTEN BY D. VOLLIN

A MA’YHEN K’AWL’D MOSES…

A  MA’YHEN  K’AWL’D  MOSES…

Mauh peepull’s is lookun fouwh uh maihn kawl’d moses kuz dhaiy’s towl’d,

he gow’n seiyh’t dhem freeh jes lhik’n he did freeh deyhm slay’vs uh owld,

deyh’s wheyet’n fouwh him t’kum dhahwn fru’m dhey mount’n top whilst dhey sins,

cuz mauh peepull’s dhink he gow’n make air’y dheng rhiya’t a’ghen,

an lauwud, dhat’s whie dhey’s so easy t’uh lay down dehy air’y caiyeh,

fo awl dhem fas towlk’n preashuh’s look’n lhyke uh blaihkh jesu’s wit guwedd hey’ah,

mauh peepull’s ain got noe am-bisheyn t’uh taik no mayet’ah en dhey’s ouwn hayens,

dhey’s jess a’wheyet’n t’uh bee’s dhey-leyah-vuh’ed bie dhey lauwud’s choe-sin ma’yhen,

but I ain’t a’look’en t’uhwawed’s nobodhey’s bhet me,

t’eh sayuvh mauh sowle an set mauh speer’it freeyh,

mauh feet’s ain dayun’sin t’uh noe diddeh play’ed bh’ie n’aireyh udduh com-p’oe-suhs,

an aiye ain ghat no thyme t’uh wheyet’n own a ma’yhen kawl’d moses…

FIN

Written by Bigdaddyblues aka David Vollin

www.thestoriesofblackmen.blogspot.com