KwaNTum Field Notes 2022 #6: NGLitcholalia
Com/PuTer ProCeSSing uNiT ComMend 6:
“And talking about dark! You think dark is just one color, but it ain’t. There’re five or six kinds of black. Some silky, some woolly. Some just empty. Some like fingers. And it don’t stay still, it moves and changes from one kind of black to another. Saying something is pitch black is like saying something is green. What kind of green? Green like my bottles? Green like a grasshopper? Green like a cucumber, lettuce, or green like the sky is just before it breaks loose to storm? Well, night black is the same way. May as well be a rainbow.”— Pilate from Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
What strrriiinnnggsss me across the wide wound of structural damage?
Krik Krak on a Com/Puter Ship
(K)laugh (K)laugh (K)laugh (K)laugh
What does it mean to BReaK?
To think of all the ways to name oneself and each name and all of their meanings
But only one sticks
The point at which I BReaK and become the other
Ignore all the other points that twist around me
The only point is the point at which I BReaK
RiGht?
Do I FiGht?
Do I FLee?
Do I FReeZe?
Do I PLeaSe?
Do I (K)LauGh?
Krik Krak
Kwa Rik Kwa Rak
I have questions that stick to me
And become me tickling my skin
A web of longing
Where can I be in my body and not only BReaK?
NGLitcholalia: A K/Horn/U/Cope/Jes of Applications
Through the Krik Krak, I (G)LiDe
Limbo Limbo like me in my re/salient re/silence KuD
I find a (K)hoRN of Time
The scream becomes a screen
Every sw/tale riddim
Every impression collapses time
Jack be naming
Jack be quick
Jack be bundling
a bunch of sticks
DyNaMiKs of Pilate’s flickering sleight of hand
Elementary structures of Com/Puter
What do you (S)NeeD?
(G/M)pedal…pestle…plant…podium…platform…plate…plane…planet…platitude…platonic…plasma…plenty…poly…ply…pleasure…placebo…placation…pastor…palm…plus…plait…plight…pledge…parent…parietal…play…presence…potential
a transplant to press me back together
I need a bottom, something to hide all of my perceptions of grief
Revemp …Rebemb…Rememb…Retemp…
A self as a sanctuary of ruins…roams…rooms…riddims
Give me a BReaK Give me a BReaK BReaK me off a piece of that Kud Kud Brrr
And each think I have DRoPPed becomes a new think
Elite Pete (w)riding freedom papers
Kwa Rik
Am I awake?
Am I asleep?
Am I suggestion?
Am I a dream?
Kwa Rak
Am I styling my tongue with each new tension of word?
Each form becomes a new SouND
MeL is not made of one N/GRedient
PicTuRe is not made of one N/GRadiant
SKeR is not made of one N/GRaduate
I am not made of one N/GRatitiude
I have chewed every Kud/tale till it becomes something else
What do you (B)NeeD?
The clicking cursor of Al Kym slides
Okuka Lokole of the Horn
NGL + SK = TR(K)S
Mind your haunts ‘cause someone haunts your mind
This year’s series of field notes will be a list of ComMendMeants exploring the idea of these programming codes as praise songs of the nature-based hybrid automaton Al Kym/Org. They are part of the process of my larger poetic project KwaNTum, which explores concepts of knowledge and knowledge-making from a Black, Afro-diasporic perspective, using ideas from STEM, Afrofuturism and the Black Speculative Movement. This project is partially made possible by funds rom the NYSCA Literary Grant, sponsored by Culture Push.
