HAITI: 1.2010
"Preamble":
humanity tense
send condolences as
tears in words console Haiti
Part I:
burp! BURRP!
EarthquUUUAKE!
cosmic constipation!
AMEN!
Sirens, screams,
quakes commence!
in Pòtoprens
both nature and life
now struggle to survive!
in Pòtoprens –
crushing ceilings
on citizens wailing!
in Pòtoprens –
crushing ghetto floors
below fast feet falling!
Clang!-Crash!
crackle-cough
dying radio studios!
petrified
chihuahua puppies
in châteaux coffins!
howling omens
under a chapel bell,
an owl in a Haitian night!
"Run!"
UNO listening
Haiti on the line!
Part II:
Pupils of Hope
on eyes of global media,
a universal idea of Haiti
iron noise
man-made whirlwinds,
rescue from the world
delirium
duvet of fine dust,
digging steel claws
blood sweat
taut black skins
greasy green gangrene
ascending
an odour of death,
diseases, descending
a tanning face
behind a surgeon’s mask
a mask of humanity
sunshine rays
patients on canvas
pain fenced in patience
baby doc
a cheque of euros
the past in atonement?
Haiti peers up
her future she sees now
not her own history.
planet in midlife
crises on her creasing face –
explanation of earthquakes?
"Postamble":
oblivious,
the planet marathons
on the path of Earths
In Memory of Mbella Sonne Dipoko
(1936-2009)
old murram roads of rural Cameroon
vibrate with voices of vibrant feet
as dirge drums thunder with abandon.
the vibrations mimic the ejaculation
of two bodies of young secret lovers
when their intertwined hearts in love
finally succumb to the beasts in Man
and nature again vanquishes culture.
new rumours are rife that a Mungo mask
is on the ascent and so too totem ghosts,
female bats and termites and she-spirits,
and a rich riverine scent of fresh rains.
The feet thuds now thunder ever so closer,
and rains in teardrops now flow so freely.
enter the mind-hut of this mask of verse.
behold how his virile adventurous tenants
join the fertility of their free fantasies
to exercise their sexualities and ecstasies
in their fictional existence on his Earth
and behold what free beauty exists in sex.
let new copulation songs and earthy poetry
move now in lines of intimacy and imagery
to compose for us a final dirge for Dipoko
as his naked soul ascends amidst tomtoms
above the equatorial virginity of his land
as his body now unites with his bed of Fate
Brutus, Fare On With Hope
(Whisper: for Dennis Brutus)
now that you too have departed, Brutus
now that you too have travelled, Brutus,
the invisible islands in the ocean of space
are poised once more to get earth tidings
from this far flung corner of our universe.
(silence)
free souls that swim in the void of space
towards their assigned fate and stations
to inhabit places known only after death:
the various alien tenants of our universe
await you and the tidings that you bear.
(silence)
to yonder all verse, science and religion
where the owners of both life and death
govern the motions of souls and cosmos,
your soul now makes its outward journey.
let this last trip be full of hope from earth.
(silence)
Brutus, go now forth bravely on the path
of your soul's destination and as you glide
from us towards this orbit charted by Fate
for you, let your soul stare not earthwards
you are a poem of hope from earth to them.
(silence)
beyond this earth and its companion moon
beyond neighbour Mars and the Asteroids
beyond our gas neighbours farther afield
beyond this familiar Solar neighbourhood
bear, Brutus, the hope of humanity today.
(silence)
there will be the loneliness of space and its cold
there will be the longing for our familiar humanity
there will be the desire to turn like Lot's own wife
there will be the fear of sailing to your own fate
hold hold on to the same hope you passed to us.
(silence)
and even as you overtake the twin Voyagers
on their outward journey to their own destiny
inform them we remember them as we will you
and as these two bear messages from humanity
so do you now for those who await our tidings.
(silence)
on those invisible islands that you will find rest
as you revitalise yourself on your journey away
Brutus, offer those beings of these alien worlds
the verses of hope that govern mankind today,
cite Gandhi, King Jnr, Mandela, Kyi and Obama.
(silence)
Brutus, you are our own gift of verse giving
sense to human struggles of the last century
and let then your soul fill them with our hope,
offer it too to wayfarers of various dimensions
and realms and the beings who you will accost.
(silence)
they may find your verse both alien and unreal
for they will have heard of your protest poetry.
they may find your verse both alien and unreal
for maybe they still believe we love world wars.
tell them that it is peace we now seek in 21st C.
(silence)
and when you complete your time in revolution
around the vast black void in our galactic center
and off you spring from the Milky Way and away
you sail on past various galaxies near and far,
know, Brutus, hope is the verse that fuels Man.
(Shout: Brutus, Fare On With Hope!)
Harambee
A hoe on a blank banner not the nationalist flag
full of memorial symbolism without meaning
may bring to doom the spirits of national angst
in our motherland.
A hoe on a blank banner in villages and towns
lets us think about a new nationalism
that may bring to us the lost republic
of our motherland.
A hoe on a blank banner is an omen of peace
let our iron foster not seasons of anomy
but bring the farms back from the bushes
in our motherland.
A hoe on a blank banner is a sign of Harambee
let labour and not war be the union-force
that brings deliverance from the dissimilitudes
of our motherland.
A hoe on a blank banner is a symbol of love
let the various sacrifices in our daily lives
bring us together in a ritual for redemptions
in our motherland.
A hoe on a blank banner is an icon of unity
let the union of textile, wood and metal
bring us to the quested pluri-ethnic Utopia
of our motherland.
A hoe on a blank banner in hamlets and hearts
lets us plant a new nationalism-in-diversity
bringing us harvests out of all identity fields
in our motherland.
JKS Makokha (b.1979) is a Kenyan writer living in Berlin, Germany. He is the author of Reading M.G. Vassanji: A Contextual Approach to Asian African Fiction (2009) and co-editor of a new volume on African literary criticism, Negotiating Afropolitanism: Essays on Borders and Spaces in Contemporary African Literature and Folklore (2010) with Jennifer Wawrzinek. His poetry has been published in journals such as Atonal Poetry Review, African Writing, The Journal of New Poetry, Postcolonial Text and Stylus Poetry Journal.
Photo: Courtesy (AP Photo/Ricardo Arduengo)
Comments