{"id":80,"date":"2016-06-25T03:04:55","date_gmt":"2016-06-25T03:04:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mtls.wpcenter.io\/staging\/?p=80"},"modified":"2026-10-14T16:02:30","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T16:02:30","slug":"poetry-george-elliott-clarke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue21\/poetry-george-elliott-clarke\/","title":{"rendered":"George Elliott Clarke"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

 <\/em><\/strong>Othello Eyes Desdemona<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

A soft, luminous body shouldn\u2019t spigot
\nblood.
\nBut I look at her like Hannibal\u2014
\nthat bull-headed Negro\u2014
\nlooked upon Rome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hefting a tomahawk,
\nI descend from Plato\u2019s Cave
\nto cancel Pandora\u2019s Box.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She drowses.
\nHer breasts are sculptures
\nrendering other women\u2019s teats mere paintings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To kill her like this\u2014
\nthis divine, inhuman Sunlight<\/em>\u2026.
\nO!  I see Venice engulfed in flames.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While I lurk in this outlying darkness,
\nI ogle the blunt phosphorescence
\nof her half-cast-up thighs,
\nmore white than her half-cast-off sheets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her breathing sounds a music like snow,
\nfalling,
\nand I feel a stupor of Poetry<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I\u2019ve trumpeted her a \u201cstrumpet!\u201d
\nThe whore\u2019s my household Salom\u00e9,
\nher fat, pallid, erect tits,
\nbuoying up sundry troops,
\nin a brash brothel,
\nwhere sports swore they\u2019d spy my head\u2014
\nlike Baptist Jack\u2019s\u2014
\nbearded and bloody on a platter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I should accept Desi\u2019s infinite weeping,
\nprefer her Contrition<\/em>,
\nrather than the obstinate sparkling
\nof exploded blood\u2014
\nmy nakedly white lady,
\npierced, speared, like Christ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Adultery<\/em> ain\u2019t abstract.
\nShe stripped off her wedding gown to start on Crime<\/em>,
\nand served my lily-white lieutenants
\na whinnying frenzy
\nthat made my bedroom echo horses, bucking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If I don\u2019t act to hallow Justice<\/em>,
\ndon\u2019t prove assassin to an adulteress,
\nVenice dons a foliage of flames
\nand Cyprus turns a burned-out beach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet, like Hamlet, I hesitate to stab.
\nI still see an Oaxaca belle<\/em>\u2014
\nsilvery incandescence\u2014
\nbreasts like transparent cream;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and I remember us,
\nentangled and grunting,
\nour palace shrieking with bare-faced love\u2014
\njust one night\u2014
\nthe wedding eve\u2014
\nand she loved me so much that she came and stood
\nat dawn under threat of the Turkish guns\u2014
\nto watch me serve the Ottoman a gulf of wounds,
\na whirlwind of barbs,
\nensepulchred smoke,
\nso that the Muslims drowned or burned
\nin abyss of battle,
\nthe muddy vertigo of the swamp,
\nthe harrowing flame of firearms,
\nbecause our Venetian cannon howled lightning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our lovemaking that day was my Triumph<\/em>.
\nSee her here in the cold, crisp cloth\u2014
\nher skeleton\u2019s snowstorm of flesh:
\nShe will beautify the grave\u2019s spurious bed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have a blade here\u2014
\ndeadly as Macbeth\u2019s daggers:
\nHer impalpable breath
\nwill soon wheeze in her lungs.
\n(It is my warrior\u2019s profession
\nto pierce and wound.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She doth seem harshly guileless:
\nLike clean, unspoiled milk.
\nHer lips look unkissed, unsipped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yet she is more bitch than bride,
\nmore bawd than bitch,
\nsloshing and floundering
\non a slouching couch,
\nand crying out, \u201cCassio, Cassio,\u201d
\nat his chafing crescendo,
\nfor I suspect that,
\nafter he scooped up her light skirts,
\nhe bred steamily twixt her thighs.
\n(I\u2019ve seen him in the whorehouse after a victory:
\nWe\u2019ve screwed the self-same sluts, time and again.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I could run Desi through now;
\nfix her with steel drilled deep in her sex,
\nsave that Pain<\/em> might bring her orgasm\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I thank Iago\u2019s cordial voyeurism
\nfor showing me Desi\u2019s open mouth, open legs, open eyes.
\nI must kiss once more her jellyfish-soft lips.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her execution mustn\u2019t be too callous.
\nShe won\u2019t die, leaking red slop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No, as she awakes, she\u2019ll perish\u2014
\nfaceless under a pillow\u2014
\nsobbing into that plush barricade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

See!  I\u2019ll have no pale Latin crying, \u201ccuckold,\u201d
\nat my Moorish face and ears.
\nNo fool gets to shit on me!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I press the pillow on her face:
\nA Romantic decapitation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

[Malaga (Spain) 10 octobre<\/em> mmxii]<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The Ballad of Sally Bassett (1730)<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

A hand punched a corkscrew through a lamb\u2019s munching throat.
\nA Congolese hand\u2014no measly fist\u2014likely wrought the midnight
\nthrust of corkscrew into lamb\u2019s throat\u2014and three unlucky calves,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

so that the creatures dumped, stumped, pumped, blood, jumped,
\nthen slumped, vainly vexed to be slaughtered, to be so sacrificed
\nprior <\/em>Easter, and then their hooves tottered, faltered; the animals<\/p>\n\n\n\n

became gobbledygook strewing the farm, their hobbled throats
\nthrobbing stitches of maggots; their orange-black eyes bobbing
\nup white. Vision <\/em>gone blind as a slut\u2019s slit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each carcass\u2019s baroque Frigidity<\/em> mandated a detective\u2019s rational
\nImagination,<\/em> to un-dissolve inanimate meat back into live beings
\nslain by a lethal hand, so as to reveal the butcher:  Sally Bassett.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She\u2019d squatted by the dumb, throat-cut creatures and mumbled
\njungle juju, and didn\u2019t bemoan the sanguine, triple destructions;
\nmoreover, the mulatta hid a red-stained corkscrew in her shack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Convicted, Sally was walked slow and whipped across Hamilton
\nParish, til her back and butt were as scarlet as a cut-open throat,
\ntil her black back and ass pulsed blood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next, she was sold, and commanded to grow her pickanninies and
\ngrandchildren\u2014two generations\u2014to be then marketed, and breed
\nand re-breed, to compensate her witch-like savaging of sorry cattle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each Bassett female, once sprouting teats, was sold off to masters
\nwho\u2019d corkscrew each human-capital, livestock cunt, each triangle,
\nto transform mulattas into \u201coctoroons,\u201d or negresses one-sixteenth<\/p>\n\n\n\n

negro.  Thus, Sally Bassett suffered such Damnation<\/em>; to see her own
\ndaughters and granddaughters assigned to Lechery<\/em>, to lewd gents, as
\npayback for three throat-slit critters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Pembroke blacksmith Frank Dickinson\u2019s slave, Bassett got used|
\nevery which way:  In shop, in bed, smithing black iron and smithing
\nblack flesh, until Dickinson found she\u2019d become used up, a woman<\/p>\n\n\n\n

now good for nothing but sipping cold chowder.  He threw her out\u2014
\nlike scrap metal, like maggot-possessed carrion, like a worm-sick rose.
\nAnyhow, now Bassett got purchased by a Christian, Mr. Tom Foster,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

who wanted her and her granddaughter Becky to cook the household
\nmeals, and their employ meant no hardship.  Their Slavery<\/em> exemplified
\nBermudan Slavery<\/em>, more Leisure<\/em> than Labour<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bassett spooned oatmeal topped with fresh cream and slept under gold,
\nbrocade silk; she donned a sumptuous wardrobe; Mr. Foster put flowers
\nin vases in her room.  Christmas staged her an orgy of furs and perfume<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and bread and wine bottles.  Foster\u2019s plantation was famed for its idyllic,
\nno-complaint slaves.  But Bassett was secretly brooding over her lashed
\nback and lost progeny.  She was scheming petticoat Treason<\/em> versus Massa<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Foster, his wife, and a slave, Anansi.  She distilled noxious poisons from
\nweeds to encourage a vile miracle:  Unsuspicious deaths.  Quick, Foster,
\nwife, and Anansi vomited Sally\u2019s ale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, while clucking and cooing gracious prayers, Bassett had secreted
\nin each Foster goblet the lethal juices from a wild, undocumented flower,
\na strain impossible to fish out\u2014as fishy\u2014from the peppery ginger beer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Soon, Anansi and her owners assumed a lavatory pallor and starved fast
\nTo thinness.  Their ribs stuck out; they looked bleached, worn out linen.
\nA priest was summoned to help usher them on to Heaven.  But a doctor<\/p>\n\n\n\n

accompanied, and surprised to see beings so young looking so withered,
\nhe slapped his glasses to the wine glasses, and swirled liquids and tested
\ndetritus, droppings, and found poison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, Becky betrayed her grandma\u2019s crime; confessed she\u2019d been mixing
\na drug from a strange flower\u2019s syrup, and slinging it to the kindly Fosters
\nand the detested Anansi.  Arrested as the Fosters rallied, Sally giggled\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n

illogical as a tantrum\u2014and testifed her Innocence<\/em>\u2014before Christ\u2019s Cross.
\nSpeedy was her trial.  Her dull defence was, \u201cBecky and Anansi are liars;
\nthe doc\u2019s a quack.\u201d But her Innocence<\/em> was nonsense, her Guilt<\/em> consequent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Condemned to burn up at the stake like any crone, Bassett bayed instead
\nfor the classical, Cleopatra suicide:  To nurse vipers at her dugs.  But the
\nCourt was not so archaic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Basically, Bassett had to blaze, to become a living faggot, to make other
\nslaves too fearful to contest Slavery<\/em>, and to accept Heaven as their lavish
\ntreat.  June 17, 1730, at Hamilton town\u2019s Crow Lane, crowds did swarm<\/p>\n\n\n\n

on that overheated day (such days are now dubbed \u201cSally Bassett day\u201d),
\nto see a washed-up hag turn to ash in punitive fireworks\u2014as if watching
\na mop burn.  But Bassett showed bitter Wit<\/em> as she was carted to the pyre,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the hoi polloi<\/em> following.  She bellowed out:  \u201cDon\u2019t rush, y\u2019all!  There\u2019s no
\nexcellent show for y\u2019all\u2014til I show myself in flames!\u201d  Well, Bermudans
\nacted savages, had merciless fun,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

mocking the crone as the fire jig-sawed her flesh, sluicing down to bone.
\nBut Bassett\u2019s final testament was most malevolent witchery:  She yelled,
\n\u201cI\u2019s wronged, and my proof is the vivid, magenta flower that\u2019ll sprout up<\/p>\n\n\n\n

from my ashes!\u201d  Once she trimmed slim as a shadow, thinning down to
\nchar, teeth, ash, her prediction was borne out as her ashes got borne off:
\nA mauve bloom\u2014an iris of the genus, Sisyrinchium<\/em>, rightly catalogued as<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBermudiana,\u201d startles eyes all about the isle, while demonstrating vividly
\nSally Bassett\u2019s categorical\u2014allegorical\u2014Innocence<\/em>.  Slaves think this magic
\nProves the case, and they mutter Treason<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Revolts are brewing\u2014poison is brewing\u2014all around these British West
\nIndies, where slaves now contemplate massacring we rightful masters, so
\nAs to savour Luxury<\/em> that even peasants\u2014with white complexions\u2014can\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bassett\u2014that murderoust slave, violently put down, with fire charring her
\nto a husk and heap of carbon, her womb split apart, her lungs wept open,
\nher heart bubbling tar\u2014is now Bermuda\u2019s black saint:  No contradiction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This hussy\u2014or impure missy, the bitch Sally Bassett, with her odious face
\nand tarnished heart, her hauntingly homicidal schemes and toxic witchery,
\nnow flummoxes\u2014harries\u2014Sleep<\/em>,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

for she is harmfully, beautifully, escaped from our jailing frames; she has
\nwon incandescent Fame<\/em> that far out-blazes the brilliance that gobbled her
\nbody, for her name now brands torrid weather and a wild, purple bloom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Author\u2019s note:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After Bassett\u2019s death, spontaneous slave uprisings sprouted, twixt 1730
\nand 1739, in St. John, Antigua, Jamaica, and South Carolina.  Their one
\nsymbol? Sally\u2019s purple flower\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

[Grotto Bay, Hamilton Parish (Bermuda) 16 d\u00e9cembre<\/em> mmxiv]<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Sherman Marches to the Sea<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

To \u201cmake Georgia howl,\u201d indelibly,
\nI bid the grasslands scorched,
\nthen scraped bare\u2014
\nby white ladies on all fours\u2014
\nweeping (like slaves weep);
\nand still I torch their mansions and their barns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spare churches?  Try to.
\nBut I deem the Confederacy best off
\nas lapidary ashes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To skewer plump cows and skinny calves\u2014
\nevery pretty, sweaty, greasy pig,
\nbatter hen\u2019s hot eggs
\nand then behead the hens\u2014
\nand raze every white-tyrant town,
\nso that even pastors know miserable Disquiet<\/em>,
\nThat\u2019s the inventory of Victory<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Death\u2014Destruction\u2014<\/em>must be global.
\nDixie must topple like a totem pole.
\nWe must decimate the Rebs ten times over,
\nplus sack their crops and and hack their critters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is well within my remit
\nto commit
\nDevastation<\/em> respecting no limit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Miscreant massas and their silken damsels
\ndon\u2019t merit, generally,
\nan indiscriminate chopping down,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and I do urge the Union boys to be decent\u2014
\nnot too disdainful\u2014
\nand gratify no brute blood-lust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Undisciplined Murder<\/em> is undeclared Treason.<\/em>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We class our civilian enemies
\nas problematical scoundrels,
\nwho can be handled with handcuffs,
\nnot treated to summary massacre.
\nBut their goods must get bad treatment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We lay waste their palaces,
\nvandalize their memories,
\ntheir ink-scrawled tomes,
\nand smash their antiques,
\nrip up their portraits,
\nshred their wedding dresses,
\ncrash down their fine china,
\nmelt their silver into bullets that will kill their sons,
\nand set afire all that can\u2019t be wrecked or smashed:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, so much smoke and flame ensues,
\nthe very sun seems dilapidated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We unchain the blacks,
\ndeliberately and<\/em> accidentally,
\nso that Law<\/em> is confounded by Reality<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(There\u2019s no way to anchor birds.
\nOnce free, the slaves display
\nthe lightning flash of flight.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By departing from Compassion<\/em>,
\nwe will deliver Lincoln
\nGeorgia for Xmas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

See, we\u2019re marathon warriors\u2014
\nunruly traffic trampling magnolia stands
\nand peach orchards and onion pastures,
\nleaving heedless
\nRebs homeless\u2014or headless.
\nSuch is our intuitive Gravitas<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Understand us as a shrieking tornado
\nplucking up the Confederacy, root and top,
\nthen chucking all into fire
\nthat not even blood can douse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Traitors must be transparently broken.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I swear I condone no rape.
\nI condemn all rape.
\nI command all my Othellos\u2014
\n\u201cWedge thy weapon into no white womb.\u201d
\nAny United States soldier who flouts this rule
\nmay as well stick his tongue down a shotgun barrel
\nand pull the trigger,
\nfor my chastisement will not be slipshod,
\nbut cruel to the umpteenth iota.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Any violator of a (white) female
\nwill find himself become a bitch\u2014
\na \u201cshe-man,\u201d
\nfirst gelded,
\nthen cannonaded into jelly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Hark!  I\u2019m a mortal marksman.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once we reach the sea\u2014
\nvictorious
\nas the ranked waves ceaselessly coming,
\nthen<\/em> we can get as drunk as a wet rag,
\nsoak up vitriolic alcohol,
\nand then<\/em> we can wed willing women\u2014
\nwild-haired women whose clothes are vines\u2014
\none-night only\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and press antinomian boots into springs,
\nand pound home till each quim brims and spurts,
\nand then<\/em> we will commandeer locomotives,
\nleaning, inclining North,
\nchugging smoke, shunting us to Relief<\/em>,
\nwhile Atlanta is yet smouldering ash\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once we\u2019ve won,
\nwe leave the South\u2019s Authorities gasping,
\ntheir bards choking, dust-crusted,
\nall cataloguing our accomplished ruptures.
\nAngels with chopped-off wings,
\nthey\u2019ll survey an extinct Eden\u2014
\na backdrop of cannonball-stumped-down pines\u2014
\na shivering mishmash of grey uniforms\u2014
\nan ugly litter of faces, bearded or boyish,
\nthose who erred on the side of Death<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quintessential Conquistadors,
\nspectacular Assassins,
\nwe\u2019ll present Georgia as embers, corpses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It will be a breathless campaign,
\na viper-mouthed campaign:
\nJohnny Reb will wallow in his blood,
\nwhile we swallow his like Champagne.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we establish our Pax Americana<\/em>,
\ndawn will show an indissoluble gold light.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Men!
\nI spy that great morning
\nin the offing:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The grey dead bleach
\nass-down in their grassy ghetto.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

[Windsor (Ontario) 27 octobre<\/em> mmxii]<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Sites of European (Caucasian) Enslavement<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

(1100-1500 A.D. only<\/u>)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alexandria
\nBelgrade
\nBudapest
\nCadiz
\nCeuta
\nCorfu
\nCrete
\nCyprus
\nGenoa
\nIstanbul
\nMarseille
\nMessina
\nNaples
\nNovgorod
\nPalermo
\nRhodes
\nSeville
\nTripoli
\nTunis
\nVenice
\nVienna
\nEtc<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mass enslavement of Europeans only ended
\n<\/em>Once mass enslavement of Africans commenced<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[Liverpool (England) 12 octobre<\/em> mmxiv]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ports N\u00e9griers europ\u00e9en<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Liverpool (4894 voyages)
\nLondres (2704 voyages= fount of Shakespeare\u2019s lingo)
\nBristol (2064 voyages)
\nNantes (1714 voyages)
\nZ\u00e9land (688 voyages)
\nBordeaux (480 voyages)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Le Havre (451 voyages)
\nLa Rochelle (448 voyages & jumping-off point for Qu\u00e9bec)
\nSaint-Malo (218 voyages & the spider-hole of Cartier,
\nthat pirate who \u201cbagged\u201d Canada)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amsterdam (210 voyages)
\nHonfleur (134 voyages)
\nLisbonne (92 voyages)
\nMarseille (88 voyages)
\nEtc<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cadiz (39 voyages)
\n[Liverpool (England) 12 octobre<\/em> mmxiv]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Othello Eyes Desdemona<\/strong>
\nA soft, luminous body shouldn\u2019t spigot
\nblood.
\nBut I look at her like Hannibal\u2014
\nthat bull-headed Negro\u2014
\nlooked upon Rome.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2021,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2250,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80\/revisions\/2250"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}