<\/p>\n\n\n\n
24 hours of kisses, a gallon of rum, They are unceasing beauties\u2014 Steeped, walnut cinnamon is she\u2014 I sight five-spice gold, Let them lounge spectacularly, Africa\u2019s exemplary nymphs They bring us jollities\u2014 [Salvador (Brazil) 9 novembre<\/em> mmvii Thus, our Empire frittered away its finest young.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The dark holocaust clotted regardless the quick, Zulu slain\u2014 Our troops fared worst, unable to best The Zulu black bulk kaMahole\u2014the crow\u2014 His monstrous wretches\u2014 Howls thwacked the valley. (One blacky\u2019s spear-tip pricked my crown, Curious Genius<\/em> animates kaMahole: So much blood made false wine; If we cannot crush the Briton-smashing kaMahole, Assassination<\/em> is our policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [Ottawa (Ontario) 27 octobre<\/em> mmxiii]<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n I.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n If we act not ruthless now, Grant each foe a piercing kiss We must impose frosts, blights, on the South, Mr. President, II.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n No more blushing sonnets about Southern belles. and ebony Americans set at liberty yes, twenty tons of gold bullion\u2014 The Southern pastures and profits and the ex-slaves, now the children of Yearning<\/em>, if their accounts and physiques A cow and two sheep and ten acres\u2014 can\u2019t suffice for efficient, auspicious Economy<\/em>. Our policy of Negro Emancipation a scathing politics of not Retribution<\/em>, III.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Soon, Mr. Lincoln, your loyal Negroes For now, their speech seems drowsy, lazy, and shortly will do all they can\u2014 to hasten on dessication and their Damnation<\/em> too, IV.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Our Negro verse is meat-and-potatoes stuff. Our tongues and teeth pick apart We serve now as devoted assassins, V.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Allow thy pen no shuddering scribbles, To the policy of War<\/em>, Abe, leave no murders uncharged Leave the South\u2019s sinister animals\u2014 [London (Ontario) 13 novembre<\/em> mmxiv]<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n Le Clerc outfoxed L\u2019Ouverture. His Vanity<\/em> was his stupidity. Black Death<\/em>, sticky as fire, I reduce Le Clerc\u2019s battalions My dark throng\u2014as cut-throat as Crusaders\u2014 Thus, I survey wastes of unburied epaulettes. Our gunpowder is as good as salt We are devastating hordes, Due to our tumultuous, rigorous massacres, reduced to a paralyzed trickle. They flee who can\u2014 or they\u2019ll feel and our hooves splash open their bellies, [Ilonojaa (Finland) 2 juillet<\/em> mmxiv]<\/p>\n\n\n\n Icy machetes slice crows\u2019 necks: Our blows lop heads and limbs: Metaphorically speaking, we Bourbons\u2014 sup on nigger testicles, (Boudin<\/em> is a black bull\u2019s belly We\u2019re not bland mandarins: in Saint-Domingue, in Martinique, in Guadeloupe\u2014 sets right\u2014 \u201cThe Rights of Man\u201d\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [Hantsport (Nova Scotia) 6 ao\u00fbt <\/em>mmxiii<\/em>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n Twas a slate-grey, relentless sea, Even the ship, Creole<\/em>, seemed burnished\u2014 to carry th\u2019African cargo to markets in South Sea, Carib Sea, (This is Slavery<\/em>\u2019s clanging fort\u00e9: Always, however, in The Middle Passage, Aboard the Creole<\/em>, then, crew and cargo The cleaving pitch of ship and so, grabbing and grasping any tool at hand, A fast sword made cap\u2019n\u2019s chest spurt; and shrieks scraped at ears, Twas dreaded, grim Onslaught<\/em>. th\u2019Africans executed the relentless plunging The crew massacred, yes, could pitch down fathoms, just as an earthquake swallows Those were nervous winds To Africa, [Kingston (Ontario) 26 juillet<\/em> mmxv]<\/p>\n\n\n\n *<\/a> Pace<\/em> Senghor. Aux Br\u00e9siliennes* 24 hours of kisses, a gallon of rum, and les Br\u00e9siliennes are almost divinities\u2014 never undone or outdone. They are unceasing beauties\u2014 each caramel miracle, each coup of copper & pepper\u2026. Steeped, walnut cinnamon is she\u2014 or she\u2019s crackling iron muscles backing Amazonian bronze breasts. I sight five-spice gold, opalescent sepia\u2014 Clio, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4675,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4669"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4982,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4669\/revisions\/4982"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nand les<\/em> Br\u00e9siliennes<\/em> are almost divinities\u2014
\nnever undone or outdone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\neach caramel miracle,
\neach coup<\/em> of copper & pepper\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nor she\u2019s crackling iron muscles
\nbacking Amazonian bronze breasts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nopalescent sepia\u2014
\nClio, Queen of Sheba, Cleopatra,
\nQueen Charlotte Sophia, Colette.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nsuck back just as much rum as Mauritians,
\nand feast on bread that\u2019s really cake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nflesh out an ideal\u2014Beauty<\/em>\u2014
\nusually untouchable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nsooty coffee, snooty port, beaut\u00e9<\/em> booty,
\nand perpetual ebony wine for an ivory flask.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n& Playa del Carmen (Mexico) d\u00e9cembre<\/em> mmvii]<\/p>\n\n\n\nIsandlwana (II)<\/strong>*<\/strong><\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\nwith sunlight\u2019s galling honey,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nwhose strewn bodies looked blackish leaves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nthat unremitting, relentless devil\u2014
\nkaMahole!\u2014
\nthat cold shade,
\nwho fell upon supposedly safe, British mothers,
\nturning their proud wombs into far-off graves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nactually defiled our horses,
\ntheir lances scissored whinnying eyes;
\ntheir blades penetrated tumbled riders;
\nour blanching corps shattered into dreadful pieces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nthat black, crowing wolf\u2014
\ncould guttle horse and human equally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nworse than any Mongol breed\u2014
\nfisted rocks to crack skulls and wrack ribs.
\nThey treated our initial survivors
\nas dessert,
\nfalling upon this groaning prey
\nas a chiaroscuro plague\u2014
\nmurderous shadows and bright blades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nOur soldiery sprouted myriad thorns,
\ncapricious spikes,
\nas Zulu spears rooted in bowels
\nor flowered from throats.
\nHateful whims desecrated us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nbut he was too rushed in his work
\nto stab through my brow.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nYes, he conquered our superior body;
\nbut stooped to extirpate every member.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nstill, flies got drunk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nif his troop must bash ours,
\nif our shining graves chapter his grim epic,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n <\/p>\n\n\n\nFrederick Douglass Writes to President Lincoln<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\nRebels will be pitiless later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nof bayonet\u2014
\ngoad entrails outta Dixie bellies\u2014
\nwhile cannon balls execute skyward strikes,
\nbut rain down,
\nsplashing through enemy fat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nso grey-clad men turn as pacific as cattle butchered,
\nand a dizzying hush staggers every Confederate
\nchurch, legislature, and market,
\narresting the progress of this nineteenth-century:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nEvery southern plantation must turn a cemetery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nNo! Let Dixie be a worm in a bird\u2019s beak\u2014
\nour Northern Hawk\u2019s beak,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nwith a ton of Apology<\/em>\u2014
\nand a ton of bullion
\n(gold bullion)\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nMr. President!\u2014
\ntwenty tons,
\nand no shirking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nare proceeds of Slave Labour<\/em>,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nmust have satisfied their hearts\u2019 certificates\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nwill flourish as healthy as summer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nor even forty acres and a mule\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nDo not think me extremely dreamy, sir.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n<\/em>demands a parasitic immediacy
\nupon the remaining Rebel (stolen) Wealth<\/em>\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nbut Redistribution<\/em>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nwill unmuzzle Venom<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nbut they remember squandered mothers,
\nransacked girls,
\ndaddies whipped to death,
\nbent-down shoulders,
\nmeals got from pious scrapings of dirt,
\nthe sour roots they had to gnaw,
\ntheir rags as flimsy as air,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nby whatever means necessary\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nfor the slavemasters,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nso the entire Confederacy
\nis a dehydrated garden,
\na desert.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nLatin? That\u2019s a talon.
\nGreek? That\u2019s a wreck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nslavemasters\u2019 sermons,
\nuntil we get to suckle on
\nslavemasters\u2019 bones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nbut do expect to be mandarins,
\ngiving due direction to the State<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nno miniscule sentiments, Abe!
\nWe are in the vicinity of Triumph<\/em>,
\nand can proffer no ornamental Government<\/em>.
\nNor does Sherman\u2019s righteous Terror<\/em>\u2014
\nhis flamboyant blazing of Georgia\u2014
\nbrook senseless Beautification<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\ndo not affix a mannequin\u2019s signature\u2014
\nstilted, irresolute\u2014
\nbut insist that the Confederacy\u2014
\nfor her Obduracy<\/em>\u2014
\ndine on her pale sons\u2019 entrails.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nand unpunished.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\ncrippled, broken, bleeding\u2014
\nand as dead as smashed, toga\u2019d statuary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n <\/p>\n\n\n\nDessalines Comments on L\u2019Ouverture\u2019s End<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\nOur General climbed onto the fleur-de-lys<\/em> brig
\nto paper together Peace<\/em>,
\nand was corralled at once
\nand carted to France,
\nto go maggoty in a prison,
\nwithout ever kissing Napol\u00e9on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nRegard how I cut the French impressive wounds;
\nI do the foe blushing, gushing injury.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\ndrags down the chalk soldiery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nto dirty phantoms,
\ndead, but groaning up grim hurts first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nmetes out such Torture<\/em>,
\nthe Versailles troop fall back as rabble;
\ntheir uniforms retreat as rags.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nThe sunshine of captured cannon, gleaming,
\nas they puff clouds of Death<\/em> at our foes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nto the bedraggled, beleaguered white corpses.
\n(Their guts burst open,
\nspilling grime.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\ncollapsing a pallid Tyrant\u2014
\nNapol\u00e9on
\n(no longer leonine,
\nbut nappy).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nhis Army is tattered cadavers,
\ncurtailed anatomies.
\nI see them strewn,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nFallen in Haiti now
\nare French kings and philosophers,
\nfor our blades and bullets tuck into their innards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nthe fugitive gentry.
\nLet them own only their lives\u2014
\nno more slaves;<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nsteel swish through each fat face,
\nfrom cheeks down to the neck,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nleaving black shambles, a putrid stew.<\/p>\n\n\n\nA French Slaveholder Revises the Revolution<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\nEach massacre\u2019s a Black Mass\u2014
\na grave pudding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nThe bits flop down\u2014
\nin impersonal\u2014yet intimate\u2014avalanches,
\nruddy, dark globs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nguzzling white-light Barbancourt<\/em> rum\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\ndine on negress tits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\neviscerated\u2014
\ninnards gushing, spilling,
\nin a bitter wash,
\nan orchid cider)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nWe hip-hip-hooray through gore,
\ndip the Tricolore<\/em> in red floods,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nwherever Slavery<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\ni.e. rewrites\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Liberation of Creole (1841)<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\nsalt-fringed,
\na quenchless sea churning with sparks,
\ntireless gleaming\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nlike a coffin\u2014
\nas it sped,
\nspitting through the vast element,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nwhere every \u201cpound of flesh,\u201d
\nmuscle and sinew\u2014
\nis pressed and wrung
\nfor every ounce of sweat
\n(to yield ounce upon ounce
\nof gold)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nor in groves bristling with cane
\nor cotton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nTo let clans clank in chains,
\nstoop backs to whips,
\nbend head and heart to iron-hard work,
\nto clear white-milk clouds
\nof cotton
\nfrom fields brimming to the horizon,
\nor to clench and cut sugar cane.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nsoon or late,
\na calm sea\u2014
\na sea with waves like smooth ruins\u2014
\nyields to hurricane-whipped, pitch-black waves\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nunited in belch and vomit\u2014
\nand in bruising and bleeding\u2014
\nas white and black beings tossed hard
\nagainst hard-and-fast bulkheads
\nand other fastenings, outfitting,
\nfurniture, and fixtures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nburst open the hold where th\u2019Africans
\nhad been hoarded, grouped, groped,
\nbut now, liberated\u2014
\nas when a cloudburst overcomes ramparts\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nwent quick to sanguine work,
\ncutting down the captain, sailors,
\nslashing and goring and stabbing
\nas haphazardly successful
\nas they could reasonably be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nhis guts skittered, skittish,
\nas the ship danced in a glittering blizzard
\nof foam,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nand bloody liquor swabbed the decks
\nas the oceanic rain rinsed
\nand\/or flooded\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nAs lightning hurled\u2014the night aflash
\nand aflame with it,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nof swords and knives, axes and pikes,
\nor wielded iron, skull-busting chains,
\nshowing black in the blanching lightning
\nas they conjured a fatal Victory<\/em>\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nbut the ship\u2019s sails still stretched cross the night,
\nand with no stern hand at bow or stern,
\nguiding,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nthanks to the crest of a bloodcurdling,
\nbanshee-thundering, tidal wave\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\na shipment of wine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nwhen the triumphant Africans
\nprowled among the foam-polished cadavers
\nof the crew,
\nfinding only one sailor still breathing,
\nsill fit to steer Creole<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nto the sleep of fat lions, well-fed,
\nwhere women stake a vineyard\u2014
\nthe freedom of the vineyard\u2014
\npluck the grapes once vintage,
\nand palm wine gleams ambrosial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n*<\/a> Armed with shields, daggers, and spears, a Zulu force destroyed gun-toting, British soldiers at Isandlwana, South Africa, in 1879.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"