Didn't He Ramble
1
So to New York London
I finally come
hope in my belly
hate smothered down
to the bone
to suit the part
I am playing
That summer was fine:
newspaper notices
variety acts
what the heart lacked
we supplied with your hips
and the art
of our shuffle shoes
But with the winter I knew
I was old. Poor
Tom was cold. Feet
could no longer walk the fallen
gold of parks. Gates
closed, the pavements
skidded blue and fro-
zen. To and fro
I walked, I wandered; wind
cut my face with its true
Gillette razor blades and snow
burnt the rivers' bridges. In my small hired
room, stretched out upon the New
York Herald Tribune, pages
damp from dirty lots, from locked
out parks, from gutters; dark, tired,
deaf, cold, too old to care to catch
alight the quick match of your pity,
I died alone, without the benefit of fire.
2
Bring me now where the warm wind
blows, where the grasses
sigh, where the sweet
tongue'd blossom flowers
where the showers
fan soft like a fisherman's
net thrown through the sweet-
ened air
Bring me now where the workers
rest, where the cotton drifts,
where the rivers are
and the minstrel sits
on the logwood stump
with the dreams of his slow guitar
3
But my sons grow fat, grow
fat, far from the slow guitar.
See them zoot suits, man? Them black
Texan hats? Watch false teeth
flash; fake friendship makes them mock
your grief
and overnight they are
the people's choice, the people's politicians. So
it's now grab the can, grab all
you can and give it to your
selves, the poor.
Let's legislate that black
is white and white that black
dominion that we aim for evermore.
So burn the crops
raise flash car cities
I am Selassie
And Selassie God
black snow falls from my heaven.
You scratch my drum
I beat your violin
I who was once your slave
now slave my captive friend.
4
But perhaps I am too far
away to care about these
things. Here
once more the good
soil warms me, worms
now warn me of the too much faith
the too much fear
of others. The skin's
destroyer in this soft subsidence
obeys impartial laws.
And I no longer lonely now
long for the drums to speak,
the violins listen
before they begin, the slow
guitars converse.
Long, too, for flowers:
not for their spider-feet of roots that now trans-
fix me, but for their touch
of surfaces, of shapes, of colours,
and of course the various
scents that really give them
meaning.
And I should like to see
my children's children:
slender shoots: the grow-
ing green reminders
of the seeds I gave.
Will their blooms find my grave?
Will they too share the rocks,
the charcoal bed,
lost gold, the fire trail
of fear, the silent paths
of forest we shall not know
again?
Or do I hear them mock
my sons: my own sons mock-
ing me?
So to New York London
I finally come
hope in my belly
hate smothered down
to the bone
to suit the part
I am playing
That summer was fine:
newspaper notices
variety acts
what the heart lacked
we supplied with your hips
and the art
of our shuffle shoes
But with the winter I knew
I was old. Poor
Tom was cold. Feet
could no longer walk the fallen
gold of parks. Gates
closed, the pavements
skidded blue and fro-
zen. To and fro
I walked, I wandered; wind
cut my face with its true
Gillette razor blades and snow
burnt the rivers' bridges. In my small hired
room, stretched out upon the New
York Herald Tribune, pages
damp from dirty lots, from locked
out parks, from gutters; dark, tired,
deaf, cold, too old to care to catch
alight the quick match of your pity,
I died alone, without the benefit of fire.
2
Bring me now where the warm wind
blows, where the grasses
sigh, where the sweet
tongue'd blossom flowers
where the showers
fan soft like a fisherman's
net thrown through the sweet-
ened air
Bring me now where the workers
rest, where the cotton drifts,
where the rivers are
and the minstrel sits
on the logwood stump
with the dreams of his slow guitar
3
But my sons grow fat, grow
fat, far from the slow guitar.
See them zoot suits, man? Them black
Texan hats? Watch false teeth
flash; fake friendship makes them mock
your grief
and overnight they are
the people's choice, the people's politicians. So
it's now grab the can, grab all
you can and give it to your
selves, the poor.
Let's legislate that black
is white and white that black
dominion that we aim for evermore.
So burn the crops
raise flash car cities
I am Selassie
And Selassie God
black snow falls from my heaven.
You scratch my drum
I beat your violin
I who was once your slave
now slave my captive friend.
4
But perhaps I am too far
away to care about these
things. Here
once more the good
soil warms me, worms
now warn me of the too much faith
the too much fear
of others. The skin's
destroyer in this soft subsidence
obeys impartial laws.
And I no longer lonely now
long for the drums to speak,
the violins listen
before they begin, the slow
guitars converse.
Long, too, for flowers:
not for their spider-feet of roots that now trans-
fix me, but for their touch
of surfaces, of shapes, of colours,
and of course the various
scents that really give them
meaning.
And I should like to see
my children's children:
slender shoots: the grow-
ing green reminders
of the seeds I gave.
Will their blooms find my grave?
Will they too share the rocks,
the charcoal bed,
lost gold, the fire trail
of fear, the silent paths
of forest we shall not know
again?
Or do I hear them mock
my sons: my own sons mock-
ing me?