Kamau

For Kamau For the furtive sound of his phonaesthetic exegesis For his secret technology, his liquid textolgy, the seppy Pure energy Seducing the ear Lancing the plane of sight And if vision is righteous and holy and pure Then Baba Kamau was the sonic sage The one who never kept silent The one who never wear necktie yet The one who never wept in pews, who Wove beads of triplet notes With the trumpet in his throat, the infinite muse, a bad and contagious poet Perceptible only in a glance Emerging Dressed in black Much blacker than black Surrealist conflict And I've been a black surrealist Ever since I saw my grandfather chuck the wheel Of his Austin Cambridge With a rock so it don't roll down hill And simple into the sea Because iron don't float Since I ran between vine and root Leapt over the wire Where the land rushed wild to the sea Picked the fruit Still warm from the vine I hid in the trees So much hairy snake and picka bush Was tying up the land But strong poems still found me Between the leaves (Between the leaves) Come on, flash your costume Flash your rage, poet Play sailor mas Play jab jab Play junkanoo Play rukatuk music Play with fife and bones And fiddle and flute Play mojo jumbie Dance the juba With the hands akimbo Play stick man An' bus' they carapace Play mud mas Plot your root Piss blood Piss rum Wear the brazen breastplate And the burnt wooden mask From the Upper Volta Wear pins in the mouth Like the tailor carving a map of Africa On the corner of your island Play kaiso Play calypso Play socalypso Play rapso Play jazz, like a second skin Reel you in, reel you in, reel you in I carried my black surrealist manifesto Between elbows Like fetish to poison wounds In the bronze plateau of the Congo Read me in, read me in Brooklyn warehouse space No running water, no hot heat, no light But Fanon, Fanon, Fanon, Fanon Read me in, read you in I read you in every squall and bawl of the hurricane Write this in the distance Write this on the wind Write this on the waves Write this in cowpasture In fragments Under islands Write this in each trace of diaspora, In every stone that skims from Africa Blooming into Islands! Islands! Islands! Islands! Oh, oh, baba, oh, oh, baba, oh, oh, baba, you Oh, may you return if possible As a grey bearded afronaut Emerge again As a secret colour As prophet Emerge again, deep teacher, as wizard As hawk or black bird As if you fell from the stars As if you emerged from the rainforest whole Oh, oh, baba, oh, oh, baba, oh Come on Swing your horn Swing your horn and flash your second skin Flail and flash your colour Omen, omen of jumbie See-er man, obeah man Obeah man who can make remote vision of people with psycho-spiritual camera Then the next day tell you exactly what you was wearing What bone you was chewing at your kitchen table the night before Surrealist since black, behind god's back Come on, cast speaking serpents out Flash your beacon, be bold, be something else And on the first day, on the first day Of the first week Of the first month After your death I come with real, real, real, real, real Real fire this year Real fire this year Oh, no Read you in, read you in Reel you in Reel you in Oh, baba Oh, baba you, you, you Oil does not dry on the tip of his tongue, Oil does not dry on th tip of his tongue Nor honey on the tips of his fingers Oh Oh, wow Oh, wow Oh, baba you Oh, my god