alas, i've heard it asked: how can we
write poetry after Auschwitz?
i don't know. and prose? i don't know: gone mad
the whole world implodes and dips its dove's foot into my purple brow:
in a dream, ink erupts from under my dirt encrusted fingernails
and it is the transubstantiation of my rainbow stained blood,
and the void was flooded:
what's a word? more than i—more than i can show.
how did they write poetry after colonialism?
after other slaves and other genocides?
i don't know. Rimbaud traded in slaves, and, before his fury,
wrote masterpieces... perhaps its obvious; a bad pun, to help us cope,
—he even left the path to his divinity,
but all this has nothing to do with anything—.
perhaps every genocide needs its herald poets.
and the rest, how did they write? i don't know.
perhaps it was not their concern;
they desired to write, and there, they did not give way, and so
were right.
and is it the same with us, as we write
through the screams of the however many millions coming from Congo
and from however many other scenes similar? i—
perhaps i do not need to know,
perhaps, in fact, i cannot write poetry.
if i'm to try, it pertains to me to be of use in case this comes to a fight.
and life, if life is drama,
then there will always be roles:
there will always be the part of the villain that needs playing,
an immortal space to be filled by actor after actor,
we cannot stop them, we cannot stop them;
our enemy is a hydra's head!
the task, then, is to re-write the script!
ad lib won't cut it!
cast away your hope, boredom and wonder:
we'll need fire and a pen mightier than a golden sword,
and softly spoken words that can split history asunder.