ODE SALUTE TO THE FRENCH NEGRO POETS
from near the sea, like Whitman my great predecessor, I call to the spirits of other lands to make fecund my existence
do not spare your wrath upon our shores, that trees may grow upon the sea, mirror of our total mankind in the weather
one who no longer remembers dancing in the heat of the moon may call across the shifting sands, trying to live in the terrible western world
here where to love at allâs to be a politician, as to love a poem is pretentious, this may tendentious but itâs lyrical
which shows what lyricism has been brought to by our fables times where cowards are shibboleths and one specific loveâs traduced
by shame for what you love more generally and never would avoid where reticence is paid for by a poet in his blood or ceasing to be
blood! Blood that we have mountains in our veins to stand off jackals in the pillaging of our desires and allegiances, Aimé Césaire
for if there is fortuity itâs in the love we bear each otherâs differences in race which is the poetic ground on which we rear our smiles
standing in the sun of marshes as we wade slowly toward the culmination of a gift which is categorically the most difficult relationship
and should be sought as such because it is our nature, nothing inspires us but the love we want upon the frozen face of earth
and utter disparagement turns into praise as generations read the message of our hearts in adolescent closets who once shot at us in doorways
or kept us from living freely because they were too young then to know what they would ultimately need from a barren and heart-sore life
the beauty of America, neither cool jazz nor devoured Egyptian heroes, lies in lives in the darkness I inhabit in the midst of sterile millions
the only truth is face to face, the poem whose words become your mouth and dying in black and white we fight for what we love, not are.
-Frank OâHara
Read More