requiem aeternam II (19)

requiem aeternam II

for coretta scott king

mama coretta
when u left heiberger's fields
never to pick the flat, twisted,
ribbon-like bolls of alabama cotton
again; when u trained as a teacher
in segregated ohio or studied music
in chilly boston, did u see yr self
in some distant time walking shoulder
to shoulder with an icon?
leading large protesting crowds?
being transfigured;
changing the world?

when u steadfastly practiced
to make the most out of yr voice;
to sing an even tone from the top
of yr range to the bottom
even while u cleaned the stairwells to
make rent in the house u lived in —
did u see yourself, then, as the
eternal life-giving emblem of
human rights?

when yr lips sprang apart
to shape the sounds of vowels,
to let them flow & be projected,
keeping the flow of yr breath
constant throughout, did u see
yourself breathing life into a flagging
movement, crippled by yr husband's
untimely demise?

when u vocalized italian vowels
prefixed by lip consonants, when u
ma-na-ra-la tad; when u prayed for
divine guidance to help u decide
whether to spurn the advances of
that wife-seeking dreamer — did u
know then that to marry the dreamer
was to marry the dream?

when u sang daily into yr mirror
mouthing vowels & consonants,
singing scales, noticing yr breath,
the position of yr tongue,
the feeling it created in yr breast,
did u ever think u'd survive
yr beloved dreamer?
that u'd be left to nurture &
preserve the dream?

u, too, have done well, mama,
trying & never failing in yr trying;
bearing bravely the cross of heinous
heartache & deep emotional wounds
to keep the dream & an all-too-human
dreamer alive.

millions have been touched, lifted up
& transformed; have become much more
than they were. u have carried
the message & the burden
u have spead the word
preaching, beseeching the multitudes
dining & dialoguing with the greatest
among us & in yr humility
remained no more, no less than any.

rest now, mama coretta,
rest now, mater matris
surely u have earned
yr ease.


© Joseph McNair; 2009

for malcolm, again (14)

for malcolm, again

perhaps u have seen it...
when a dog beaten one time too many
transmogrifies from a long-suffering pet
into a snarling, feral threat, whose hair
stands straight up/on end, whose head
lowers & whose fangs scrape rage/ragged
furrows in the ground. or when a grown man
suffers one abuse too many, & a docile, go-along-
to-get-along persona also turns. breaking thru
a fragile faux/civilized façade, the savage
with his back against the wall, fierce,
ferocious, untamed; without much
hope, but with no paralyzing fear.

for some of us...
malcolm, the magisterial x factor, came
evenly into our lives, treating us as if we
were prime, making us more than what
we thought we were; broke thru our docility,
our posturing negroness, for it had become
too small & weak, too puny to contain him.
but no noble savage he, no berserker nor
enemy, only a man; only a reminder of what
it truly means to be alive, human & yes,
mortal. he became for us the energy we
drew upon to stand up, face our fear, move
thru fatigue, frustration & fatality; the
resurrecting release that comes with
revenant spirit.

©Joseph McNair;2009

remembering martin (8)

remembering martin

…his spirit must have nightly floated free

though still about his hands he felt his chains.

who heard great "jordan roll"? whose starward eye

saw that chariot "swing low"? & who was he

that breathed that comforting, melodic sigh,

"nobody knows de trouble i seed"?

james weldon johnson

no supernal presentation marked yr birth.
no special alignment of known planets. no
shield of david pressed upon a grand cross
no eight pointed star. no angelic hosts no
magi & none foretold yr coming. yet were u
born the first son & second child into a black
middle-class family of kings. the son of the
son of a preacher, three & twenty days past
the winter solstice, in the season of christ

& caesar, on 501 auburn avenue ne. atlanta.
no one knew then, michael, that u would
change yr name; assume a nom de guerre
for yr appointed social role: michael to

martin, the quintessential protesting cleric –

not against a corrupt universal church & the

purchased forgiveness of sin, but against

inertial forms of personal & social living

that resist acceleration & change; against

the forms of overt & institutional racism

that seek indulgences; the remission of

punishment. no one knew then, michael,

that u would be the focus,the coxswain,

the shepherd of the transforming & creative

response of spirit to a disparate &

disintegrated people; rootless, aroused &

demanding africans wandering in the

wilderness of america’s intellectual

generalizations, formulas & standardizing
regulations – suffering in the midst of

plenty. no one knew that u would utter a

new logos, a new word of power to project

on all unintegrated americans; unleash the

power of a dream.
neither did u, martin, perforce the more-

house college maxim: to uplift the human

race through responsible citizenship; was

naught but a subliminal goad when u tarried

there. nor did crozer & a divinity degree
bring sudden disclosure of the meaning of

yr destiny. no, non-disclosing spirit piqued

the course of yr life’s events. that same

spirit gave resonance to yr message;
made it the answer to the needs of the

millions unable to accept, to endure

american social living.
it focused & projected a new kind of

humanity, a new kind of personhood; it

activated new human faculties. but it

revealed itself to u, first, when the

stubborn courage of an alabama seamstress,

too tired to give up her seat for oppression –

whose wholeness unmasked in an instant of

resistance her essential identity – induced
in u a charge u were compelled to keep;

raised yr vibratory rate, made u shine

with an inner light – the light that alone
integrates the chaos of the world. the rest,

as they say, is vulgate history. that light,

though, was the substance of yr message

& yr dream. we clamored for freedom, but

u dancing, like a drum major at the head

of the parade, like a will–o’–the–wisp,

showed us that freedom isn’t free; that it

is dearly bought & paid for in the often bloody

coin of personal integrity & responsibility.

yr message & yr dream was about being

free & whole; about discovering one’s true

identity; about refusing to be turned around

or away, steadfastly adhering to life, love

& freedom as interchangeable elements of

righteousness. spirit has acted, martin, in

& through yr life. has impregnated yr dream;

bestowed its most wondrous gift to a confused

& oppressed humanity – that divine spark

which arouses, animates & sustains; the

honey'd taste of freedom!

© Joseph McNair; 2009

requiem æternam (7)

requiem æternam

for rosa parks

mama rosa,
what ephemeral hands & fingers stitched;
fancy sewed together pieces of the life
your designer self prepared;
a life turned lens & symbol
where
A people's spirit,
A people's hope & humanity
converged as after refraction
or reflection into a clear, sharp image
of selfhood.

that spirit, hope & humanity
washed in the blood of an
innocent emmett murdered 100 days before
was quickened; was felt to move in
the womb of your rebellion.

your charmingly odd & artful rebellion —
when weariness of soul & body
bade u keep your seat &
defy hurtful, heritable racism;
put your delicate hips in jail —
was sewn with a single thread;
your exquisite insurgency —
a running stitch turned
decorative embellishment —
engendered a bus boycott, the meteoric
rise of one who rendered our aspirations
in clear outline & sharp detail in
a dream whose designs & pictures
were wrought from colored threads
of pathos & poignancy;
injury & injustice
permanently stitched into the layered
fabrics of our lives.

well done, mother.
u have given the best of your service &
come to the end of your journey.
shake off life's weariness now & rest.
your part in this struggle is done!

© Joseph McNair ; 2009

homer plessy: man/event (5)

homer plessy: man/event
(1862-1925)

i
homer plessy:
man/event, centercore & connection;
throughput for more legal white racism &
retrograde justice.

homer plessy:
a lens through which an entire
american past focused in an experience
of intense & frightening awareness;

june 7, 1892:
an expectant afternoon bore witness to
a creolization of consciousness;
a syncretism of subjugate fear &
bleak despair with defiance & rebellious resolve!

june 7, 1892:
a creole man & member of comité des citoyens,
stepped into the white only car of the covington-
bound east louisiana railroad train &
took his seat.

ii
how like spirit is freedom:

for the slave...

whose freedom lies in the latent content of
dreams; whose reality is mind conditioned to
reject the personal/universal innerspeak of
dreams.

for the freedman...

whose freedom is like the scent of flowers;
the substance of the wind eluding his propitia-
tory grasp & the poignant verisimilitude of
certain death.

for the oppressor...

whose freedom lies in interfering without inter-
ference; in controlling without being controlled;
in thinking, judging, believing, acting & sexing
while legally suppressing the same.

iii
how long did homer relish his freedom?
before reaping the whirlwind? before the conductor
tried to banish him to the colored car? before taken
into vertiginous custody & held in an existential cell
in a station on boulevarde elysian fields.

how long? not long!
about as long as a flame survives the gale; about as
long as a drunk honors his pledge & abstains from
demon rum; about as fast as racist justice could
railroad his case to the supreme court.

how long? not long?
about as long as it took the court’s 8-1 majority to
decide; about as long as it took to hamstring amend-
ments 13 & 14; about as fast as iron-footed morning
stomps on a black man’s freedom dreams.

homer plessy:
man/event, centercore & connection;
throughput for present-centered black
awareness; seed of civil disobedience!

©Joseph McNair;2009

tryptych (2,3,4)

tryptych

1857

round de meadow am a ringing

de darkeys mournful song...

stephen foster

alas, dred scott, valued if intransigent
property of the widow emerson;
did you weep when massa john died?
did your lamentation ring the meadow
like a morning mist; & seep into the cold,
cold ground; into his deathsleep; into a psyche
so perverse that only in death might he debit
the imagined sorrow of his slaves for surcease.
well you know, dred, that crocodile
tears are tears just the same; you wore their
tracks like tribal marks when you sued
missus Irene for your freedom. had you
not parked your slavery at the
borders of Illinois and Wisconsin
living in freedom's cut for nearly nine years?
once free, always free your facile mind reasoned
trespass vi et armis!
u shook america to its core, dred;
u brought her to the brink of war!
but the crystal clear language of
amendments thirteen, fourteen & fifteen
was not yet writ;
& not yet writ was silent when
the court supreme asked:
can a negro, whose ancestors were
imported, sold as slaves,
be a member of the bodypolitic?
no! said justice roger b. taney;
no! chorused all but two justices
the negro is not a citizen;
merely personal property!
"once a slave, always a slave!"

1865

i come from alabama wid my banjo on my knee

i'se gwine to louisiana, my true luv for to see...

stephen foster

civil war! & with one stroke of presidential pen
millions of africans are set free!
the war is over... & the huddled, breathing
african masses -- the wretched refuse of
warfare, capitalism & white supremacy --
they, too, dreamed of a beacon-hand,
a world wide welcome from lady liberty.
they, too, ached to embrace, to possess
a stately torch holding, tablet bearing,
crown wearing mother of exiles;
but the big apple was too distant, too
abstract for most of america's africans.
new orleans, though, was closer.
they came from alabama, from georgia,
the carolinas, & mississippi to the big easy.
they came bearing their banjos, bones,
tin whistles & fiddles from the south over
to ride the streetcars, go to public schools, vote,
even marry white folk.
in new orleans more than anywhere else
america's africans looked upon the face of freedom,
their suzannah, their lily of the valley,
their true love for to see...
yet freedom, however close she seemed, was
as remote, as abstract as the three hundred foot
concrete white woman wading the waters
of new york harbor.

1877

weel a-bout & turn a-bout

& do just so.

every time i weel a-bout

i jump jim crow.

anonymous

jump jim crow!
see the terrified white men in black face
trying to be funny. see their crass
caricatures cavort on america's stages.
life, indeed, parodies art.
jump jim crow!
america niggardly revoked her promise.
gave the african a pittance, stole it
while he slept, then punished him
when he woke up for losing it !
jump jim crow!
write your bloody script; place your white
supremacist ward on the portals of toilets
resturants, theaters & polling places
to repel african spirits.
jump jim crow!
send your hooded spooks, your cowardly knights
to practice their murderous chivalry.
sow your grand dragons teeth
that you might keep america white & pure.
jump jim crow!
jump, jump, jump, jump, jim crow!
then jump some more! keep on jumpin'
'cause one day you gonna get tired!


© Joseph McNair; 2009