Thursday, June 16, 2005

one poem "african gothic"

african gothic

 

 

back in gabon

in all the familiar faces

the coasts and tourists

the green and black forest

you are missing

studying engineering in berlin

maybe a stewardess with air france

some say a budding dancehall diva in norway

a year since you were home

you hid then

people coming on foot to hear electric tales of europe

an ex boyfriend who hoped to marry you

whizzes you through the streets of libreville

he smiles all day looking at you

but you need heroin

you accuse him of wanting too much

curse him for being so naïve and native

you say you are sick and need to go home

he asks if he makes you sick

you tell him africans make you sick

 

in munich

one man came to you

he said he wanted a black girl

to lay in his house among the expensive things

there was ivory in the tall rooms

and bantu fertility statues

he was learning fong phonetically

you taught him to say pussy

his blonde hair was long

every night his gaunt body pressed into yours

he made you love with his german women friends

one night while drinking

he played with your tit and asked for your arm

he said this would make your orgasm deeper

he said trust him

 

bastille day in paris

two men

took you to a small apartment

you pleased them both

the tall one asked you about hitler

he asked if africans bathed

he called you a fucking gorilla

you lacked the language to defend yourself

they called you bitch in four languages

spat tobacco on you

one had a rope

the other closed the windows

one’s penis was erect

-it hurt they way they took you

you lost their conversation in the horror

blood on the floor and wall

and in their pubic hair

 

a train station

replete with africans

they were deporting them en masse

everyone complaining about their belongings

about french nazism

children were watching the blacks

their mothers pointed and explained that

they were criminals come to steal

you heard them say “immoral and lazy”

then this woman’s eyes came to you

all the africans at attention in the lineup

this woman and her daughter examining their blue tar skins

she knelt down to be sure

pointed at you

the child readied for the information

“that one is a whore

like the one that robbed and stabbed alex

she corrupts the promising young men

she kills the mother country”

she said

“look dear and remember her all your life”

the little girl catalogued your face

placed it in a nightmare populated with violent blacks

all the monsters moved toward the clerk

the woman began to leave

the dangling little girl looking back at you

remembering

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