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