505 History and politics poems

Ye Sons of Great Britain! come join with me And sing in praise of the gallant British Armie, That behaved right manfully in the Soudan, At the great battle of Omdurman. ’Twas in the year of 1898, and on the 2nd of September, Which the Khalifa and his surviving followers will long remember, Because Sir Herbert Kitchener has annihilated them outright, By the British troops and Soudanese in the Omdurman fight. The Sirdar and his Army left the camp in grand array, And marched on to Omdurman without delay, Just as the brigades had reached the crest adjoining the Nile, And became engaged with the enemy in military style. The Dervishes had re-formed under cover of a rocky eminence, Which to them, no doubt, was a strong defence, And they were massed together in battle array Around the black standard of the Khalifa, which made a grand display. But General Maxwell’s Soudanese brigade seized the eminence in a short time, And General Macdonald’s brigade then joined the firing line; And in ten minutes, long before the attack could be driven home, The flower of the Khalifa’s army was almost overthrown. Still manfully the dusky warriors strove to make headway, But the Soudanese troops and British swept them back without dismay, And their main body were mown down by their deadly fire— But still the heroic Dervishes refused to retire. And defiantly they planted their standards and died by them, To their honour be it said, just like brave men; But at last they retired, with their hearts full of woe, Leaving the field white with corpses, like a meadow dotted with snow. The chief heroes in the fight were the 21st Lancers; They made a brilliant charge on the enemy with ringing cheers, And through the dusky warriors bodies their lances they did thrust, Whereby many of them were made to lick the dust. Then at a quarter past eleven the Sirdar sounded the advance, And the remnant of the Dervishes fled, which was their only chance, While the cavalry cut off their retreat while they ran; Then the Sirdar, with the black standard of the Khalifa, headed for Omdurman. And when the Khalifa saw his noble army cut down, With rage and grief he did fret and frown; Then he spurred his noble steed, and swiftly it ran, While inwardly to himself he cried, “Catch me if you can!” And Mahdism now has received a crushing blow, For the Khalifa and his followers have met with a complete overthrow; And General Gordon has been avenged, the good Christian, By the defeat of the Khalifa at the battle of Omdurman. Now since the Khalifa has been defeated and his rule at an end, Let us thank God that fortunately did send The brave Sir Herbert Kitchener to conquer that bad man, The inhuman Khalifa, and his followers at the battle of Omdurman. Success to Sir Herbert Kitchener! he is a great commander, And as skilful in military tactics as the great Alexander, Because he devised a very wise plan, And by it has captured the town of Omdurman. I wish success to the British and Soudanese Army, May God protect them by land and by sea, May he enable them always to conquer the foe, And to establish what’s right wherever they go.

Ye sons of Great Britain, come join with me, And sing in praise of Sir Garnet Wolseley; Sound drums and trumpets cheerfully, For he has acted most heroically. Therefore loudly his praises sing Until the hills their echoes back doth ring; For he is a noble hero bold, And an honour to his Queen and country, be it told. He has gained for himself fame and renown, Which to posterity will be handed down; Because he has defeated Arabi by land and by sea, And from the battle of Tel-el-Kebir he made him to flee. With an army about fourteen thousand strong, Through Egypt he did fearlessly march along, With the gallant and brave Highland brigade, To whom honour is due, be it said. Arabi’s army was about seventy thousand in all, And, virtually speaking, it wasn’t very small; But if they had been as numerous again, The Irish and Highland brigades would have beaten them, it is plain. ’Twas on the 13th day of September, in the year of 1882, Which Arabi and his rebel horde long will rue; Because Sir Garnet Wolseley and his brave little band Fought and conquered them on Kebir land. He marched upon the enemy with his gallant band O’er the wild and lonely desert sand, And attacked them before daylight, And in twenty minutes he put them to flight. The first shock of the attack was borne by the Second Brigade, Who behaved most manfully, it is said, Under the command of brave General Grahame, And have gained a lasting honour to their name. But Major Hart and the 18th Royal Irish, conjoint, Carried the trenches at the bayonet point; Then the Marines chased them about four miles away, At the charge of the bayonet, without dismay! General Sir Archibald Alison led on the Highland Brigade, Who never were the least afraid. And such has been the case in this Egyptian war, For at the charge of the bayonet they ran from them afar! With their bagpipes playing, and one ringing cheer, And the 42nd soon did the trenches clear; Then hand to hand they did engage, And fought like tigers in a cage. Oh! it must have been a glorious sight To see Sir Garnet Wolseley in the thickest of the fight! In the midst of shot and shell, and the cannon’s roar, Whilst the dead and the dying lay weltering in their gore. Then the Egyptians were forced to yield, And the British were left masters of the field; Then Arabi he did fret and frown To see his army thus cut down. Then Arabi the rebel took to flight, And spurred his Arab steed with all his might: With his heart full of despair and woe, And never halted till he reached Cairo. Now since the Egyptian war is at an end, Let us thank God! Who did send Sir Garnet Wolseley to crush and kill Arabi and his rebel army at Kebir hill.

. . . for Donna and John they find what looks like a grave what looks like a grave a grave and they dig it up they find a grave it looks like a grave and they dig it up they dig it up the grave it looks like they dig it up and they dig it up and it looks like a grave and they dig it up

National Museum of Scotland On the ground floor called "Beginnings," a fertility stone is displayed in the diamond-hard blue halogen, a line etching of an erection with two equal circles, as one sees in graffitti in the Underground. The stone is attributed to the Picts, of whom history says little, besides the Latin picti, painted people, tattooed. When set side by side with Latin engravings and Roman military hardware, the artifact makes them seem pitiful. In the museum you rise through time, the text written in first person plural as if all who enter are complicitous with the articles of defiance, Robert the Bruce, the long unveering heredity of defeat, the room of thumbscrews and "The Maiden" for severing heretical heads of witches, upward to the Reformation, then the rout of the Highlanders and the exile of the Bonnie Prince, until the museum seems like a deep well where the fertility stone of the painted people rests at its bottom, universal hieroglyph on which someone made a wish.

In a morning coat, hands locked behind your back, you walk gravely along the lines in your head. These others stand with you, squinting the city into place, yet cannot see what you see, what you would see —a vision of these paths, laid out like a star, or like a body, the seed vibrating within itself, breaking into the open, dancing up to stop at the end of the universe. I say your vision goes as far as this, the egg of the world, where everything remains, and moves, holding what is most against it against itself, moving, as though it knew its end, against death. In that order, the smallest life, the small event take shape. Yes, even here at this point, Amma's plan consumes you, the prefigured man, Nommo, the son of God. I call you into this time, back to that spot and read these prefigurations into your mind, and know it could not be strange to you to stand in the dark and emptiness of a city not your vision alone. Now, I have searched the texts and forms of cities that burned, that decayed, or gave their children away, have been picking at my skin, watching my hand move, feeling the weight and shuttle of my body, listening with an ear as large as God's to catch some familiar tone in my voice. Now, I am here in your city, trying to find that spot where the vibration starts. There must be some mistake. Over the earth, in an open space, you and I step to the time of another ceremony. These people, changed, but still ours, shake another myth from that egg. Some will tell you that beginnings are only possible here, that only the clamor of these drums could bring our God to earth. A city, like a life, must be made in purity. So they call you, knowing you are intimate with stars, to create this city, this body. So they call you, knowing you must purge the ground. “Sir, suffer me to recall to your mind that time, in which the arms and tyranny of the British crown were exerted, with every powerful effort in order to reduce you to a state of servitude: look back, I entreat you, on the variety of dangers to which you were exposed; reflect on that time, in which every human aid appeared unavailable, and in which even hope and fortitude wore the aspect of inability to the conflict, and you cannot but be led to a serious and grateful sense of your miraculous and providential preservation; you cannot but acknowledge, that the present freedom and tranquility which you enjoy you have mercifully received, and that it is the peculiar blessing of Heaven.”

Old now, your eyes nearly blank from plotting the light's movement over the years, you clean your Almanac and place it next to the heart of this letter. I have you in mind, giving a final brush and twist to the difficult pages, staring down the shape of the numbers as though you would find a flaw in their forms. Solid, these calculations verify your body on God's earth. At night, the stars submit themselves to the remembered way you turn them; the moon gloats under your attention. I, who know so little of stars, whose only acquaintance with the moon is to read a myth, or to listen to the surge of songs the women know, sit in your marvelous reading of all movement, of all relations. So you look into what we see yet cannot see, and shape and take a language to give form to one or the other, believing no form will escape, no movement appear, nor stop, without explanation, believing no reason is only reason, nor without reason. I read all of this into your task, all of this into the uneasy reproof of your letter. Surely, there must be a flaw. These perfect calculations fall apart. There are silences that no perfect number can retrieve, omissions no perfect line could catch. How could a man but challenge God's impartial distributions? How could a man sit among the free and ordered movements of stars, and waters, beasts and birds, each movement seen or accounted for, and not know God jealous, and not know that he himself must be? So you go over the pages again, looking for the one thing that will not reveal itself, judging what you have received, what you have shaped, believing it cannot be strange to the man you address. But you are strange to him —your skin, your tongue, the movement of your body, even your mysterious ways with stars. You argue here with the man and God, and know that no man can be right, and know that no God will argue right. Your letter turns on what the man knows, on what God, you think, would have us know. All stars will forever move under your gaze, truthfully, leading you from line to line, from number to number, from truth to truth, while the man will read your soul's desire, searcher, searching yourself, losing the relations.

Old court. Old chain net hanging in frayed links from the rim, the metal blackboard dented, darker where the ball for over thirty years has kissed it, the blacktop buckling, the white lines nearly worn away. Old common ground where none of the black men warming up before the basket will answer or even look in my direction when I ask if I can run too, the chill a mutual understanding, one of the last we share, letting me join them here, if nowhere else, by not letting me forget I don’t belong. Old court. Old courtesy, handshake, exchange of names, in the early days of bussing, between assassinations, before our quaint welcoming of them had come to seem, even to ourselves, the haughty overflow of wealth so thoroughly our own we didn’t need to see it. Old beautiful delusion in those courtly gestures that everything now beyond our wanting just to play was out of bounds, and we were free between the white lines of whatever we assumed we each of us assumed. Old court, old dream dreamed by the weave, the trap, the backdoor pass. Old fluid legacy, among the others, that conjures even now within our bodies and between them such a useless, such an intimate forgetting, as in the moment when you get a step on your defender and can tell exactly by how another man comes at you where your own man is and, without looking, lob the ball up in the air so perfectly as he arrives that in a single motion he can catch and finger roll it in. Old court. Old dwindling cease fire, with no hope of peace, that we silently turn away from when the game is over, hurrying back (as if believing contact meant contagion) to our separate tribes, to the cleansing fires of what, despite ourselves, we momentarily forgot: old lore, old news, old burning certitudes we can’t stoke high or hot enough, yet won’t stop ever stoking until whatever it is we think we are anneals and toughens into an impenetrable shield.

II. Conversion I like to be stationary. —Bartleby Who is not a wild Enthusiast in a green meadow furious and fell Arriving on the stage of history I saw madness of the world Stripped of falsification and corruption anthems were singing in Authorem Father and the Father by my words will I be justified Autobiography I saw Legal righteousness makes us servants All good hearers Opposers or despisers Night page torn word missing The family silence gave up the ghost I feared the fall of my child resting quietly with some hopes as a bird before any Election—Vocation— Justification— Cape of Wind wreathe fame out laughing Seated on a cloud Seacret drift seacretly behest the dear She comes to all Guilty all circling Eye window soul body Pride cannot bow Ariadne’s diadem zodiac helmet belt

let us go then let us go then I said and the band was I lone every which way way my spit slicked the sax’s brass chitlins. I said such wet would mud dust and soil red rock. I said doors to some room blown out the out blown in. let us go then let us go then. I said check the spit’s phlegm tenements. I said its slow typhoon syrup. it blooms the axe up and loams gypsum I said earths marblebaster. let us go then let us go then I said. preference of red or white I said my spit. where I was was where to be when I was there and what I made was it since it was where it was wasn’t it I said. but the body mustn’t be there I said. but the shapes are there I said here’s what we’ll do. let us go then let us go then wailing and whaling till one was off the chain I said fuck it. keeping time in a gorilla suit for the mud to come on uh i uh ii uh iii ...    uh cxvii and took it to the bridge to throw down wet wet wet I said. mold on that alabarble a salad a crop gainin on yuh in a gorilla suit I said. gaining on you I said I’ll take my time and yours and the bandstand gardened out let us go then let us go then and then we we we

—for James I. Ina 1. The emotion of trucks, buses & troop trains brings them here, to the wrong side of another state. A woman at the Klamath Falls depot calls it the wrong side of the ocean. 2 Crumbs hide around the table legs in the mess hall, dishes & silverware clink a strange song. Families talk across long tables. Questions drop like puzzles to the unfinished floor. 3 Blocks away from their new home a woman finds a latrine not backed up. Stands in line, waiting her turn in the wind. Down the center of the open room: 12 toilet stools, six pair, back to back. Sits down and asks for privacy, holding a towel in front of her with trembling hands. 4 In a North Dakota prisoner-of-war camp, surrounded by Germans & Italians, a quiet man hammers a samurai sword from scrap metal at night in a boiler room. A secret edge to hold against the dark mornings. He sends love notes to his pregnant wife in Tule Lake sewn in pants mailed home for mending. His censored letters mention a torn pocket. She finds the paper near the rip, folded & secret in the lining. White voices claim the other side of the ocean is so crowded the people want to find death across the phantom river. Headlines shake their nervous words. Out on the coast beach birds print their calligraphy in the sand. It is such a small country.