Poems by Henry Dumas
MUSEUM POETICA: Neglectorinos
In Black Fire: An Anthology of Afro-American Writing edited by Amiri Baraka and Larry Neal, Henry Dumas notes in his profile: “I am very much concerned about what is happening to my people and what we are doing with our precious tradition.” Dumas was murdered in a Harlem subway by a white transit policeman in 1968 — the year of the anthology’s publication, therefore making his portfolio of included poems more or less instantly posthumous. He was 33 years old. The early death of this remarkable poet and short story writer is still tragic on too many levels.
Dumas registers various tones and tensions in his work. At times he is polemical, playful, militant, mischievous — often all at once. Along with a penchant for incorporating African and African American folklore, musical references, and cultural traditions, he explores the agonies of urban and rural Black realities and the brutalities of a racist society. However, he also frequently depicts the humorous, though at times harrowing, everyday scenarios of poor Black Americans. What dynamically distinguishes him in this effort is the visionary element, always apparent in the verse and fiction, where the everyday is upended by mythic moments and alternative possibilities of living and dreaming are represented. In this way, Dumas, whose name is often aligned with the Black Arts Movement, is a Utopian as well as seriously committed socially and politically engaged artist.
Over the decades, his work has been in and out of print. Happily, Flood Editions has just reprinted Knees of a Natural Man: The Selected Poetry of Henry Dumas. This occasion is one to be celebrated indeed — but we here feel that the need to rescue the poet from neglect and deliver Henry Dumas back into modern literary conscience requires as much push as possible. Below is a sample of his works. Every month we will feature a forgotten writer we think needs to be revisited, enjoyed, and engaged. Henry Dumas is the first poet in our Neglecterinos Poetry Profile series and we are delighted to honor him and assist in his rightful return to the poetry world. Welcome back, Henry Dumas! Please join us and be with us. We have missed you…
Yr. humble obt. Svt.,
W.B. Ozymandias
Henry Dumas, William G. Davis and Eugene B. Redmond in 1967. Courtesy of Eugene B. Redmond. NPR.
Knock on Wood
i go out to totem street
we play
neon monster
and watusi feet
killer sharks chasin behind
we play hide
siren!
and out-run cops
they catch
willie
and me
splittin over fence
they knock
in willie’s head
hole
they kick me watusi
down
for dead
like yesterday
runnin feet in my brain
won’t stop willie lookin blood
beggin me
cut off blackjack pain
so whenever you see me comin
crazy watusi
you call me watusi
i keep a wooden willie
blade and bone out that fence
a high willie da conquieror
listen! up there he talkin
wooden willie got all the sense
i go out to siren street
don’t play no more
me and willie beat a certain beat
aimin wood carvin shadows
sometimes i knock on wood
with fist
me and willie play togetherin
and we don’t miss
*
mosaic harlem
what news from the bottle?
rats shedding hair in ice
nodding veins filled with snow
blackeyed peas, grits, red rice
through the broken glass I hear a breaking age
what song do we gurgle?
what news from the bottom?
Jesus learning judo
I scratch giant lice and ghetto
fleas in the gutter of my mind
the sucking boll weevil converts to blood
when will the mosquito fear the rage under sweat?
what view from the bottle?
cats pawing at cotton ideas
the roach in the milk
crawls safely to the nipple
why is green not black, brown, tan, only pain?
what news from the bureau?
a mole stoking coal in wine-steam and no gas
building baby foundations from lamb-bone
pray in Chinese, farting in English
I hear a black drum roaring up a green lion on a yeller silk
come to kill the keeper of our cage
what news from James’ bastard bible?
al-Mahdi kneels in the mosque,
Melchizedek, Moses, Marcus, Muhammad, Malcom!
marshalling words, mobilizing swords
the message is mixed and masticated with Martin
the good news of the gospel is crossing a crescent
what they do at the bottom?
went to the cop and he took my pot
the law giveth and the law taketh away
I can neither pee nor blow
they will rope Mary and take pussy for my bail
I will remember, I will recall, bottoms up, I cop
what news from the black bastille?
ram of god busting up shit
unicorning the wolf, panthering the fox
the old shepherd is himself lost
the ram will not stop, what news from the bottom?
the east! the west! and the top!
*
Kef 24
lay sixteen bales down in front on the plank
let me set and bay at the houndog moon
lay sixteen bales down of the cotton flank
pray with me brothers that the pink
boss dont sweat me too soon
beat my leg in a round nigger peg
lord have mercy on my black pole
lay sixteen bales in the even row
let me sweat and cuss my roustabout tune
lord have mercy on my shrinkin back
let me go with the jesus mule
lay sixteen bales for the warp and loom
beat a nigger down and bury his soul
boss dont sweat me too soon
pray with me brothers that I hold my cool
lord have mercy on this long black leg
let me ride on the jesus mule
lay sixteen bales of white fuzz down
lay sixteen tales of how I got around
lord have mercy on this sweat and stink
lord have mercy
lay sixteen bales
pray brothers
beat down
lord have
let me
lord lord
brothers
the houndog moon
howl jesus,
howl!
*
Kef 21
First there was the earth in my mouth. It was there like a running stream, the July fever sweating the delirium of August, and the green buckling under the sun. The taste of sick dust ran in the currents of saliva which I heaved up and tried to picture when all the people would curse their own stinking guts and die. No. I am not wishing that everyone should die. Nor am I wishing that everyone should be still. Only I am squeezing out the steam in me.
*
Kef 12
Take up the blood from the grass, sun.
Take it up.
These people do not thirst for it.
Take up the insect children that play in
the grass, sun.
Take them away.
These people are sick of them.
Take down the long slender reeds, sun.
Cut them down.
These people cannot make flutes any longer.
Now sun, come closer to the earth!
Even closer than that.
Closer. Now, sun.
Take away the shape from the metal, sun.
They are like stone, these people.
Now make them lava.
*
Knees of a Natural Man
For Jay Wright
my ole man took me to the fulton fish market
we walk around in the guts and the scales
my ole man show me a dead fish, eyes like throat spit
he say “you hongry boy?” i say “naw, not yet”
my ole man show me how to pick the leavings
he say people throw away fish that not rotten
we scaling on our knees back uptown on lenox
sold five fish, keepin one for the pot
my ole man copped a bottle of wine
he say, “boy, build me a fire out in the lot”
backyard cat climbin up my leg for fish
i make a fire in the ash can
my ole man come when he smell fish
frank williams is with him, they got wine
my ole man say “the boy cotch the big one”
he tell big lie and slap me on the head
i give the guts to the cat and take me some wine
we walk around the sparks like we in hell
my ole man is laughin and coughin up wine
he say “you hongry boy” i say “naw, not yet”
next time i go to fulton fish market
first thing i do is take a long drink of wine
*
Love Song
Beloved,
I have to adore the earth:
The wind must have heard
your voice once.
It echoes and sings like you.
The soil must have tasted
you once.
It is laden with your scent.
The trees honor you
in gold
and blush when you pass.
I know why the north country
is frozen.
It has been trying to preserve
your memory.
I know why the desert
burns with fever.
It was wept too long without you.
On hands and knees,
the ocean begs up the beach,
and falls at your feet.
I have to adore
the mirror of the earth.
You have taught her well
how to be beautiful.
*
Rite
Vodu green clinching his waist,
obi purple ringing his neck,
Shango, God of the spirits,
whispering in his ear,
thunderlight stabbing the island
of blood rising from his skull.
Mojo bone in his fist
strikes the sun from his eye.
Iron claw makes his wrist.
He recalls the rites of strength
carved upon his chest.
Black flame, like tongues of glass,
ripples beneath a river of sweat.
Strike the island!
Strike the sun!
Strike the eye of evil!
Strike the guilty one!
No power can stay the mojo
when the obi is purple
and the vodu is green
and Shango is whispering,
Bathe me in blood.
I am not clean.
*
Son of Msippi
Up
from Msippi I grew.
(Bare walk and cane stalk
make a hungry belly talk.)
Up
from the river of death.
(Walk bare and stalk cane
make a hungry belly talk.)
Up
from Msippi I grew.
Up
from the river of pain.
Out of the long red earth dipping, rising,
spreading out in deltas and plains,
out of the strong black earth turning
over by the iron plough,
out of the swamp green earth dripping
with moss and snakes,
out of the loins of the leveed lands
muscling its American vein:
the great Father of Waters,
I grew
up,
beside the prickly boll of white,
beside the bone-filled Mississippi
rolling on and on,
breaking over,
cutting off,
ignoring my bleeding fingers.
Bare stalk and sun walk
I hear a boll-weevil talk
cause I grew
up
beside the ox and the bow,
beside the rock church and the shack row,
beside the fox and the crow,
beside the melons and maize,
beside the hound dog,
beside the pink hog,
flea-hunting,
mud-grunting,
cat-fishing,
dog pissing
in the Mississippi
rolling on and on,
ignoring the colored coat I spun
of cotton fibers.
Cane-sweat river-boat
nigger-bone floating.
Up from Msippi
I grew,
wailing a song with every strain.
Woman gone woe man too
baby cry rent-pause daddy flew.
*
The Zebra Goes Wild Where the Sidewalk Ends
I
Neon stripes tighten my wall
where my crayon landlord hangs
from a bent nail.
My black father sits crooked
in the kitchen
drunk on Jesus’ blood turned
to cheap wine.
In his tremor he curses
the landlord who grins
from inside the rent book.
My father’s eyes are
bolls of cotton.
He sits upon the landlord’s
operating table,
the needle of the nation
sucking his soul.
II
Chains of light race over
my stricken city.
Glittering web spun by
the white widow spider.
I see this wild arena
where we are harnessed
by alien electric shadows.
Even when the sun washes
the debris
I will recall my landlord
hanging in my room
and my father moaning in
Jesus’ tomb.
In America all zebras
are in the zoo.
I hear the piston bark
and ibm spark:
let us program rabies.
the madness is foaming now.
No wild zebras roam the American plain.
The mad dogs are running.
The African zebra is gone into the dust.
I see the shadow thieves comin
and my father on the specimen table.
Henry Dumas with his sons Michael and David. NewBlackMan (In Exile).