underlight
A collection for my mother, who teaches me to see the world as it is: dim, ridiculous, and injured; struggling to reveal itself.
Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
Genesis 1:2
A people flattened chained
bathed & degraded
in their own hysterical waste
below
beneath
under neath
deep down
up under
grave cave pit
lower & deeper
Weeping miles below
skyscraper gutters
Our people say
death lives in the West
(Any one can see plainly, each evening
where the sun goes to die)
So Okot
is now in the West
Here w/ us in hell
I have heard his songs
felt the earth drum his dance
his wide ness
& Sky self
Ocoli Singer
Ocoli Fighter
Brother Okot
now here w/ us
in the place
Where even the Sun
dies.
1 They Ugly
on purpose!
2 They get high
off Air Raids!
3 They are the oldest
continuously functioning
Serial Killers!
4 They murder
to Explain
Themselves!
5 They think
Humans
are food.
6 They imitate
conversation
by lying
7 They are always naked
and always dirty
the shower & tuxedo
don't help
8 They go to the bathroom
to have a religious
experience
9 They believe everything is better
Dead. And that everything alive
is their enemy.
10 Plus Heathens is armed
and dangerous.
I’m not real,
I’m just like you.
You don’t exist in this society.
If you did,
your people wouldn’t be seeking equal rights.
You’re not real,
if you were you’d have some status
among the nations of the world.
So we are both myths.
I do not come to you as a reality,
I come to you as the myth
because that is what
black people are: myths.
I came from a dream
that the black man dreamed long ago.
I’m actually a presence
sent to you by your ancestors.
We cry among the skyscrapers
As our ancestors
Cried among the palms in Africa
Because we are alone,
It is night,
And we’re afraid.
I am so tired of waiting,
Aren't you,
For the world to become good
And beautiful and kind?
Let us take a knife
And cut the world in two-
And see what worms are eating
At the rind.
Wave of sorrow,
Do not drown me now:
I see the island
Still ahead somehow.
I see the island
And its sands are fair:
Wave of sorrow,
Take me there.
A wild poppy-flower
Withered and died.
The day-people laughed --
But the night-people cried.
A wild poppy-flower
Withered and died.
At the feet o’ Jesus,
Sorrow like a sea.
Lordy, let yo’ mercy
Come driftin’ down on me.
At the feet o’ Jesus
At yo’ feet I stand.
O, ma little Jesus,
Please reach out yo’ hand.
Hungry child,
I didn't make this world for you
You didn't buy any stock in my railroad.
You didn't invest in my corporation.
Where are your shares in standard oil?
I made the world for the rich
And the will-be-rich
And the have-always-been-rich,
Not for you,
Hungry child.
Being broke feels like
the entire world is a party
at someone else’s house.
& you’re wearing muddy shoes that u can’t take off
and everyone’s just like, ‘Yo, come on, leave.’
And you want to leave
but somehow just can’t.
A people in the throes of national prosperity, who
breathe poisoned air, drink poisoned water, eat
poisoned food,
who take poisoned medicines to heal them of the poisons
that they breathe, drink, and eat,
such a people crave the further poison of official
reassurance. It is not logical,
but it is understandable, perhaps, that they adore
their President who tells them that all is well,
all is better than ever.
The President reassures the farmer and his wife who
have exhausted their farm to pay for it, and have
exhausted themselves to pay for it,
and have not paid for it, and have gone bankrupt for
the sake of the free market, foreign trade, and the
prosperity of corporations;
he consoles the Navahos, who have been exiled from their
place of exile, because the poor land contained
something required for the national prosperity,
after all;
he consoles the young woman dying of cancer caused by a
substance used in the normal course of national
prosperity to make red apples redder;
he consoles the couple in the Kentucky coalfields, who
sit watching TV in their mobile home on the mud of
the floor of a mined-out stripmine;
from his smile they understand that the fortunate have
a right to their fortunes, that the unfortunate have
a right to their misfortunes, and that these are
equal rights.
The President smiles with the disarming smile of a man
who has seen God, and found Him a true American,
not overbearingly smart.
The President reassures the Chairman of the Board of the
Humane Health for Profit Corporation of America,
who knows in his replaceable heart that health, if
it came, would bring financial ruin;
he reassures the Chairman of the Board of the Victory
and Honor for Profit Corporation of America, who
has been wakened in the night by a dream of the
calamity of peace.
I leave behind even
my walking stick. My knife
is in my pocket, but that
I have forgot. I bring
no car, no cell phone,
no computer, no camera,
no CD player, no fax, no
TV, not even a book. I go
into the woods. I sit down on
a log provided at no cost.
It is the earth I've come to,
the earth itself, sadly
abused by the stupidity
only humans are capable of
but, as ever, itself. Free.
A bargain! Get it while it lasts!
If you’re not mad
at the world,
you don’t have
what it takes
I know what
life is.
This is not
life.
This is death
disguised as life.
God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.
Genesis 1:4
I find when you bring anything new
the lights always go out
…
because why?
we were doing something creative!
and creation always starts with darkness
and then you make light.
you take the darkness and
do something with it.
I have a potent degree of
love that is so
unwise
in one world that it is
wisdom
in another.
First of all I express sincerity.
There's also that sense of humor, by which
people sometimes learn to laugh
about themselves.
I mean,
the situation is so serious
that the people could go crazy because of it.
They need to smile and
realize how ridiculous everything is.
A race without a sense of humor is in bad shape.
A race needs clowns.
In earlier days people knew that.
Kings always had a court jester around.
In that way he was always reminded
how ridiculous things are.
I believe that nations too should have
jesters, in the congress, near the president,
everywhere.
You could call me the
jester of the Creator.
The whole world,
all the disease and misery,
it's all ridiculous.
Watching a breeze
move through some grass
I imagine it was just
the grass
shaking off yesterday’s bullshit
to prepare for today.
To prepare for
more bullshit.
Say to them,
say to the down-keepers,
the sun-slappers,
the self-soilers,
the harmony-hushers,
"Even if you are not ready for day
it cannot always be night."
You will be right.
For that is the hard home-run.
Live not for battles won.
Live not for the-end-of-the-song.
Live in the along.
let ruin end here
let him find honey
where there was once a slaughter
let him enter the lion’s cage
& find a field of lilacs
let this be the healing
& if not let it be
Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion — put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie easy in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.
II
At night make me one with the darkness.
In the morning make me one with the light
IV
Don’t pray for the rain to stop.
Pray for good luck fishing
when the river floods
VIII
When I rise up
let me rise up joyful
like a bird.
When I fall
let me fall without regret
like a leaf.
XII
Let me wake in the night
and hear it raining
and go back to sleep.
XIII
Make the human race a better head.
Make the world a better piece of ground.