The Age of Phillis. Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

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СКАЧАТЬ whiteness was invented—

      this hero who longs for the wood’s sway.

      Despite his tendency to chase tail—

      sirens and sundry other

      poppycock-drinking girls—

      I want to be happy that Homer imagined

      a sea housing pretty, forgiving Nymphs—

      while somewhere else, a wheel dances

      and someone else drowns.

      Sharks should pass Odysseus by,

      never imagining his taste.

      The gods shouldn’t pull at his fate—

      now angry, now benevolent.

      I try hard not to blame that man:

      We all deserve our Maker’s love.

POINT OF NO RETURN

       Somewhere on the Windward Coast, West Africa c. 1761

       [keep the men from muttering among themselves]

      parsing the air’s dying scent the water arms clutching

      at mirthful spirit back to this bereft lexicon

      dante’s castle on the rocky isle

      captured bodies twirled around the obscene

      & what cannot be released is that loud kindred laugh

      humanity split along colonial charms [virgin girls

      in one cell do what you wish] double back to naming

      gris-gris town-crying in hell place your hands on the bone

      map of fifteen million [women with fallen breasts in another]

      trapped in a century’s enlightened whims

      forgive these men of three centuries ago according

      to the tenets of baptized slave ships forgive forgive

      or do not [no children unless that is your taste]

THE TRANSATLANTIC PROGRESS OF SUGAR IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

      I own I am shock’d at the purchase of slaves,

       And fear those who buy them and sell them are knaves …

      I pity them greatly, but I must be mum,

       For how could we do without sugar and rum?

       — William Cowper, from “Pity for Poor Africans”

      oh

      peerless

      smell of cane

      cloud on triangular

      horizon whip trilling a red

      aria molasses the smelling hull

      & chained bones the practical sharks

      trailing hoping for new bodies overboard

      (dark/

      dark/pale/

      dark/pale/dark/

      dark/exchange/fresh/

      exchange/flesh/exchange/

      fresh/blood/blood/blood/blood/

      dark/dark/pale/dark/pale/dark/exchange/

      flesh/exchange/fresh/exchange/flesh/blood)

      &

      the sea

      taste blessed rape

      hollowed burn & brand

      some girls mostly boys this holy

       trinity of “godless dirty savages” island

      patois rum down a throat lump in some tea

      science of journey & the peerless smell of cane

ILLUSTRATION: “STOWAGE OF THE BRITISH SLAVE SHIP ‘BROOKES’ UNDER THE REGULATED SLAVE TRADE ACT OF 1788”

      There is no air.

      Closer. The stinky aria.

      The bodies’ relentless outlines

      on either side.

      Above, below—

      at some distance, the appearance

      of Kente’s intricate bands, or,

      a longed-for version of what

      a village potter might throw.

      I dream of breath,

      the stealing from

      pretty faces, the smoothness

      of the best chocolate.

      A tweakable, selfish nose.

      A body is some body. (I know that.)

      And theft?

      The hoping for the death

      of somebody else.

      Not of my family.

      Not of my tribe.

      My Maker up there,

      please, make the one

      next to me die. There is no air.

      Give me a teaspoon of life.

      I don’t care how.

      I don’t.

ACCORDING TO THE TESTIMONY TO THE GRAND JURY OF NEWPORT, RHODE ISLAND, BY SAILORS JONATHAN CRANSTON AND THOMAS GORTON, AFTER THROWING A NEGRO WOMAN (REFERRED TO AS “WENCH”) ALIVE INTO THE SEA, JAMES DEWOLF, CAPTAIN OF THE SLAVE SHIP POLLY, MOURNED THE LOSS OF THE GOOD CHAIR TO WHICH HE HAD STRAPPED HIS VICTIM

       c. June 15, 1791

       First Question:

      Was it a ball and claw with СКАЧАТЬ