Didn’t He Ramble / Prelude

Lyrics

Brathwaite's reading of these poems can be heard on SoundCloud or by opening this annotation Didn't He Ramble1So to New York London I finally come hope in my belly hate smothered down to the bone to suit the part I am playing That summer was fine: newspaper notices variety acts what the heart lacked we supplied with our hips and the art of our shuffle shoes But with the winter I knew I was old. Poor Tom was cold. Feet could no longer walk the fallen gold of parks. Gates closed, the pavements skidded blue and fro- zen. To and fro I walked, I wandered; wind cut my face with its true Gillette razor blades and snow burnt the rivers' bridges. In my small hired room, stretched out upon the New York Herald Tribune, pages damp from dirty lots, from locked out parks, from gutters; dark, tired, deaf, cold, too old to care to catch alight the quick match of your pity, I died alone, without the benefit of fire. 2Bring me now where the warm wind blows, where the grasses sigh, where the sweet tongue'd blossom flowers where the showers fan soft like a fisherman's net thrown through the sweet- ened air Bring me now where the workers rest, where the cotton drifts, where the rivers are and the minstrel sits on the logwood stump with the dreams of his slow guitar. 3But my sons grow fat, grow fat, far from the slow guitar. See them zoot suits, man? Them black Texan hats? Watch false teeth flash; fake friendship makes them mock your grief and overnight they are the people's choice, the people's politicians. So it's now grab the can, grab all you can and give it to your selves, the poor. Let's legislate that black is white and white that black dominion that we aim for evermore. So burn the crops raise flash car cities I am Selassie and Selassie God black snow falls from my heaven. You scratch my drum I beat your violin I who was once your slave now slay my captive friend. 4But perhaps I am too far away to care about these things. Here once more the good soil warms me, worms now warn me of the too much faith the too much fear of others. The skin's destroyer in this soft subsidence obeys impartial laws. And I no longer lonely now long for the drums to speak, the violins listen before they begin, the slow guitars converse. Long, too, for flowers: not for their spider-feet of roots that now trans- fix me, but for their touch of surfaces, of shapes, of colours, and of course the various scents that really give them meaning. And I should like to see my children's children: slender shoots: the grow- ing green reminders of the seeds I gave. Will their blooms find my grave? Will they too share the rocks, the charcoal bed, lost gold, the fire trail of fear, the silent paths of forest we shall not know again? Or do I hear them mock my sons: my own sons mock- ing me? PreludeMemories are smoke lips we can't kiss hands we can't hold will never be enough for us; for we have learned to live with sun with sin with soil with rock with iron toil no dreams for us no hopes no scabs to heal in the hot sun neither no screams no whip rope lash no sweat- ing free- ness either. Just give us what we earn in bright bold cash before we smash and grab it. To hell with Af- rica to hell with Eu- rope too, just call my blue black bloody spade a spade and kiss my ass. O- kay? So let's begin.