THE AMIRI ARCANE/ by Jack Hirschman

 

Objectively, America yesterday lost one of its greatest poets, 

If greatness is to be based—and I think it is— on using the rage for truth in language to confront, disturb and vilify the rulers in power, that is, throughout, the capitalist class and its apologizers Objectively, because the plight of Afro-America, EVEN WITH a Black President—is the cornerstone of the American tragedy  since racism has spared no one

—Black White Brown Asian and Native—from being crippled in soul.

Amiri’s whole soul-cry was against that monstrous condition, and because he represented the people who were most victimized by

 that condition, his was objectively the language that  future generations will refer to in their revolutionary processes. 

Jack Hirschman

 

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THE AMIRI ARCANE

In Memory of Amiri Baraka (1934-2014)

1.

To give it out and keep on keeping on

giving it out with savvy in sound,

sound-wise profoundly in dem-
otic slang of a people whose fire’s

made all the people of here-and-now

for twenty score years

jump for joy, and not out the window,

sing, for song be Being

as he read early on in Ray Rilke,

and how true is this brother of a

King, the leveleverett Leroi

who became Amiri, the Emir of poetry

and the brother of the challenger,

the overturner, Amira,

our lord and king, his majesty be exalted.

2.

Bringing it to the page as score,

that old new thing made of slave memory,

the spittle of horse in the mouth and horn

of the sex of the saxophony of Charlie Parker,

O Blues, ‘cause one of yous, sonova best

of the Black who knew the subtle tease

of your smooth gradations how low down

can be so low and so far down to come up

for air, you hear, is to be higher than over

a dam and even when she keener…

Talk about Blues, o baby, we got, I mean,

you heard of that Black hole in the sky?

Well, Amiri’s going’s left one helluva

Blue hole in the gut of the human soul.

His rage—write-on! His Litany Rant:

Fight Back Against the Rightwing Attack,

a titan plowing into the iceberg of white

supremecy. Whether avantgarde in lit,

blackguard in poetry, or vanguard in

Unity-Struggle-Unity creating in Dyab’s

vodou steps the poto-mitan, the center

pole of workers under the direction of

the working-class, as backward yet

Blackforward amid blocked words

it all seems spinning toward, and the

screw of fascism tightens every day,

still his Who, his Who Who Who asked

the question in Sombody Blew Up America

that all of us know the answer to, so

what are we waiting for? Nothing?

No it, you lover. No I/tu lover.

Revolution. Andiamo!