For Our Old-Future (or New?) Poets

We, the people of the Republic of Liberia, were
originally inhabitants of the United States of America.

[Change]

Some of the early settlers . . . were formerly
inhabitants of the United States of America.

                                                                   We were taxed without our consent.

                                                                                                    [Change]

                                                                                                    They were . . .

We were made a separate and distinct class . . .
Strangers from other lands, of a color different from ours,
were preferred before us.

[Change]

They were made a separate and distinct class, and against them every avenue of improvement was effectually closed. Strangers . . . were preferred before them.

             — Albert Porte, Thoughts on Change; Crozierville, 1977.


Bill shall be. George—even our greatest.
Seeing that Jimmy is now puzzled about
what seems to be a plain transfer of Savannah to
Harbel. To state (or ask?) the Firestone Plantation chief
“why” is deep thinking, Jimmy. If James was buried with the
key to a diseased city, it is also deep thinking to
wonder why Monrovia has been dying since birth.
Imagine a Lazarus’ relief, Mr. Poet
in a renewed cancerous life. Would a new city—
away from this now
unmarked grave of all our pathos—be too much
for the thinking? Or the de facto national gods of
Ignorance, Disorientation, Elections and Enjoyment
sacrifice us to a vexed Atlantic, as Buchanan
another dying city, lay hapless
for that watery knife?

Untitled

for Wokie Ann Kuieh

1

In dream as now
you are always in April
in a new familiar country
near.

Though tonight you come
with a stranger
whose face
seems strangely familiar.

His is the face of a man
no stranger to hunger
no stranger to longing
no stranger to hunger.

He stands with the shadows
by the door
ajar for a pole of a frame
face half-cast in the light of dream.

You come closer with
stammering feet
for a glass of water
that you drink
to quench two travelers' thirst.

You say it is your last
though you have come only
once before
at years’ interval.

You swirl to face your
chaperon
to ghost
away.

2

Before this hesitation
before this thirst
before this goodbye visit
before this chaperon.

You come after your death
to remind me of ghosts
Out-populating the living
in the old country.

Words are not needed
when presence can conjure up
what had been
what remains.

In your cornrowed hair
burgundy pleated skirt
Pink one breast-pocketed short sleeves
Burgundy-socked feet strapped in Mary Jane.

Your face the girl’s
whose beauty has been
strained by contemplation of a new
home in those Chinese eyes.

Or African-to-Chinese eyes
staring at me
into me beyond me
past the pond.

Eibs Pond as a choice
for a girl from Liberia
portends the perils of your journey
hitchhiking a convoy of damselflies.

You are silent as the
horror and the fear inspired by
Birth of a Nation
or as the post-horror of the Natives
for the Perils of Pauline.

We walk as if together again
closer to the still dark water
without a word
all the while we stare.

Eibs pond becomes a plasma screen
taking us back to river Muen
the stump of the last water ironwood
a teleological dream within a dream.

3

We have been warned
that the river overflows
out of hunger for life
human.

But Muen restrains herself
three years holding
back her fishes
holding back patiently.

So comes the dynamite and
it deadens the warning of
parents and all as it shocks
the fishes and all with them to death.

Down the chalked ridge by the bank
three cool days as though
all the fishes of the world have
resigned themselves to the pots.

This morning the third day
we go with a smaller crowd to Muen
this harvesting must be the last
with such wide waterland between fishes.

With sticks and new branches
we pull the fishes by our smart waves
but no smart waves can call this pipemouthed
so you go down closer.

Now you are knee-high in the river
going still toward the stump
I cannot stop you
I cannot stop.

In this labyrinthine dream-telecast past
you go by the stump making
waves from it
you slip down.

Once up
to let go the branch
to hear your name
to see my face once.

4

The purpose of your first visit
clearly to absolve guilt
of my not preventing you that
pre-telecast morning at Muen.

That guilt allows for
nightmares of pursuit down
where you slip to a town
in dry season beneath the river.

There you are tied to a tree
much like the stump old and lifeless
surrounded by a magistrate of death
your mother and father among them.

I plead your release
promising to do any thing
to answer any riddle
to bring you back.

My plea is nothing
beside parents’ wishes
but answering any riddle
is the loophole.

Any riddle asks your father?
Then what sacrifice can
save a kingdom from destruction?
What?
What?

Military preparedness
what first comes to mind
commitment to good governance
for a free and happy citizenry.

Shaking their heads from
left to right
I plead I can answer any other
anything else.

I can explain the Bolshevik Revolution
American democracy
World Wars
the Solar System.

(Many years later when at GortokaiRepublic©
I am dismayed again to
find in the The Marriage of Wisdom
Attempts that might have saved your life.)

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