Dirge South

South in the spectrum events. Murderous events. Good South the longer warrior. Not Bad south, unreconstructed warrior. Get ready room, for hell. Untethered hatred. Sky aflame, stars aligned for the non-rational. Desponded map. Down under. A long forgiving. A long forgiving and then reckoning. Long long. Who forgive? Would she? Would they? would he? Mothers and fathers, forgive? Bother and sisters, forgive? See the big picture. Ethno-historical days. A sum. We do holy ritual and turning. We do secular ritual, turning. We continue you, Dear murdered. This is domestic terrorism.

Body holy blackness. Holy holy blackness. Holy holy dark continent in the cross dream of liberation. But there in collective groan longer longer groan, a vision. You want psyche? You cross a world together. Sing of victims and crime. You curse you will not sing. Must not sing. Then must sing, sing the evil down. Sing centuries unmitigated disaster. Rive it. Hundred year plan? Thousand year plan? Withers without your spirit. And all go down. And all and all go down. And white go down. Do something white body, and white go down. And all go down. What genocide. Any room for poetry? And the Navajo poet lowers his head, children, he says, in this time: room for poetry? This time. Sorry sorry sorry hominid. What? This is domestic terrorism.

Walls. Wall you are up against, all all. O it, murder, detail, all of it. Emmanuel, o come. Could tell: rupture, scream. What next? Sing. Could tell it’s over us, wash, come over us. Emmanuel. O come, o come. Leader, minister, senator. Young man dead in his time. Then all lay in blood. Washed in the blood. Unsolved. Rip again. Structure of rip. The architectures that won't work. That rip. That rot. Renewal? Saints in heaven. The disappearing. Erased. All the saints in heaven down on their knees for this.

Apotheosis. The Nine. Assumption of bodies. Too familiar. Lift. Innocents when you go to slaughter. Broke down into violence. Degeneration. Up against and scream. Pressurizing brain, and mount, ghosts begging for light, Mount in the heat. Pile up. Layers of atrocity in the House of the Lord. What law will bind, hold back slaughter of innocents. O you syndicates of samsara breed genocide proud genocide flag of murderer. Insignias and shells of hatred proud to wear by the weak and damned. Room for poetry? This is domestic terrorism.

The Nine: Cynthia Hurd, 54; Susie Jackson, 87; Ethel Lance, 70; Rev. DePayne Middleton-Doctor, 49; Hon. Rev. Clementa Pinckney, 41; Tywanza Sanders, 26; Rev. Daniel Simmons Sr., 74; Rev. Sharonda Singleton, 45; Myra Thompson, 59.

For rest, for succor, arrive, arrive. When they say never coming, then arrive. Eruption of chaos. Then arrive. Blood and twin to the universe, always, chaos? Arrive. How many guns can you buy today? Locked in a cabin’s chaos, like fever, a cosmos of endarkenment. Mask, mine or yours. Masked in privilege. Turning around as word in the mouth, sobs try to get out. Take off. Sob me a river. Language is biodegradable. Gone south, a dirge south. Rotted man inside takes it down. Legion of terrorism this land. Infernal descents. In-born terrorism. Wake up. Hold it up. Arrive.

Insulated? Never. American soil saturated with the blood of the innocents. These are the holders, will hold. They will. Hold. O blessings, o dark lamb, come. Come. Come. Hold. Come, o dark lamb. Help me Jesus. Help us Jesus. Whatever the way. Hold. Hold. Shake shake these white bodies down. Arise or all go down. And Help us Buddha, help us Yaweh, Help us Mohammed, Help us Brahma, Help us Confucius. Dark Lamb on the way.

 

Copyright © 2016 by Anne Waldman. Used with permission of the author.