Four poems from Épitomé (1962) by Tchicaya U Tam’si

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A bouquet of faded flowers in my letterbox…


I

I was naked for the first kiss of my mother

I was naked before Sammy and before men


I would be cold already

Without this taste of black salt

in your black blood


I have the claws of a woman in my flesh

I bleed for her delight in love

But hide from me the image of her god

that fakir whose grin desalts my soul

and lets the ferns

hold in the earth

the freshness of a patch of violent water.


These flowers in my letterbox, I cross my

fingers to caress them and the conscience of

 the world is silent with me over the drama

 of Léopoldville – I spit into the Seine like all good poets.


II

What do I want with a thousand stars in broad daylight

the rapt surrealist

in one of them at midnight

has blessed my crazy reason


My reason is the memory of a levitation

it knits a blue stocking for the violated night

it kindles hell in the black flames it ends

the purification of my sinful swan

which once fixed a halo of pollen


on the head of a lustful black crab

my reason makes me difficult and faithless

in the abstract of my passion.


My prick is not even a root of the tree,

to speak as that tree rustles

would give a rustic perfume

to the game of my flight

and put less blood on the hands of my quest.


The disasters unfold in silence

as one loved them in childhood memory

and a grey rain serves all our dreams

forcing me to become a forger

and holy assassin

despite the equinox

despite myself

despite the sorcery of the smiles

of my obedient black brothers


And then

what would you have me say of this silence

squatting beside my own conscience?


They give you what they have eaten and what they have not known how to keep. The shadow, like them, had a certain reticence. I am full of spite with the sun.


III

You must be from my country

I see it by the tick

of your soul around the eyelashes

and besides you dance when you are sad

you must be from my country


Keep moving time is waiting to seduce us

learn from this that the oil in your lamp

is really my blood brimming up

and that, if it overflows, you mustn’t light your lamp

we must have a dark corner somewhere

for our ancient orisons


All of us from the same umbilical cord

But who knows where we fetch

our awkward heads


Often the silences

reeking of iodine ravage us

with lecherous resolves

for my beardless conscience

ravage us alone.


IV

The Scorner


I drink to your glory my god

You who have made me so sad

You have given me a people who are not distillers of gin


What wine shall I drink to your jubilate

In this country which has no vines

In this desert all the bushes are of cactus

Shall I take their crop of flowers

for flames of the burning bush of your desire

Tell me in what Egypt my people’s feet lie chained


Christ I laugh at your sadness

O my sweet Christ

Thorn for thorn

We have a common crown of thorns

I will be converted because you tempt me

Joseph comes to me

I suck already the breast of the Virgin your mother

I count more than your one Judas on my fingers

My eyes lie to my soul

Where the world is a lamb your pascal lamb – Christ

I will waltz to the tune of your slow sadness.



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