The great dark work
has not yet been written
a monument to our age
which is the age of negritude
It will be written by a pop artist
who will dismember his contemporaries
image by image
and phrase by phrase
and
adding a touch of dung
a dash of dirt and corn
will reassemble them
in a fierce startling
collation
2
To speak with a public voice
the poet must be
angry with the world
and the way it is
He must speak with rage
tempered by grandeur
The sugarcandy school is not worth a line
The prophets of doom offer nothing
but unreal visions
of strange places ruined
empty cupolas
void niches
vacant dais
and under the arches dust and scorpions
in the vaults spiders
rats
wind broken-bro
From a gloomy corner
angels cart off
the coffin of God
But you who have known no God
but forests and waterfalls
and the bitter sun
you will articulate the totality
the embarrassment
pride
despair
and hope
and never forget the hope
of a continent in earthquake
You will speak
of black and white
and sometimes of red
trisyllabic reality
in which the earth is packed
awful tricolour
behind which the frightened spirit
hides itself
am reaching for
a modern grand style
to lift me away
words at a time
from the colourless
flat irony
of life
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