Five Poems Written by Dennis Brutus

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Karen Silkwood

Dennis Brutus Poem, 9/1/09  

A Terrible Knowledge

To the memory of Karen Silkwood, who died  

on the road from Cimarron, November 13, 1974.  

On the road from Cimarron,  

terrible knowledge squatted  

like an unnatural monster  

at the back of her brain.  

On the road from Cimarron,  

terrible knowledge pursued her,  

headlights lasering  

the back of her head.  

On the road from Cimarron,  

terrible knowledge  

of a mutilating death  

rested with lethal casualness  

on her sleeve.  

On the road from Cimarron,  

terrible knowledge impacted  

on her brain  

with the shattering crash  

that smashed her car from the road:  

they wished her to die  

with the terrible knowledge  

locked in her skull.  

Terrible knowledge  

of a nuclear holocaust,  

terrible knowledge  

clumsily unloosed  

through carelessness  

or greed.  

Terrible knowledge  

that even now  

a few are dying,  

slowly, horribly,  

lied to,  

lied about.  

And she had the terrible knowledge.  

Behind her, out of the dark,  

hurtled a red glare:  

baleful Moloch,  

awesome fireball glimmering:  

terror lunging to destroy.  

Out of the dark,  

behind her,  

a monstrous hound  

lunging from Erebus,  

sharp fangs snapping  

to extirpate her:  

terrible knowledge  

of impending death.  

Terrible knowledge  

of the guilty ones  

—cops, executives, agents—  

who conspired to destroy her  

and her terrible knowledge,  

and now conspire  

to plead their innocence,  

their ignorance.  

Terrible knowledge  

of our capacity to destroy,  

of our potential for destruction,  

of our destructive greed:  

terrible knowledge,  

Karen’s knowledge,  

our knowledge,  

terrible knowledge.

---

Living Under Apartheid

You wake up each grey morning  

in a fog of sorrow,  

hoping some shaft of brightness  

will flash to relieve your gloom,  

some disaster, horror, catastrophe  

will signal the end of the system.  

True, there are those who love it,  

who fight to preserve it—  

love its privilege,  

its assurance of protection,  

who view its possible end with horror.  

(Years later they will profess ignorance,  

will claim innocence—  

and a supine government will accede,  

greed for power can make all deals possible.)  

True, they were uncomprehending,  

that hunger for free air,  

battling the raw sore on wounded selves.  

We worked each day with tense resolve;  

we cried each day at dawn,  

dragged ourselves up,  

tensed for the coming combat.

Dennis Brutus  

Living Under Apartheid – August 28, 2008

---

Memories of the Big March

Dennis Brutus: The march from Johannesburg's Alexandra Township to the Sandton financial district – where the UN World Summit on Sustainable Development was held – on 31 August 2002, with an estimated 30,000 participants, was an important moment in the regrouping of liberation forces after 1994. I was glad to be part of it, but had to be aware of the irony of marching against the forces we had helped put in power.

When we marched—slithered—through  

slimy mud past riot-shielded cops  

in Alex, while children peered wild-eyed  

from dark windows, for some of us  

these were re-runs of earlier apartheid-burdened days.  

But then it was defiant resolution that drove our hearts,  

braced our feet.  

Now, sadness at betrayal  

sat stone-heavy on our hearts.  

Our shouted slogans,  

weighted with irony,  

hung heavy over us in grimy air,  

we winced at familiar, oft-repeated lies.

Dennis Brutus – August 13-14, 2004  

Miles of My Arid Earth  

Brutus Poem, 23/3/09  

Miles of my arid earth,  

rasping dry as smoker’s cough and craving.  

Heat, hunger ache in your dusty haze,  

sighing, heaving, tremulous.  

All my seared eyes scours your miles—  

boulders that blister, scald, and rust—  

ranging parched reaches of rutted sands.  

Coax pastels from your dun and dust,  

and know the tenderness  

of these my reaching hands,  

can conjure moisture, gentleness,  

and honey sweetness from your yearning hollows.  

1971

---

No Banyan, Only  

Brutus Poem, 2/6/09  

Dennis: “A seminal work, done in Port Elizabeth in 1960.”

The quiet wisdom of the body's peace:  

Carnality, in this our carnal world, is all.  

Bamboo and iron having sealed  

our mundane eyes to views of time and peace.  

Now I am strong as stones or trees are strong,  

Insensible, or ignorant with vibrant life;  

Streams or the air may wash or pass me by  

My mind breathes quiet, lying yours along.  

(Upon what meat is this man fed  

That he is grown so great?  

Diet of eloquent, delectable accolades  

warm, soft, kindly, sweet, and red.)

Under no banyan tree I strip no onion skin  

To find a neat kernel at the still center:  

"A little winter love in a dark corner?"  

No, Love (for Chris'sake, no) no love, no sin.  

Sublunary no more, yet more acutely mundane now,  

Man’s fingers claw the cosmos in gestures of despair,  

Our souls, since Heresy, seek the helix of unknowing  

Save mine, you—saved, now leafing like a bough.  

Breaking through theory-thickets I thrust  

To this one corpus, one more self  

That gives content and content to an earth  

Littered and sterile with ideas and rust.  

Let alphabetic electrons bloat on Freudian excrement,  

Our golden bodies, dross-indifferent, count no gain,  

Finding Gauguin’s eternal island after noon  

And you hibiscus and my continent.  

Most kindly you and what indeed can be  

More most-required than kindliness  

In this our shared world? And thus  

My thanks for heartsease balm you render me.  

Animals, perhaps, without merit of their own  

—Forgive me, poverello, Paduan, my conceit—  

Attain at last such steady ecstasy  

As this you give, a gift to make us both your own.