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Dennis Brutus: In July 2006, I visited Lebanon during Israel's bombardment. My stay at the Shatila camp for Palestinian refugees—the site of the 1982 massacre arranged by Israeli Defence Minister Ariel Sharon—was most poignant. I can only imagine the damage done to the people of the Gaza Strip this week, next week. But here is resistance, forever.
Only in the Casbah
in its stepped and narrow ways,
were the ringing shops, homes, and passages
past the refuse and the children
and the shriveled, tenacious dames;
only in the Casbah
where the bombed structures gape
in mute reminder of the terror of the French,
is the tenacious, labyrinthine,
and unshatterable heart
of resistance
truly known.
Algiers, 1970
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2/1/09
Dennis Brutus: "This poem, written in tribute to Steve Biko, reflects a long interest, including my founding of the Steve Biko Memorial during exile in Chicago. Descriptions of the towns (including King Williamstown) were recalled from an earlier hitchhiking trip, from Port Elizabeth to East London. Twenty years later, Biko's own fatal interrogation, in September 1977, occurred in the same building in Port Elizabeth in which I had been interrogated years earlier."
Poem composed for Steve Biko Day, San Antonio, June 16, 1978.
The dusty roads
from Peddie to King
the yellow river,
choking with silt,
draining to Monti.
The dust-filmed blue gums
poised and dreaming
in the arid air,
the parching dust
harsh in the throat
and hurtful on the eyes;
the crude Teutonic towns:
Hamburg, Berlin, Hanover,
with their ominous echoes—
all these he knew,
their roads he traversed:
they fired him with resolve
and smoldering anger;
their racial hate set around him
like the surge of shimmering heat waves
and laid a thousand lashes
on his taut flesh:
here he planned, dreamed,
waged his struggle,
and hardened his will
to confront the butchers,
to challenge their terror—
even if they robbed him of his life.
Dennis Brutus, 16/6/78
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1/1/09
Intro: The sirens of oppression I referred to in my first collection (1963) were still present in South Africa in 1989, as they seem to be as well in Gaza in 2009 thanks to Israel's bombing spree.
Dennis Brutus, Durban, 1/1/09
Still the sirens,
still the sirens,
stitch the night air with terror—
pierce hearing membranes
with shrieks of pain and fear:
still they weave the mesh
that traps the heart in anguish,
flash bright bars of power
that cage memory in mourning and loss.
Still sirens haunt the night air.
Someday there will be peace;
someday the sirens will be still.
Someday we will be free.
1989
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Visiting My Father's Birthplace
Prose poem: Visiting my father's birthplace
The landscape is familiar: gently sloping hillsides covered with greenery—brown shrubs. I am going in search of my father in the country of his boyhood, and though I, in a car with family members, it is all intensely private—so private that I don’t even allow myself the murmured conversation I usually conduct with myself.
This green-shadowed landscape troubles me. The hills have been slashed open, of course, so that there are red-raw stretches all along the wide asphalt roads—and I cannot suppress the knowledge that these wide, swift roads were planned to ensure the rapid transit of military vehicles to any area where there might be "trouble"—the euphemism for unrest provoked by police brutality or the ruthless enforcement of inhumane laws. There is another reminder of the iron hand of repression—the miles of gleaming wire and cable that conveyed instantaneous alerts about these same "troubles"; that sent helicopters or armored patrols—scorpions, hippos, buffaloes (these vehicles had animal names, sometimes because they evoked a resemblance)—with screaming sirens and flashing headlamps into the "townships," as these segregated and menaced areas were called. They are a constant presence. And though they no longer carry the same menacing quality, they are a brooding reminder, a symbol not to be shaken off.
So it is with the load pressing on my mind that we enter the small fishing village where my father grew up, after stopping at an information cottage near the entrance and picking up some material from a helpful but somewhat perplexed attendant.
The sea stretches out, pale blue to silver at the horizon, and the bay curves gently, with fishing boats in the foreground, and a bulky factory on the headland at the entrance. The town will, of course, have changed greatly, but the sea is the same sea, and this is pretty much the scene he would have looked out on. I try to see with his boyish eyes: try to feel what he felt, to enter somehow into the thoughts and feelings of the father who would never let me enter his mind. Nothing comes of it—only the thought of that lingering military presence. And of the greed for profit that will bring more factories to destroy this landscape that can still tug at my heart.
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Remembering Egypt
(A poem fresh from Dennis' pen, today.)
Dennis: "Egypt is playing a tawdry role in the current agony of the Palestinians; but it is not new, sadly."
Remembering Egypt
Solitary I walked the sands
beside the Pyramids,
hot soil beneath my feet:
ageless the cloudless skies,
aeons above invisible stars:
men labored in dusty rags,
parched reeds wilted in shallows;
children with dark, hungry eyes
gazed, curious, at alien intruders
while power games unwound,
dynastic narratives unscrolled;
sorrowing, we braced for tawdry tales.
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Seeing a Film on Robben Island
Dennis: "A documentary film on visiting Robben Island prison was shown at the Centre for Civil Society at UKZN; this was one reaction."
Seeing a Film on Robben Island
There are the familiar waves,
green, screaming in the shallows
on grey, sharp-edged rocks;
impassive buildings with no hint of horrors—
even barbed wire seems unthreatening;
grey-shadowed cells are merely suggested—
soundless images emit no screams:
still, sorrow accumulated there—
sorrow, with rock-hard resolve;
how has it somehow dissolved?
Grinning De Klerk struts,
our malcontents primed their tools for heists;
our record activists rewrite the rules
to hide their own—and others'—guilts.
db.durban
NOTE: I record activists; they are those who have credibility because they have a record—of some sort—of being activists in the liberation struggle.
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Seen in a Mirror
Dennis: "Seen in a mirror."
Image
We accept what we are:
not that there is much
that we could do about it:
rejection, for instance,
would be meaningless;
so also, objection:
we accept what we are,
consent to accept this state,
acquiesce in current being,
commit to being as is.
Durban, 12/3/09
Shimon Peres is honoured
Yes, he skulked along all roads
yes, he whipped folks with all goads
he kissed princes, made them toads
he burdened blacks with all loads
disguised himself with various woads
his gut swarmed with trematodes
we condemn him, whatever bodes
he's the worst of S O D's - or Sodes
he's the robber-baron, free-booter, mercenary,
soldier-of-fortune, coloniser, pirate
bully, servant, architect of imperialism CECIL RHODES
Bailed out by Old Balliol
Haled before old Halliol
Sold out via old Saillio l
Traded by old Traillol
Dismally failed by old Faillio l
Deserves jailing by old Jaillio l
Tyburn is the place where he should burn
Terrorist of all the terrorists
Shimon Peres is the terrorist of all the terrorists
Together we mourn these events;
together we we mark these betrayals
together in shame and sorrow we mark these events
dennis brutus nov. 2008;
worcester state college,
worcester, mass
Balliol college is giving shimon peres an honorary degree. d.b.
Spring
Well
it seems to me
this early spring day
that
when it is time to go (fairly soon, now we understand)
it is that spray
of jacaranda blossoms
on the topmost bough
that I will miss most
at least
it is the sort of thing
i will part with –
or be parted from-
reluctantly most
Dennis Brutus – September 2008
Tribute to Steve Biko
Dennis Brutus: "This poem written in tribute to Steve Biko reflects a
long interest, including my founding of the Steve Biko Memorial
Committee during exile in Chicago. Descriptions of the towns (including King Williamstown) were recalled from an earlier hitchhiking trip, from Port Elizabeth to East London. Twenty years later, Biko's own fatal
interrogation, in September 1977, occurred in the same building in Port
Elizabeth in which I had been interrogated years earlier."
Poem composed for Steve Biko Day, San Antonio, June 16, 1978
The dusty roads
from Peddie to King
the yellow river
choking with silt
draining to i’Monti
the dust-filmed bluegums
poised and dreaming
in the arid air
the parching dust
harsh in the throat
and hurtful on the eyes
the crude teutonic towns
Hamburg, Berlin, Hanover
with their ominous echoes
— all these he knew
their roads he traversed:
they fired him with resolve
and smoldering anger
their racial hate seethed round him
like the surge of shimmering heatwaves
and laid a thousand lashes
on his taut flesh:
here he planned, dreamed,
waged his struggle
and hardened his will
to confront the butchers
to challenge their terror
—even if they robbed him of his life.
Dennis Brutus 16/6/78
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