Siendou A. Konate
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Poems by Siendou Konate
Belated Odes to Culture’s Joseph Hill
(Departed on August 19 2005)
Ode I: Wiping Weeping Eyes
If you’ve not heard of our psalms,
Here is one for you!
It is a psalm of Joe Hill
One of ground-shaking sons of Jamakya
That trampled the soil of the Motherland with full watts.
The watts of Joe Hill:
Remember,
He was the one who chanted about “Two Sevens Clash”.
When Ethiopia stretched her arms
The sons and daughters of Afrika of Old were already saying:
“We wann guh home!”
The inviting mix of nyabinghi drums
And of jembe and the coarse voice of the man
Went back to the Horn of Africa,
Through the Atlantic coast of sorrowing feelings of Elmina
Down to the land of Madiba,
Where lie the sad of memories of brutal occupation in the 20th century.
Asking Mr. Sluggard where he gets that fat bread
When poor people are suffering and dying in the land,
And teaching that “there is enough for everyone’s need,
But not enough to satisfy their greed,”
Decrying injustice and oppression
Across the lines of skin color and tongues:
“No more war in any corner of the world”,
And begging “Sweet Freedom”
To come around his way,
In sum, touring the Whole Wide World,
He preached “Peace, Love and Harmony.”
Joe’s breath has not been wasted.
From it came words of cotton-like comfort,
Words of the modern griot
That assuaged the pain of the poor
When hectoring the Babylonian tormentor
And fighting down the downpressor.
Carried by the train of the righteous,
(For this train carries no wrongdoer)
Be welcomed,
And may your ground be soft
And in the land of the forebears!
As your beats are making our hearts pound
And your words falling on attentive ears,
And this for ever and ever and ever.
Ode II: Mourning a Friend of the World
When you cap your ear
Days and nights henceforth
Hoping to hear the joyful barking and hissings
Of your beloved companion
Whose absence has saddened,
And weakened your heart,
The void of which none
But the healing of time can replenish
Mark a pause
(Perhaps on your roadside)
And cap your ears anew
And more attentively than usual
You will learn
That the departed are not forever gone
That they are in the air–fresh or warm–we breathe
That they reside in every tiny grain
Of sand tickling the palm of our hands and feet
That they are one with the soft noise
Of the known and unknown flowing rivers of the world
That they are hosted by every fire and its source
The cardinal boundaries of the Matter
Moan for you to use them as a prop
A prop to rest your ailing heart on
In this time of pain
And your pain
They all shall feel,
For in them a friend of the world lies.
Dirge for a Baobab Tree
(For Aimé David Fernand Césaire fallen on April 9, 2008)
Aimé,
Each and every one knows
That the man and his pen accomplices
Never made any concession of the weight of a mustard seed
To Napoleon and De Gaulle, the self-appointed fathers of far-flung lands ;
That these never bore them in their dark heated hearts :
They never loved
Him and his fellow singers who groaned patricidal chants.
Even after withstanding 93 springs and harmattans,
Ségolène Royal’s words
Unearthed Fernand’s legendary sharp mind
From the verge of the precipice of senility.
He revealed himself one last time.
David certainly tackled Goliath :
The strident screamings of turbulent children in the backyard of Mother France
Wound up with be colossal NO of Conakry,
Loosening the clutches red with the blood of the deemed cultureless,
Who earned back their fine color
And a sight of relief !
Fine arts and letters kept on flowing
Revealing the fallacy of the mighty motto:
Freedom, Equality, Brotherhood
Values that are never applied
To other human brothers and sisters overseas,
Thereby turned into hollowed words.
Césaire is here:
He knows
That Birago Diop who spoke of the Other World
Said that the departed are
Among us through air, sand, wind and water.
Piye, Black Pharaoh
You, King of Two Kingdoms,
Level down those walls
And let them know the feel of your hand.
Let dark pyramids be built to recall your might.
And your bust to show your trace,
Even if someday
Some archaeologists will want to erase and belittle it.
Others will excavate it and show how you stood.
Mighty Trace
What is it like now?
I heard it from my father.
He heard it from his.
The line goes as far as I can’t see.
It is a gamut of traces
In the baked earth of the Timbuktu desert.
When it was raining,
There were more footprints
That I could not but follow.
I asked them about the time gone by.
They begged me to look at them closely.
I asked them anew.
Very silently they replied: “We are still here!”.
That is all there is to it.
Our past is gone past us.
We claim it for more than it means,
Because we are not finished with it,
As it already seems to be with us.
Siendou A. Konaté is a native of West Africa’s Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast). There, he studied African American
literature before coming to the United States. At Binghamton University, he received a doctorate in Comparative
Literature with a focus on African American and African literatures and cultures. His interests include engaged music
and poetry in Africa and in its Diaspora. He currently lives in Canada.
Belated Odes to Culture’s Joseph Hill
(Departed on August 19 2005)
Ode I: Wiping Weeping Eyes
If you’ve not heard of our psalms,
Here is one for you!
It is a psalm of Joe Hill
One of ground-shaking sons of Jamakya
That trampled the soil of the Motherland with full watts.
The watts of Joe Hill:
Remember,
He was the one who chanted about “Two Sevens Clash”.
When Ethiopia stretched her arms
The sons and daughters of Afrika of Old were already saying:
“We wann guh home!”
The inviting mix of nyabinghi drums
And of jembe and the coarse voice of the man
Went back to the Horn of Africa,
Through the Atlantic coast of sorrowing feelings of Elmina
Down to the land of Madiba,
Where lie the sad of memories of brutal occupation in the 20th century.
Asking Mr. Sluggard where he gets that fat bread
When poor people are suffering and dying in the land,
And teaching that “there is enough for everyone’s need,
But not enough to satisfy their greed,”
Decrying injustice and oppression
Across the lines of skin color and tongues:
“No more war in any corner of the world”,
And begging “Sweet Freedom”
To come around his way,
In sum, touring the Whole Wide World,
He preached “Peace, Love and Harmony.”
Joe’s breath has not been wasted.
From it came words of cotton-like comfort,
Words of the modern griot
That assuaged the pain of the poor
When hectoring the Babylonian tormentor
And fighting down the downpressor.
Carried by the train of the righteous,
(For this train carries no wrongdoer)
Be welcomed,
And may your ground be soft
And in the land of the forebears!
As your beats are making our hearts pound
And your words falling on attentive ears,
And this for ever and ever and ever.
Ode II: Mourning a Friend of the World
When you cap your ear
Days and nights henceforth
Hoping to hear the joyful barking and hissings
Of your beloved companion
Whose absence has saddened,
And weakened your heart,
The void of which none
But the healing of time can replenish
Mark a pause
(Perhaps on your roadside)
And cap your ears anew
And more attentively than usual
You will learn
That the departed are not forever gone
That they are in the air–fresh or warm–we breathe
That they reside in every tiny grain
Of sand tickling the palm of our hands and feet
That they are one with the soft noise
Of the known and unknown flowing rivers of the world
That they are hosted by every fire and its source
The cardinal boundaries of the Matter
Moan for you to use them as a prop
A prop to rest your ailing heart on
In this time of pain
And your pain
They all shall feel,
For in them a friend of the world lies.
Dirge for a Baobab Tree
(For Aimé David Fernand Césaire fallen on April 9, 2008)
Aimé,
Each and every one knows
That the man and his pen accomplices
Never made any concession of the weight of a mustard seed
To Napoleon and De Gaulle, the self-appointed fathers of far-flung lands ;
That these never bore them in their dark heated hearts :
They never loved
Him and his fellow singers who groaned patricidal chants.
Even after withstanding 93 springs and harmattans,
Ségolène Royal’s words
Unearthed Fernand’s legendary sharp mind
From the verge of the precipice of senility.
He revealed himself one last time.
David certainly tackled Goliath :
The strident screamings of turbulent children in the backyard of Mother France
Wound up with be colossal NO of Conakry,
Loosening the clutches red with the blood of the deemed cultureless,
Who earned back their fine color
And a sight of relief !
Fine arts and letters kept on flowing
Revealing the fallacy of the mighty motto:
Freedom, Equality, Brotherhood
Values that are never applied
To other human brothers and sisters overseas,
Thereby turned into hollowed words.
Césaire is here:
He knows
That Birago Diop who spoke of the Other World
Said that the departed are
Among us through air, sand, wind and water.
Piye, Black Pharaoh
You, King of Two Kingdoms,
Level down those walls
And let them know the feel of your hand.
Let dark pyramids be built to recall your might.
And your bust to show your trace,
Even if someday
Some archaeologists will want to erase and belittle it.
Others will excavate it and show how you stood.
Mighty Trace
What is it like now?
I heard it from my father.
He heard it from his.
The line goes as far as I can’t see.
It is a gamut of traces
In the baked earth of the Timbuktu desert.
When it was raining,
There were more footprints
That I could not but follow.
I asked them about the time gone by.
They begged me to look at them closely.
I asked them anew.
Very silently they replied: “We are still here!”.
That is all there is to it.
Our past is gone past us.
We claim it for more than it means,
Because we are not finished with it,
As it already seems to be with us.
Siendou A. Konaté is a native of West Africa’s Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast). There, he studied African American
literature before coming to the United States. At Binghamton University, he received a doctorate in Comparative
Literature with a focus on African American and African literatures and cultures. His interests include engaged music
and poetry in Africa and in its Diaspora. He currently lives in Canada.
