an eco-poem
Quincy Troupe: Poem for Friends
Quincy Troupe is the author or co-author of 20 books and 10 volumes of poems. His most recent books are Earl the Pearl, co-authored with Earl Monroe (April 2013) and Errancities poems, (2012). Among this other books are Miles: The Autobiography with Mile Davis, a memoir, Miles & me and The Pursuit of Happyness, with Chris Gardner. The Architecture of Language won the 2007 Paterson Award for Sustained Literary Achievement and Transcircularities: New and Selected Poems won the 2003 Milt Kessler Poetry Award and was selected by Publisher’s Weekly as one of the ten best books of poetry in 2002. Troupe has won three American Book Awards (1980 for poetry and 1990 for non-fiction) and a 2010 Lifetime Achievement Award. His work has been translated into over 25 languages, and in July 2014, Castor Astral will publish a book of his translated poems in France titled Erranicities and Other Poems. Professor Emeritus at the University of California, San Diego, he lives in Harlem with his wife Margaret and edits Black Renaissance Noire at New York University. (Photo of Troupe: © 2013 Rohan Preston. “Poem for Friends” written in 1968, first appeared in New Directions 22, edited by James Laughlin, in 1970. It appears in Transcirularities: New and Selected Poems © 2002 by Quincy Troupe, Coffee House Press.) Troupe serves on the Advisory Board of Eco-Poetry.org and is among its most distinguished members.
POEM for FRIENDS
For Calvin Hernton
1.
the earth is a wonderful
yet morbid place
crisscrossing maps of complexities
reaping the beauty of living
seeking death
we go
with foot/steps
that are either heavy, or light
(depending upon your weight
your substance )
go into light, or darkness
(depending upon the perception
of your vision)
we flounder, we climb
we trip
we fall
we call upon dead prophets
to help us
yet
they do not answer us
(we hear instead the singing in the leaves
the waves of oceans, pounding )
we see sheer cliffs
of mountains polished by storms
sculptured to God's perfection
we see the advancing age of technology
see soul-less monsters
eating up natures perfections
hear wails & screams
& sirens howling
but hear no human voices calling
we sit at the brink of chaos laughing
we idle away time
when there is no time
left us
we jump out of air/planes with no parachutes
we praise the foul mad/ men of war
we are pygmalions
in love with cold, bleak stones
& aphrodite is not here
to save us
seeking death
we come to origins
forks in the road of indecision
shaped like wishbones
& we go down unknown roads
seeking light in an ocean
of pure darkness
2.
journey if you can
to the far poles of the world
there you will find flocks
of sick birds
dying in the blue sea that is sky
you will find herds of animals
huddled together in the snow
against the cold
with no feeling or touch
of each other, no knowledge
no love, dying in the fierce
blowtorching cold
yet they gaze eagerly
into seas of light
meeting darkness
3.
& the mind is so wide
& wide again
so broad & deep
& deep, again
far down we go so slow
to find knowledge
sad songs of who we are
but go slow from here
from everywhere, effendi
go slow into sadness
of who we are
where we are
go slow into slow dance of what
you are
go slow into beauty
of space & time & distance
measure
every breath that you breathe
for it is precious
holy
go free into sun/lit days
fly free like old african ibis'
confronting the wind
swim long in the currents of these times
like the dolphin
plunging free through blue waves
for time is holy
& the faces that we see
upon the curl of the foam
of the fingered blue waters
are the faces of the world, sandstones
falling through hourglasses
& deposited upon these shores
& they are seeds
in need of nourishment
in need of beauty, requesting wisdom
are children of the universe, glissando falling
upon these death littered shores
that are reefs breaking rabid waves
seaweeds that remind of varicose veins
peeping up through the skin of these transparent
shallows - churning red waters beating up against
savage rocks, spiked with bones -
surrounding these islands
where all life buries itself
under rocks & sand
4.
we must investigate our bodies
we must investigate our sources of beauty
we must investigate our exalted images
the parade of decayed heroes that we cheer
that we help to invent
we must probe & descend into life/styles
like surgeons seeking cancer
we must cut away with truth's scalpel
all verbose flesh, all diseased portions
we must fly free & weightless
as a summer breeze
to nests in truth's sanctuary
5.
& the shell is bursting
from within
from without
& in order to go out
we must come in, again
so come in, come in, come in, again
go out, go out, go out, again
go out there now effendi
to the sweet places
where the good folks gather,
talk to everyone
for everyone is someone whose life is important to someone
to everyone
whose flesh is a/part of your own
universe
so come in, come in, come in, again
go out, go out, go out, again
be beautiful for all people of the world
walk back into streets that are ours, effendi
walk back into hours & years carrying joy
go now, go now, go now
effendi
do your thang
do the righteous thang
for the world
for the world
to save the world
to save our children
to save yourself
__________________________________________
Copyright (c) 2002-2013 by Quincy Troupe. All rights including electronic are reserved by the author. Appreared in New Dicrections 22, 1970 and Transcircularities, New & Selected Poems, 2002.
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