Friday, April 15, 2005

IN MEMORY OF OSSIE DAVIS (1917-2005)

Ossie Davis by Harlan Simantel


  • Art by Simantel


  • PURELY VICTORIOUS
    by Ewuare Osayande



    Act I

    what is art
    but advocacy

    (so said Ossie)

    nothing created
    that ever was created
    was wrought
    in a vacuum

    all art is made in the real world
    where opposites exist and collide

    of rich and poor
    of less and more
    of beauty and gore
    of ignorance and lore
    of despise and adore
    of ill and cure

    all art takes sides

    whom do you create for?

    (so said Baraka via Mao and DuBois)

    cant vacillate on the sidelines of life

    while the world is backed up against the Wall Street
    facing the firing squads of imperial goons
    and critics
    who deify dollars
    who reify the status quo
    with their front paged lies

    who don’t know poverty
    except as an entry in Webster’s dictionary

    but we who toil in the defecation of dictators
    fertilize an existence from their waste
    to indict and defy
    those who would have us die

    but with each utterance
    each manifestation
    of our minds

    we define for all time

    what we see, what we know and we wish to be

    the will to free or enslave

    if we are conscious or depraved

    is carved in the bone of our art

    and we are not saved
    by it
    whether sold or sought

    what matters in the end
    is the quality of our quest
    for beauty and truth

    all the rest
    is worth no more or less
    than the blood
    than courses through our veins


    Act II

    Purlie Victorious
    our whole lives are but satires
    the enslaved mocking the massa
    crackin up under the tracks of tears
    that trek down our brown faces
    we know more than we let on

    sometimes
    sometimes

    even to ourselves


    Act III

    and here comes another long-distance runner

    race man

    carrying the baton passed on by Robeson
    he bequeathed to you his vision and voice
    and there you stood
    smooth chocolate baritone
    like a Mingus bass line

    (from “II B.S.”)

    ba doom doom doom doom

    da da doimp doimp doimp

    da da doom doom doom
    da da doom doom doom

    doom dippa doom dippa
    da da da doom da da doooooommmmm

    doimp!

    a smooth bluesy
    Georgia cotton drawl
    spoke in the cadence of dignity
    a diction of defiance
    to hear you was to hear our history
    calling out loud to a future yet to be
    to be
    to be
    to be
    to be
    true to what we know is so
    a steady rhythm of words laced with longing

    you constructed verse like a scientist
    finding the appropriate weight or measure
    you treasured words and the meanings they held

    but your most precious gem
    was the Ruby you wore around your heart
    a courtship of commitment
    your marriage was one life-long kiss
    the bliss of living on the pulse of purpose
    to struggle
    to fight
    against those that would deny us our love

    serenaded by Marian Anderson’s contralto
    cracking the glass ceiling of whiteness
    with the siren of her sincerity

    actor with a worker’s heart
    and hands
    carrying our demands to governors
    who blocked the doorway to our destiny

    you eulogized
    both King and the man you called
    our Black shining prince
    your words covered them like burnt incense
    a holy offering
    sacred incantations
    that can resurrect the dead
    still

    your shoes cannot be filled
    the souls of your feet
    88 years thick
    double infinity
    eternity times two

    who will make us live again?

    who can speak words whose truths wont choke them before they leave their mouths?

    who can utter a vision then walk it without contradiction?

    who can say with you that

    "The profoundest commitment possible to a black creator in this country today
    --beyond all creeds, crafts, classes and ideologies whatsoever—
    is to bring before his [or her] people the scent of freedom."

    I have caught a whiff
    from you

    Da Mayor

    forever saying

    “Doctor, always do the right thing”

    I’ve got it.

    I’m gone.
    Copyright © 2005 by Ewuare Osayande

    Ewuare Osayande (www.osayande.org) is a poet, political activist and author of several books including Black Anti-Ballistic Missives: Resisting War/Resisting Racism. His next book of poems entitled Blood Luxury will be published by Africa World Press in 2005. Currently, Osayande resides in Philly, PA where he is the facilitator of P.O.W.E.R.: People Organized Working to Eradicate Racism.