A Selection of Poems from
Ghost Letters Volume II
Baba Badji
We People Cease to Be
After Gwendolyn Brooks
Yes, dear Momma when we speak to each other our blessings triples,
our voices are pine-trees in the Atlantic. We sing along. We will sing.
We have no idea why them founding fathers be thinking we were not different.
Them bastards! Everybody is frantic but we drive on. Every Black hunter hates them.
As if drowning in the Atlantic is better than dying the American way. Lies & violence.
Ah, us, the chosen ones. How timely we came for our own. Enslaved. Black bodies.
Everybody is saying that these people do ultimately cease to be. Us. Hunger for what?
It was in the dept of summer dust, they came running & burning them and their babies.
Momma says, go get me some sugar, melons, lemons & tea. Mango. Okra. Dust. Shampoo.
Bring Jesus, she says, and red meat. Momma says, don’t assume a slave owner & his orgasm.
Disease & death. We want blessings since America says we are sable & cantankerous. Blood.
Milkman’s Diary III
Milkman was a fable. He is a fable. He remains with us. Though the villagers are dead, and the village burned—Milkman came only with Black blood—from the Last Sailor. Nothing lets Milkman pause his work. Refining mud. Milk. And blood from the village Last Sailor. The Last Sailor making a guess. Whether to take his own life by drowning with orphans. But I did make a guess once. The Last Sailor abandoned everything once. He died but returned in wind. Just wind and dirt. That of all his qualities. Working the milk in the month of Ramadan is Milkman’s best. He is the master who works the milk for the village. The villagers know this sacred milk is the ripest. On Friday, he arrived at dawn. With him everything begins to move in nature. In his farm. I am in pilgrim in his farm. Everything is put together. Freed of the dangerous weeds. In dust is evil but we welcome the wind. In mud is ambiguous and may tick one off. Blackness as villagers in my native village is a very good faith. Here, Blackness is flowing. Blackness is transcending. Then voodoo and the flowers I smelled in the brook. The bugs that guard him when he takes milk from the nipples of his mother cow. No doubt he began by enhancing his adeptness at noon. By magnifying things, he knows the most. The noble things of his work. Milkman and his time. Once, he acted in this way: there was no milk. We huddle under the baobab my village’s shrine. To call the gods. It was Milkman who asked for mercy. We spoke in Wolof and in another African dialect. That Milkman does not want me to tell you. A secret only the villagers know. But, little by little, Milkman strips his cows of their unwarranted status. Milkman reveals the privacy of their world. He always said that he loved returning to it. Returning to his lover. Milkman’s lover always came to him in the Okra Garden. In the twilight hour. Milkman and his lover were without fragility. My God! Milkman & his dirty garments and smell. But his corrosive teeth. His torn-off nails. Hurt by the daily work of the milk. Damaged because he did not trust the village American doctor. He said, they are gifts from Jesus. I thought he met he doctor. But he met the fingers. His hands. The bare collar of his salted kaftan from the south of Senegal, Casamance. Milkman is also a self-discipline. I was told. It is no longer a question of celebrating his genius. The milkman no longer calls for the Iman or the minister. But he loved the beautiful of the church. The ideal safe place of the mosque. He despised Americanized violence. Milkman loves the reality of his work. His cows. The milk he sacrifices for his people. He practiced faith before any other. He gets up early in the morning before any other. Every day! He once said that his life sighs are in the village cemetery. To see it. One must arrive at with dust and blood. With blood from a vulture’s neck. He once said he was damned. For the work of his cows. He said that he is orphaned. Torn masks of himself,
& his ghost wearing
a diviner’s mask
Milkman said, the desert grows woe
for Us & for those who become desert
become it
hunger that bites after death
he tells Us it is milk after the death he tells Us
cows eternally
slog here (of course near the Okra Garden)
& The sand that grinds & grinds & grinds & grinds is a ghost
mother who blesses her Black child...
Who desperately tried to mature with the cows?
Who knew he the Bush Boy? Milkman trained the Bush Boy…
Whose father and mother fell in the village well when he was born. But milkman said. Of the cows.
They were his grandfather’s cows. He believes that he played his
part in the daily work of his cows.
Selling milk to the poor was his deeds.
But he had no choice.
He said, the bias they were born with… here
is where he violently said whiteness and the cruelty
of whiteness
He said, the bias they were born with is violence.
It is American violence.
He wished me good luck.
In my American journey.
He wished me a safe arrival.
He poured milk for my departure.
Just milk. That was all. Just milk.
The sacred milk.
We used to wrestle Jesus in mud.
My God! Milkman veiled his sacred work for years.
Milkman buried his secret in the Okra Garden.
Right behind his bathroom that was made from the trunk of a palm tree.
Under a big Black rock.
There, lie a wooden box.
Locked.
A torn-up plastic bag sealed.
Papers and papers and papers and papers.
And Milkman’s journey turned out to be a false glory. Milkman’s glory is strength from the slaves. Gone to Gorée. Where he was once chained in mud. Adieu!
Omar Blondin Diop’s Diary II
We had never yet been severely whipped.
Your republic of birth. Hunger for divine water.
Assuming history was carved. The grandchildren.
Plump. Tender. Chunky. Blow. Screams and blood.
Failure of meaning. Slack feelings of mud. Jesus’s Fang.
Bleed and grow dans nos cordon ombilicales. Jesus’s Water.
Hung a wicked poem & destroy its poet’s heart.
Leave the beautiful teeth to poison out briefly.
J'éclaire les crimes de la République dans le Sahara.
Be human for a home in Hell. Flowering Trees.
Have mercy. Oh, have mercy! We won’t do so no more.
Forget your corrosive guilt. Senegalese & Black. Electric.
Yes, you, alive and killing Us in packs.
Momma came with sacred tears & milk for blessing.
The first volume of Badji’s Ghost Letters is available from Parlor Press here.
After Gwendolyn Brooks
Yes, dear Momma when we speak to each other our blessings triples,
our voices are pine-trees in the Atlantic. We sing along. We will sing.
We have no idea why them founding fathers be thinking we were not different.
Them bastards! Everybody is frantic but we drive on. Every Black hunter hates them.
As if drowning in the Atlantic is better than dying the American way. Lies & violence.
Ah, us, the chosen ones. How timely we came for our own. Enslaved. Black bodies.
Everybody is saying that these people do ultimately cease to be. Us. Hunger for what?
It was in the dept of summer dust, they came running & burning them and their babies.
Momma says, go get me some sugar, melons, lemons & tea. Mango. Okra. Dust. Shampoo.
Bring Jesus, she says, and red meat. Momma says, don’t assume a slave owner & his orgasm.
Disease & death. We want blessings since America says we are sable & cantankerous. Blood.
Milkman’s Diary III
Milkman was a fable. He is a fable. He remains with us. Though the villagers are dead, and the village burned—Milkman came only with Black blood—from the Last Sailor. Nothing lets Milkman pause his work. Refining mud. Milk. And blood from the village Last Sailor. The Last Sailor making a guess. Whether to take his own life by drowning with orphans. But I did make a guess once. The Last Sailor abandoned everything once. He died but returned in wind. Just wind and dirt. That of all his qualities. Working the milk in the month of Ramadan is Milkman’s best. He is the master who works the milk for the village. The villagers know this sacred milk is the ripest. On Friday, he arrived at dawn. With him everything begins to move in nature. In his farm. I am in pilgrim in his farm. Everything is put together. Freed of the dangerous weeds. In dust is evil but we welcome the wind. In mud is ambiguous and may tick one off. Blackness as villagers in my native village is a very good faith. Here, Blackness is flowing. Blackness is transcending. Then voodoo and the flowers I smelled in the brook. The bugs that guard him when he takes milk from the nipples of his mother cow. No doubt he began by enhancing his adeptness at noon. By magnifying things, he knows the most. The noble things of his work. Milkman and his time. Once, he acted in this way: there was no milk. We huddle under the baobab my village’s shrine. To call the gods. It was Milkman who asked for mercy. We spoke in Wolof and in another African dialect. That Milkman does not want me to tell you. A secret only the villagers know. But, little by little, Milkman strips his cows of their unwarranted status. Milkman reveals the privacy of their world. He always said that he loved returning to it. Returning to his lover. Milkman’s lover always came to him in the Okra Garden. In the twilight hour. Milkman and his lover were without fragility. My God! Milkman & his dirty garments and smell. But his corrosive teeth. His torn-off nails. Hurt by the daily work of the milk. Damaged because he did not trust the village American doctor. He said, they are gifts from Jesus. I thought he met he doctor. But he met the fingers. His hands. The bare collar of his salted kaftan from the south of Senegal, Casamance. Milkman is also a self-discipline. I was told. It is no longer a question of celebrating his genius. The milkman no longer calls for the Iman or the minister. But he loved the beautiful of the church. The ideal safe place of the mosque. He despised Americanized violence. Milkman loves the reality of his work. His cows. The milk he sacrifices for his people. He practiced faith before any other. He gets up early in the morning before any other. Every day! He once said that his life sighs are in the village cemetery. To see it. One must arrive at with dust and blood. With blood from a vulture’s neck. He once said he was damned. For the work of his cows. He said that he is orphaned. Torn masks of himself,
& his ghost wearing
a diviner’s mask
Milkman said, the desert grows woe
for Us & for those who become desert
become it
hunger that bites after death
he tells Us it is milk after the death he tells Us
cows eternally
slog here (of course near the Okra Garden)
& The sand that grinds & grinds & grinds & grinds is a ghost
mother who blesses her Black child...
Who desperately tried to mature with the cows?
Who knew he the Bush Boy? Milkman trained the Bush Boy…
Whose father and mother fell in the village well when he was born. But milkman said. Of the cows.
They were his grandfather’s cows. He believes that he played his
part in the daily work of his cows.
Selling milk to the poor was his deeds.
But he had no choice.
He said, the bias they were born with… here
is where he violently said whiteness and the cruelty
of whiteness
He said, the bias they were born with is violence.
It is American violence.
He wished me good luck.
In my American journey.
He wished me a safe arrival.
He poured milk for my departure.
Just milk. That was all. Just milk.
The sacred milk.
We used to wrestle Jesus in mud.
My God! Milkman veiled his sacred work for years.
Milkman buried his secret in the Okra Garden.
Right behind his bathroom that was made from the trunk of a palm tree.
Under a big Black rock.
There, lie a wooden box.
Locked.
A torn-up plastic bag sealed.
Papers and papers and papers and papers.
And Milkman’s journey turned out to be a false glory. Milkman’s glory is strength from the slaves. Gone to Gorée. Where he was once chained in mud. Adieu!
Omar Blondin Diop’s Diary II
We had never yet been severely whipped.
Your republic of birth. Hunger for divine water.
Assuming history was carved. The grandchildren.
Plump. Tender. Chunky. Blow. Screams and blood.
Failure of meaning. Slack feelings of mud. Jesus’s Fang.
Bleed and grow dans nos cordon ombilicales. Jesus’s Water.
Hung a wicked poem & destroy its poet’s heart.
Leave the beautiful teeth to poison out briefly.
J'éclaire les crimes de la République dans le Sahara.
Be human for a home in Hell. Flowering Trees.
Have mercy. Oh, have mercy! We won’t do so no more.
Forget your corrosive guilt. Senegalese & Black. Electric.
Yes, you, alive and killing Us in packs.
Momma came with sacred tears & milk for blessing.
The first volume of Badji’s Ghost Letters is available from Parlor Press here.
