Negation
Negation
Original Text
Blue (Vancouver: Polestar Book Publishers, 2001): 13.
1 Le nègre negated, meagre, c'est moi:
2Denigrated, negative, a local
4(Slick black bastard -– cannibal -– sucking back
5Licorice-lusty, fifty-proof whisky),
6A rusty-pallor provincial, uncouth
7Mouth spitting lies, vomit-lyrics, musty,
8Masticated scripture. Her Majesty's
10To go out shining instead of tarnished,
11To take apart Poetry like a heart.
12 So my black face must preface your finish,
13Deface your religion -- unerringly,
14Niggardly, like some film noir blackguard's.
Notes
3] Caliban: monstrous offspring of a witch, and Prospero's reluctant servant in Shakespeare's The Tempest. Back to Line
9] Nofaskoshan: Nova-Scotian. Back to Line
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2004
Special Copyright
<b>This poem cannot be published anywhere without the written consent of George Elliott Clarke or the Polestar Book permissions department.</b>