"Poems of Resistance" by Martin Carter

University of Hunger

University of Hunger
is the university of hunger the wide waste.
is the pilgrimage of man the wide march.
The print of hunger wanders in the land.
The green tree bends above the long forgotten.
The plains of life rise up and fall in spasms.
The huts of men are fused in misery.
They come treading in the hoofmarks of the mule
passing the ancient bridge
the grave of pride
the sudden flight
the terror and the time.
They come from the distant village of the flood
passing from middle air to middle earth
in the common hours of nakedness.
Twin bars of hunger mark their metal brows
twin seasons mock them
parching drought and flood.
is the dark ones
the half sunken in the land.
is they who had no voice in the emptiness
in the unbelievable
in the shadowless.
They come treading on the mud floor of the year
mingling with dark heavy waters
and the sea sound of the eyeless flitting bat.
O long is the march of men and long is the life
and wide is the span.
is the air dust and the long distance of memory
is the hour of rain when sleepless toads are silent
is broken chimneys smokeless in the wind
is brown trash huts and jagged mounds of iron
The come in long lines toward the broad city
is the golden moon like a big coin in the sky
is the floor of bone beneath the floor of flesh
is the beak of sickness breaking on the stone
O long is the march of men, and long is the life
and wide is the span
O cold is the cruel wind blowing.
O cold is the hoe in the ground.
They come like sea birds
flapping in the wake of a boat
is the torture of sunset in purple bandages
is the powder of the fire spread like dust in the twilight
is the water melodies of white foam on wrinkled sand.
The long streets of night move up and down
baring the thighs of a woman.
and the cavern of generation.
The beating drum returns and dies away.
The bearded men fall down and go to sleep.
The cocks of dawn stand up and crow like bugles.
is they who rose early in the morning
watching the moon die in the dawn.
is they who heard the shell blow and the iron clang.
is they who had no voice in the emptiness
in the unbelievable
in the shadowless.
O long is the march of men and long is the life
and wide is the span.

(Martin Carter in Poems of Resistance,1954)

Death of a Slave

Above green cane arrow
is blue sky
Beneath green arrow
is brown earth
Dark is the shroud of slavery
over the river
over the forest
over the field.
Aie! black is the skin!
Aie! red is the heart!
as round it looks
over the world
over the forest
over the sun.
In the dark earth
in cold dark earth
time plants the seeds of anger.
This is another world
but above is the same blue sky
the same sun
Below is the same deep heart of agony.
The cane field of green, dark green
green with a life of its own.
the heart of a slave is red, deep red
red with a life of its own.
Day passes like a long whip
over the back of a slave.
Day is a burning whip
Biting the neck of a slave

(Martin Carter in Poems of Resistance, 1954)

Death of a Comrade

Death must not find us thinking that we die.
Too soon, too soon
our banner draped for you.
I would prefer
the banner in the wind
Not bound so tightly
in a scarlet fold
not sodden sodden
with your people's tears
but flashing on the pole
we bear aloft
down and beyond this dark dark lane of rags
Dear Comrade
if it must be
you speak no more with me
nor smile no more with me
then let me take
a patience with a calm
for even now the greener leaf explodes
sun brightens stone
and all the river burns.
Now from the mourning vanguard moving on
dear Comrade I salute you and say
Death will not find us thinking that we die

(Martin Carter in Poems of Resistance, 1954)

This is the Dark Time My Love

This is the dark time, my love,
All round the land brown beetles crawl about
The shining sun is hidden in the sky
Red flowers bend their heads in awful sorrow
This is the dark time, my love,
It is the season of oppression, dark metal, and tears.
It is the festival of guns, the carnival of misery
Everywhere the faces of men are strained and anxious
Who comes walking in the dark night time?
Whose boot of steel tramps down the slender grass
It is the man of death, my love, the stranger invader
Watching you sleep and aiming at your dream.

(Martin Carter in Poems of Resistance, 1954)

I Clench My Fist

You come in warships terrible with death
I know your hands are red with Korean blood
I know your finger trembles on a trigger
and yet I curse you - Stranger khaki clad
British soldier, man in khaki
careful how you walk
My dead ancestor Accabreh
is groaning in his grave
At night he wakes and watches
with fire in his eyes
Because you march upon his breast
and stamp upon his heart.
Although you come in thousands from the sea
Although you walk like locusts in the street
Although you point your gun straight at my heart
I clench my fist above head; I sing my song of freedom

(Martin Carter in Poems of Resistance, 1954)

I Come From the Nigger Yard

I come from the nigger yard of yesterday
leaping from the oppressors' hate
and the scorn of myself;
from the agony of the dark hut in the shadow
and the hurt of things;
from the long days of cruelty and the long nights of pain
down to the wide streets of to-morrow, of the next day
leaping I come, who cannot see will hear.
In the nigger yard I was naked like a new born
naked like a stone or a star.
It was a cradle of blind days rocking in time
torn from the skin from the back of a slave.
It was an aching floor on which I crept
on my hands and on my knees
searching for the dust for the trace of a root
or the mark of a leaf or the shape of a flower.
It was me always walking with bare feet.
meeting strange faces like those in dreams or fever
when the whole world turns upside down
and no one knows which is the sky or the land
which heart is his among the torn or wounded
which face is his among the strange and the terrible
walking about, groaning between the wind
And there was always sad music somwhere in the land
like a bugle and a drum between the houses
voices of women singing far away
pauses of silence, then a flood of sound.
But these were things like ghosts or spirits of wind
It was only a big world spinning outside
and men, born in agony, torn in torture, twisted and broken like a leaf
and the uncomfortable morning, the beds of hunger stained and sordid
like the world, big and cruel, spinning outside.
Sitting sometimes in the twilight near the forest
where all the light is gone and every bird
I notice a tiny star neighbouring a leaf
a little drop of light a piece of glass
straining over heaven tiny bright
like a spark seed in the destiny of gloom.
O it was the heart like this tiny star near to the sorrows
straining against the whole world and the long twilight
moving in darkness stubburn and fierce
till leaves of sunset change from green to blue
and shadows grow like giants everywhere.
So I was born again stubborn and fierce
screaming in a slum
It was a city and coffin space for home
a river running, prisons, hospitals
men drunk and dying, judges full of scorn
priests and parsons fooling gods with words
and me, like a dog tangled in rags
spotted with sores powdered with dust
screaming with hunger, angry with life and men.
It was a a child born from a mother full of her blood
weaving her features bleeding her life in clots.
It was pain lasting from hours to months and to years
weaving a pattern telling a tale leaving a mark
on the face and the brow
Until there came the iron days cast in a foundry
Where men make hammers things that cannot break
and anvils heavy hard and cold like ice.
And so again I became one of the ten thousands
one of the uncountable miseries owning the land.
When the moon rose up only the whores could dance
the brazen jazz of music throbbed and groaned
filling the night air full of rhythmic questions.
It was the husk and the seed of challenging fire
birth and the grave challenging life.
Until to-day in the middle of the tumult
when the land changes and the world's all convulsed
when different voices join to say the same
and different hearts beat out in unison
where on the aching floor of where I live
the shifting earth is twisted into shape
I take again my nigger life, my scorn
and fling it in the face of those who hate me.
It is me the nigger boy turning to manhood
linking my fingers, welding my flesh to freedom.
I come from the nigger yard of yesterday
leaping from the oppressors' hate
and the scorn of myself.
I come to the worldwith scars upon my soul
wounds on my body, fury in my hands
I turn to the histories of men and the lives of the peoples.
I examine the shower of sparks and the wealth of the dreams.
I am pleased with the glories and sad with the sorrows
rich with the riches, poor with the loss.
From the nigger yard of yesterday I come with my burden
To the world of to-morrow I turn with my strength.

(Martin Carter in Poems of Resistance, 1954)

On The Fourth Day of a Hunger Strike

I have not eaten for four days
My legs are paining, my blood runs slowly
It is cold to-night, the rain is silent and sudden,
And yet there is is something warm inside of me.
At my side my comrade lies in his bed watching the dark.
A cold wind presses chilly on the world.
It is the night of a Christmas day, a night in December,
We watch each other noting how time passes.
To-day my wife brought me a letter from a comrade.
I hid it in my bosom from the soldiers
They could not know my heart was reading 'Courage'!
They could not dream my skin was touching 'Struggle'!
But comrade now I can hardly write at all,
My legs are paining, my eyes are getting dark.
It is the fourth night of a hunger strike, a night in December.
I hold your letter tightly in my hand...

(Martin Carter in Poems of Resistance, 1954)