Tartan Africa
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1 – Africa
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Africa genesis
so far from the Louvre
Africa Baroque
in thick damp brown earth
Sahara sands
drums rain jungle
lion black man
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mother mother
I’ve wandered so far from home
this time & every time
the gate was left open
building destroying
enjoying
finding myself so far
from so many old home weeks
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I would make Africa my home
take her
lover her forever
in torrential river beds
waterfalls
endless grassy antelope zebra plains
waterholes
birthplaces
leopard spots tiger stripes
so far from snow
so close to my pillow
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2 – Never Never Land
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it would be too hot
it would rain too much
I’d never understand their customs
never ride a camel
never drink the water
never touch their women
never sleep in their huts;
I could never do much
except this sitting,
smiling, laughing, drinking
reaching to touch
with pocketed hands
never never never never
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even in the darkest sky
there is al least one star
I wonder where you are
I wonder who you are
Tribale twinkle
in the Paris night
by there tower;
could I reach out
could I touch you?
the Tower is too high
I am too weary
cheery
lilting
song birds in a thousand cages
on a dusty side street
in an Arab bazaar,
singing to be bought
but not set free;
never could survive
for being trapped so long
they have no instincts left
death would be their survival
if I bought them all
to set them free
so I won’t
besides I don’t have enough money
it would take too long
to open every cage
it would never work
never never never never
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3 – Tartan
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tartan country
Gaelic
coal mines
crying masladh
dieing dean bacach
sifting sandily
the rust dust air
struggle bosdail
while clinging to the seachad
the good old days
clans
Royalists
fortresses
Metrople la France
too bad it can’t be ended
too good to be believed
so much calmer than the mainland pace
creaking down hill it seems
if you read it in their papers
if you believe in their bad dreams
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time is slowly changing
in the land of endless hills
twisting Cabot Trails
sunset autumn trees
that even when you go
it has you coming back
for final peace
on its unpaved roads
shady Sugar Loaf’s
falling away now
to the unhaltable
eating up of everything
by prosperity
with its more more more
high-rise hotels & all
but kill ‘er gently b’ys
‘cause ‘er kids are tough
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4 – Africa Too
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Africa mother
I know you are so close
I sense your warmth
yet cannot touch you
the stars are hidden
by cotton candy-clouds
drifting too slowly
monkeys screaming
elephants trumpeting
rhinos charging
through the dusky morning mists
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none of its is really there now;
in Africa, I mean.
the wild is in parks;
houses is rows
schools
doctors
I Love Lucy
in the Heart of the Darkest Continent
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it would do no good
to shut the gate
I would only climb the fence
or push it down;
running scared, down the street,
away from revenge
crawling back at night for safety
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Ahhh Africa,
the oldness of Egypt
growing up
into snotty street punks
makes me want to cry
to die to
keep the rich raw earth
feelings in my mouth
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5 – Tartan Fading
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when I try to speak
of this Smokey Island
I cannot find
the right combination
of tartan cobwebs
to spin into a picture
of coal-dust steel-plant flower beds,
growing the heather of tarns;
the ice winter of dreams
the laughter of the people
moving & flowing alive
in the salt smell of coal sea air
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Jan.Feb/Mar73
Over time I’ve come to see this as one of the ‘better’ pieces in the chapbook. It reveals more about growing up Cape Breton than any of the others. Even with the abstract moments it is a good snap shot of my sense of displacement as I search for a sense of safe haven.
It opens with any array of African clichés – a distant place I knew very little about & much of that thanks to Tarzan & similar safari movies populated with fully dressed white dudes & a panoply of half-naked black men. It is a dream retreat in this first section.
It is not so dreamy in the second part with my list of realistic drawbacks. I’m also caught by the distance of that Paris escape, another place far from me, from my artistic longings. Like birds caged so long the freedom of Africa would kill me? The closest I ever got to that wild was already in cages.
The third section drops us into Cape Breton with another list of cliches with a decent dash of Gaelic. The economy there was becoming unstable with long-time major industries struggling in the world market. Tourism was always strong there & was to become even more important so the twisting Cabot Trail was no longer for the locals 🙂 There was an exodus of generations who had family ties & nostalgic roots that kept pulling them back.
Four takes me back to Africa where like Cape Breton tourist dollars, exploiters needs were controlling the continent. The ancient history seemed to be confined to Egypt as seeing though colonist exploiter’s eyes. Even today I see documentaries where talking heads are astonished that such primitive tribe could produce such fine artifacts -ahem – maybe they weren’t so primitive.
I had seen on TV around that time, early 70’s, that I Love Lucy reruns were the most popular TV show in the world, that she was watched in every country. They showed glimpses of her being watch by natives in huts in Africa. I was watching Lucy in Cape Breton – she represented an American culture that was not mine or theirs. So where does our cultural sense of self come from, when what is under our feet gets co-opted by a materialistic monolith without us even being aware of it.
In the end I am left with a wistful nostalgia for Cape Breton – which isn’t where I was born, but Manitoba where I was born has no resonance. I was a man searching for more than a sense of heritage, more than the concept of home but for a sense of safe haven.
TOpoet 