THE POEM BOOK

POEMS OF DEFEAT: JULIAN BECK, QASSIM HADDAD, & EFE PAUL AZINO

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EFE PAUL AZINO
Hope is a Nigerian

Hope is a Nigerian
I know because I’ve met her
Last week she looked at me through the eyes of a widow
Whose husband died on a pension line
Her only son a stow-away in a North African cell, Europe on his mind
Yet she forges on
It ain’t just a rhyme
I tell you,
Hope is a Nigerian
They say federal lawmakers take home over N20m a quarter
Still the minimum wage of million other Nigerians can’t feed, clothe and educate their sons and daughters
But why isn’t there blood on the streets!
I don’t get it
Ha
Hope is a Nigerian
So she endures the consequences of the greed of her politicians
She inures her pain in the, often, banal creativity of her musicians
About 40% of her children are trained in public institutions
Where the students have no desks to sit on
1/3 of her university graduates
Are hardly literate
Yet she argues her future is bright
Hope is a Nigerian
At night she powers her homes with generators and leaves before the morning light
To beat the traffic
Her roads a sorry sight
It’s pathetic
What she has to put up with yet she suffers and smiles, I tell you
Hope is a Nigerian
She hardly flinches when she announces she’s the giant of the continent
Its largest producer of oil
But 90 percent of the proceeds are controlled by one-tenth
of the population while the others drink off the sweat that flows from their tireless toils
Everything in the natural seems to have failed her, so she seeks the divine for help
She prays for security and she prays for health
She prays for wealth and she prays for bread
She prays for peace, begging God to keep her disparate tribes together
even if by the string of a thread
Hope is a Nigerian
So she prays
Hope is a Nigerian
So she stays
The bloody revolt that beckons
Hope is a Nigerian therefore I reckon
in the not too far distance awaits her change
Because hope makes not ashamed
So let Nigerian hope and let Nigeria pray
Let Nigeria fight and let Nigeria say
The substance of our hope someday
shall be
Hope is a Nigerian
I know, because hope lives in me

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TPB's notes: published in Ofipress an online mag. More: badilishapoetry.com/efe-paul-azino-2/ -  October 1st 1960 is Nigerian's independence from Britain.

QASSIM HADDAD
Poem #107

Book of the defeated man:
In you let me write
one red letter that plants
green sadness leading to crystal joy
so that a song comes dancing forth
dressed in elf's clothing

Book of the fallen man:
You know what it means to a man
to live without song
live his wedding without feeling joy
live without a sky that knows him
his life ignored, address unknown?

Book of the future:
Set down the history
of our love of our land
for the effective word
record a moon, record a child
record a branch that grows
out of a fighter's sacrifice

Book of the resistance fighter:
Flame comes from the beating pulse
rebellion from the vanquished heart
revival from the bleeding wound
and our message is still a river of moons

"Translated by Sbarif Elmusa and Cbarles Doria"
(from: standing while we die)

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TPB's notes: more on the poet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qassim_Haddad

JULIAN BECK
the state will be served even by poets

the breasts of all the women crumpled like gas bags when
neruda wrote his hymn celebrating the explosion of a hydrogen bomb by soviet authorities

children died of the blisters of ignorance for a century more when
siqueiros tried to assassinate trotsky himself a killer with gun and ice

pound shimmering his incantations to adams benito and kung prolonging the state with great translation cut in crystal

claudel slaying tupí guaraní as he flourished cultured documents and pearls in rio de janeiro when he served france as ambassador to brazil

melville served by looking for contraband as he worked in the customs house how many taxes did he requite how many pillars of the state did he cement in place tell me tell me tell me stone

spenser serving the faerie queene as a colonial secretary in ireland sinking the irish back for ten times forty years no less under the beau monde’s brack

seneca served by advising nero on how to strengthen the state with philosophy’s accomplishments
aeschylus served slaying persians at marathon and salamis

aristotle served as tutor putting visions of trigonometrics in alexander’s head
dali and eliot served crowning monarchs with their gold

wallace stevens served as insurance company executive making poems out of profits
euclides da cunha served as army captain baritoning troops

and even d h lawrence served praising the unique potential of a king
these are the epics of western culture
these are the flutes of china and the east

everything must be rewritten then
goethe served as a member of the weimar council of state and condemned even to death even to death

this is the saga of the state which is served
even to death

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TPB's note: a poem that deserves to be read; an original 'political' piece in a world where known poets are cesspool plagiarists Robert Bolano called 'national poets' (apses on the face of power). Is this Julian Beck's only poem, or this there a collection out there?