Three Odes in G#

Abstract

Three Odes in G# Jeremy Jacob Peretz (bio) Everyday/Unspeakable/Ethics Red slaves (native-Americans) are used only for domestic work in Surinam because they are too weak to work in the fields. Negroes are thus needed for fieldwork. The difficulties in this case are not the result of a lack of coercive measures, but the natives in this part of the world lack ability and durability. —Immanuel Kant, "Von der verschiedenen Racen der Menschen" ["Of the Different Human Races"] The white is opposed to the red, while the black disappears from the picture. —Anita Jacobson-Widding, Red—White—Black as a Mode of Thought: A Study of Triadic Classification by Colours in the Ritual Symbolism and Cognitive Thought of the Peoples of the Lower Congo Everyday life, which is the backdrop, the hum, the private, and the quotidian of civil society, can only cohere by way of the imaginative labor which genocided and banished the object it constructed as "Savage" to the reservations of White ethics and by way of a simultaneous imaginative labor that keeps the gratuity of Black genital accumulation and destruction from occurring between White legs. —Frank B. Wilderson III, Red, White, and Black: Cinema and the Structure of U.S. Antagonisms Exxon Exxoff Mobilizetalk ground and doact flow like vinyasalike Mother's bloodthrough a pipelinea wave moving anoffshore rig like a [End Page 88] torrent from deepin the continent—from the Amazonstrong to knockthe mightiest drillswith force that somecorrupt parking meterscheme couldn't everimagine to rewriteA Projected Memory of theGuyanese Working Peopleas if born in the realitiesof Octavia Butler'sBacon's Rebellion—and the settlers demanddeath extracted offto the next moonMars or Venus' bodies,or relayed circuitouslysapping and sopping offall those many Others,sipping Coca-Cola orside-stepping a War onTerror/Drugs life/cokewhile others still prefermauby or coconut waterknowing patterns that havecome to make mined skyfruit and flesh morselized [End Page 89] into common comestiblesmust be a philosophy thatcannot be unquestionable. [End Page 90] Mixed(down) Methods(man) for Charlene Wilkinson Groundings over lands and seaTanzania (troubling Nyerere)To the UWI to UG (and Fatman)From Oriental and African Studies,UCLA too. What they did to you! Brother WalterYou take A View from beyondThe grave of The Third WorldAt the babylonian enterprise'sIsms & Schisms, says ProphetBob, at the Russian Revolution,Wreckage triangulating flowsOf force—coloniality of powerDrifting carbon-chain islandsMushroomed and myceliatedDirt rhizomated web-worksUndermining barriers andBoundaries, borders of bodiesLike vessels tipped just soTo release a precious fumeOf spirit to the still-presentDeparted sitting with us—Grounding. Cane-cuttersAnd Rastafari (when thatHere still was a dirty word, a [End Page 91] Dutty being/nonpersonthing)All men too, no auntie/anti-man,Among the partisan jumbi-scapesOf the Uptown World crisscrossingThe Dungles of UnderdevelopmentWith nerves jolting veins, necksNext necks, knees, rods clubsCutlass, Rod-knees and necksOf Black people who are BlackIn response to the call of Capital,That wild white-noise of burden,Black because we are not whiteIn this Land of Many Waters theEarth-over under sun and moon us"Recognisably African or Indian,"Or Dougla—with a split-neck caste,Stabilizing bodies' politicks with plaster (of Paris?)That's hardened heavy as if immoveable. I been in Camp Street, too,Like Brother Walter before.Rodded and trotted and kneed.Incient motioned to his shrineOf present tense memory, andThen I's able to catch myself.Outside just down HadfieldWhere he watched me onMy first date with who'dBecome my child's mother, [End Page 92] And put it in my heart to live,When I sighted Walter, and IRemembered—Oh, in LifeYou Do Good, and/not stupidness,Not 'cause you're looking like aY-T with a privilege pass of color/ismWhitey Red-Ras who brung AIDSSugar and slavery you must act soWith your...