Diary of Sally Hemings à Paris (II), and

Diary of Sally Hemings à Paris (II), and: To Milton by Phillis Wheatley (1773) George Elliott Clarke (bio) I Ben Franklin circulates like a flu. The French ministers suffer his fevered jostling—his fervent buttonholing—to preserve America from Enmity British—London’s snarling dialect. Deft is his lingo—his trompe l’oeil cunning— but Jefferson’s also as itinerant as a germ,and as infectious in his Amity(a mirage) to wheedle Intimacy with the French court. II When not his tart, sweetening his sheets,I read Miss Wheatley—her immaculate tongue. Yes, her poetry seems as pallidand as thin—tinny—as a dime, but is not the nursery confectionmy “hubby”—presidential—claims. She doth not merit his polite destruction.But he needeth Thought Reform. [End Page 512] Anyway, good poetry anywhereis hard to get hold of,and Jeff must ransack obscure librariesto rescue Miss Wheatley’s verse, for a black woman ain’t supposedto venture beyonda bad case of bad grammar— presuming she got penmanship. III Madame Jefferson wash her mouth on me.She an her biddies cluck, cluck, cluckat every kaffe klatsch.Gossip be their debauchery. IV I’s happy his wife’s gone back to Virginny,to be part-widow, part-virgin, for Tom taketh me as his after-supper hussy,an his breakfast pussy; his (our) bedroom yields an oil-paint dark,Rembrandt atmosphere,as he taketh me,grinding away, untidy. [End Page 513] V I feel as though I burn on a funeral pyre. Or I feel I’m some Egyptian pharaoh—entombed, still living,but mummified and suffocating. To end my use as his manhandled woman,Tom shall be undeniably castrated. He’ll feel a concussionthat hurts his every cell. [Banff (Alberta) 4 & 5 avril/Nisan mmxiv] [End Page 514] TO MILTON BY PHILLIS WHEATLEY (1773) Homer, homely poet, crafts elegiesPleasing Neptune, teasing Odysseus.But I, much darker than the Portuguese(For instance), only havoc the Muses. Nor am I Virgil’s Latina, Roman;Nor was he Africa’s pale, poet thrall.No: My ebon, “uncomely complexion,”Natural to white-nixing Sénégal, Licenses me to only “mimic” songsOr laurel some sexual Ulysses:Terms “slummy and sooty” proscribe my lungs:My breath blasts—“tars”—alabaster lilies. Such crude insults mar the dark multitudeWho outlive sea-born tortures, and arriveAs rag-skin skeletons—to servitudeIn blanched Boston: Thus, “black bastards” survive. Born under Africa’s star-sugared sky,I’m cast as benighted—a soul of hurts;Nameless I am, but ink has memory:I see my Ma’am. Tears start as her blood spurts. Wanton was her murder, random her dust,Once a “Christian” acted his fraud of Love.Blood flashed—the bright epitome of rust:His sword bled a stain no tears can remove. The pale sailor, “a paladin of Mars,”Espousing his infernal “Faith,” played blackPranks of Crime, insulting the survivors,Whose lack of poetry is our lungs’ lack; [End Page 515] For our hearts’ cries bruise and hurt Eloquence,To ungovernable Noise, like my lines;That voice, my tribe’s untempered Turbulence,Perishes, crushed under slaver’s machines. Homer, Virgil, blamed for Hyperbole,Could not exaggerate, but jot arightThe ruddy blot of Europe’s Villainy,Its lust to bleed sable Africa white. I shan’t praise “sunny tresses, ivory necks,”Unlike Ovid, nor “lips buffed by coral”:My Muse must play the consort of insectsSired by diabolical Portugal. Terence alone serves as nursing Conscience:He alone bade Europe praise Africa’s name.(Rome, that has no rival in decadence,Cringed, as Hannibal, to havoc Rome, came.) I turn to Terence, my black “bro” by birth,To bring brawling “illiterates” to book,And demonstrate our damned, adamant worth,Our tongues—our arms—false History mistook. And thee, Milton, glorious, heroic—Whose ample Romance even God must read,Thou inspire poets to be “Miltonic,”Disciples to thy gilded, sun-lit lead. No nymph spewing tears can I lastly be,Nor neo-classic, metaphysical:A rash, brash poetess must I be—Inspired by thee, but dire as Hannibal. [Cambridge (Massachusetts) 28 août mmxiii] [End Page 516

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