Henry Dumas

Editor's Note: Thirty-seven years have passed since Henry Dumas, one of the brightest lights in the pantheon of American writers was shot down and killed on the streets of East St. Louis, Illinois. He had he lived, he would have been 70 years old this year. Asili through the good graces of Loretta Dumas and Eugene B. Redmond has attempted to keep this great creative spirit alive in these pages. Like his contemporary, Amiri Baraka, who is also 70 this year, Dumas' impact on American and especially African American letters is incalculable. In our last issue, we featured one of his signature stories. This issue we highlight some of his remarkable poetry. Again, Eugene B. Redmond, in an afterward, sheds light on the "movement" to keep the works of Dumas alive. Read and enjoy.

Play Ebony Play Ivory

play ebony play ivory
play chords that
speak primeval
play ebony play ivory
play notes that
speak my people...

play ebony play ivory
play til air explodes
play til it subsides
play ebony play ivory.

for the songless, the dead
who rot the earth
all these dead,
whose muted sour tongues
speak broken chords,
all these aging people
poison the heart of earth.

they cannot sing
they cannot play
they cannot breathe the early rhythm
they never heard the pulse of womb

so up! you bursting lungs
you spirits of morning breath
up! and make fingers

and play long and play soft
play ebony play ivory.

play my people
all my people who breathe
the breath of earth
all my people who are keys and chords...

now touch
and hear and see
let your lungs scream
til they explode
til blood subsides
and flesh vibrates...

make chords that speak
play long play soft
play ebony play ivory
play ebony
play ivory

The Coming of the Eagles

Let us have eagles!
Let us have eagles
among my people!

The hot wind has melted

ice and the ice has fallen.
The cold wind has chiseled mountains
and they have fallen.
The dry wind has gnawed

away stone and stone is sand.
The cruel winds have cut
feathers, skin and bone,
and the sparrows have died.

Let us have new wings
among my people!
Let us have bones
among my people!
Let us have visions
among my people!

Let us ride the wind
into the high country.
Let us have eagles!

Rite

Vodu green clinching his waist,
obi purple ringing his neck,
Shango, God of the spirits,
whispering in his ear,
thunderlight stabbing the island
of blood rising from his skull.

Mojo bone in his fist
strikes the sun from his eye.
Iron claw makes his wrist.
He recalls the rites of strength
carved upon his chest.
Black flame, like tongues of glass,
ripples beneath a river of sweat.

Strike the island!
Strike the sun!
Strike the eye of evil!
Strike the guilty one!

No power can stay the mojo
when the obi is purple
and the vodu is green
and Shango is whispering,
Bathe me in blood.
I am not clean.

Love Song of a Lamb

i speak to you
o ram of strength
o ram of beauty
why do you come
toward me leaning
behind my horned shadow?
why do you come
to me with a two-tongued
two-headed look
leaping from thine eyes?

i speak to you
o rain of power
o ram of grace
do you think
i do not see nyoka
the snake coiled
in the bush of thine eyes?
nyoka's venom of lust
is sapping thy strength
is killing thy beauty
overbearing hoof you are
rampaging goat
old conquering deceiver
snaking hook

head of the herd of ego
sham in a coat of lies
away from me away
i rather nyuki the wasp sting me

away from me
if you are coming to redress
thy worn hollow horn
i rather chui the leopard fang me
if you are coming to possess me
and not live and share with me
i rather simba roar death upon me

i speak to you
o ram of beauty
o ram of grace
all the suns
all the moons of my life
i have feared the scorn
of that look which comes
attacking me from the bush
of shadows and eyes

i wait for you
o ram of peace
o ram of love
come to me in thy pride
come to me in thy spirit
come not to bribe me with
thy strong horn and thy
cunning look of design
come not to me for a feast
come to me for a festival

for remember
when Simba is bleeding thy throat
I am mwana the lamb who comes to thy side
enticing simba's claw of death with quicker blood
I am she of fleeing hooves
who sees when thy hoof breaks free
who sees thy head break
the crooked shadows of deceit
that weigh it down
that lean and lock thy body to the ground
i am she who sees thy horn pierce simba
and thy hoof trample the bush of nyoka
for remember
i am thy mate and thy strength and thy song

i sing to you
o ram whom i see
o ram whom i await
the horn of pride
is the victory song
our enemies
who come to claw us and fang us
let us hurry to the feast
let us hurry to the festival
i am by thy side close by thy side
i am by thy side close by thy side
i am by thy side close and thy side

Editor's note: The following comments are as current today as they were when they were first written in 1988

"The good struggle to perpetuate the "Henry Dumas Movement"-- as Jayne Cortez calls it-- began in May of 1968 as his grief-borne family, friends, and colleagues sought to assemble the foggy details of his bizarre and sudden death and prepare the most fitting vehicles by which his brilliantly original creations should be conveyed to the wider world. Toward such ends, practically every conceivable approach, medium, technique or forum has been pressed into service. Consequently, the bearers of the Dumas Scrolls now form so vast a weave of cults and extended families that naming them here would be next to impossible. Some, however, must be recited: Edward Crosby, Donald Henderson, Hale Chatfield, the late John S. Rendleman, the late Joseph E. Harrison, Ronald Tibbs, Sons/Ancestors Players of Sacramento, Toni Morrison, Quincy Troupe, Rosalind Goddard, Clyde Taylor, Tommy Ellis, the late Walter Lowenfels, Oliver Jackson, Maya Angelou, George A. Jones/Ahaji Umbudi, Vernon T. Hornback, T. Michael Gates, Keith Aytch, Raymond Patterson, Imamu Amiri Baraka, Marie Brown, Jay Wright, Margaret Walker Alexander, Lincoln T. Beauchamp, William Halsey, Anthony Sloan, Avery Brooks, the late Hoyt Fuller, Val Grey Ward/Kuumba, Sterling Plumpp, H. Mark Williams/Cultural Messengers, the late Larry Neal, and my delightfully literate editorial assistant Lori Reed. Since 1985, 1 have been adjusting to my reentry into East St. Louis, where, among other things, a Eugene B. Redmond Writers Club has been formed. It is one of the staunchest champions of the Henry Dumas Movement, and its members -- especially Sherman Fowler, Darlene Roy, Even Udoh, Frank Nave and Cheryl flyers- have been at the local forefront of the struggle. Finally. I'd like to pay homage to the indefatigable and faith-filled Loretta Dumas, who lives with her son, Michael, in Somerset, New Jersey, and who maintains an admirable courage and dignity through all the "falls and rises" of the Movement.

Eugene B. Redmond
East St Louis, Illinois
1988/2005

©2005 by Eugene B. Redmond and Loretta Dumas