Dorian Rottenberg

The steamer hove in,
                                 hooted,
                                              roared,
and,
       runaway convict,
                                  they've chained’er.
700
      humans on hoard.
Negroes —
              the remainder.
Out of a launch
                        to the steamer decks.
Popping
             up
                  for inspection,
the doctor squints
                            through tortoise-shell specs:
“Anyone got infection?”
Pimples well-powdered,
                                      features well-washed,
swaying and swaggering coyly,
the first class
                     filed
                             as the doctor watched
with smile
               urbane and oily.
From double-barreller nostrils
                                              exhaling
blue smoke
                  in a cunning ring,
headmost came
                         in a diamond halo
Swift —
         the porker king.
A yard
          from his snigger
                                    the stinkpipe stuck.
Go,
     pry into clients like these!
Under cambric vest,
                               under silken trunks,
go and discern
                       disease.
Island!
          To abstinence
                                take recourse.
Don’t let him beyond the docks.
But no —
          the captain
                            salutes, in due course,
and Swift is let loose
                               with the pox.
First class done with,
                                 the second class goes
in
  for examination.
The doctor pokes
                          into ear and nose,
the picture of irritation.
The doctor sneered,
                                and the doctor scowled,
jowls
       all askew
                      with spleen,
then sent three blokes
                                  from the second class crowd
for a couple of days’ quarantine.
After the second class
                                   loomed the third,
black
        with niggers
                            as ink.
The doctor
                 looked at his watch.
                                                 disturbed,
“Cocktail-hour,
                       I should think.
Off!
      and shut ’em up in the hold.
Ill —
    clear as day!”
                          he stated.
“Dirty vagabonds!
                            And, all told,
not one of ’em
                      vaccinated.”
Down
         in the hold
                          he sprawls, Tom Jackson,
hell of a pain
                    in his noddle.
Tomorrow
               they’ll jab him
                                     with smallpox vaccine
and home
                Tom Jackson’ll toddle.
Tommy,
           he’s got a wife on shore;
hair — like a soft black cushion,
and skin —
              the sleekest you ever saw,
just like
           Black Lion shoeshine.
While Tom
                 went tramping
                                        for work
                                                      abroad
— Cuba’s got eyes
                              for beauty —
his wife
            got sacked
                              for what the boss called
dodgin’ her nat’ral duty.
The moon chucks coins
                                      on the ocean bed —
dive in
          and all ills will mend.
No meat whole weeks,
                                   no meal 'n' no bread,
just pineapples
                        weeks on end.
Another steamer
                          screwed in by its screw —
’s weeks
              till the next’ll be coinin’.
I lunger’s no help
                           in pulling through.
Ah, Tommy don’t love me,
                                         Tommy ain’t true,
shares his mat with a white,
                                            does Tommy.
No way of earning,
                              no chance to steal —
police
         under parasols
                                 everywhere.
And Swift —
                those exotics make him feel
lascivious
               as a terrier.
Old Sallow
                perspired
                               under trunks and vest
at flesh
           so juicy and black.
He poked
               his bucks
                               at the face, the breast —
at the moons
                    with famine slack.
Then grappled
                       hunger,
                                    that lifelong foe,
with heavy-weight
                            faithfulness.
Inside
         was the clear decision
                                             NO,
yet lips
           broke huskily:
                                  YES. . . .
Already pushing
                          the door with his shoulder
was festering Mister Swift.
And time
              wasn’t
                          a minute older
when up they were whisked by the lift.
Tom
      turned up
                      in a week or so
and a fortnight through
                                    slept fast,
glad
      that they’d be
                            with bread and dough
and the smallpox bogy was past.
But there came a day
                                  when on Negro skin
ominous patterns
                           were etched
and children
                   their mothers’ wombs within
grew dumb,
                  blind
                          and wretched.
The calendar skimmed
                                    from day to day
crippling legs and arms,
eating
          half their bodies
                                    away,
stretching their palms
                                  for alms.
And special note
                          of the Negro
                                              was made
when the flock
                      collected for prayer.
Pointing towards
                          this visual aid
Parson Dry
                 would declare:
“It’s God
             who punishes
                                    man
                                            and wife
for her
           bringing visitors home.”
And rotting black flesh
                                   for the rest of life
peeled from rotting Negro bone.
Nosing in politics?
                            Not my vocation.
I just
       jot down
                     what I see.
Some folks
                  call it
                           CIVILISATION,
others —
            CO-LO-NIAL PO-LI-CY.