after the conquest

thought of sharing with you a poem i wrote for the teachers who taught me how to really READ


After the Conquest

If it’s true—
what they say,
—that we’re an empire of
linguists and critics,
today I must be postcolonial:
that is, drifting slowly on the
fringes of Lacanian
hegemony, the Clashing of Spirits
and Soyinka’s bashing
while Barthes’ shift from text to work
becomes my creed

as I pick up
what’s left of the preceding war
between posts- and -isms
they feed my being, nourish my identity,
fertilize the self until my veins
resemble Derrida’s deconstructed texts.
I am postcolonial:
That is, after the conquest of linguistics and
criticisms I search in obscurity
the body a naked being,
undressed by yesterday’s discourses
aroused by tomorrow’s pleasures.

as I look back on
yesterday’s subjectivity
with a little less objectivity
I am a babaylan singing of hymns
that when they came--after the conquest--
my world has changed since then