I will shed a tear for Marian Barry, for, as a fellow human being, he deserves one on his death. But let it be remembered that Barry was a terrible mayor of Washington, DC, whose incompetence and greed made life for Washington’s poor far worse than it had been. Barry turned DC’s government into a massively disfunctional jobs machine that passed out lots of cash and zero services to the District’s citizens. Wealthy whites, almost all of us living in cozy confines in Northwest, Capitol Hill, or other favored locations, were exposed to little more than the occasional mugging, but black residents endured far worse conditions, crammed into disintegrating schools and wretched public housing and plagued with horrendous street crime.
For many blacks, of course, the Barry era was the good old days, when connected playas lived high off the hog. So what if the District’s murder rate was the highest in the nation? Those poor folks were just at the wrong place at the wrong time, that’s all. The mayor will be glad to come to their funeral. At least, he will be glad to promise to come.
The mayor’s own misadventures with drugs were a symbol, but only a symbol, of the far more massive damage done to the District’s residents through his incompetence and corruption. Barry was finally convicted via the famous/infamous “Bitch set me up” bust that was certainly close to entrapment, but his affection for the crack pipe was first exposed a few years earlier via a near-bust when the mayor was found hanging with a nondescript individual at a Ramada Inn on Thomas Circle, a much nicer neighborhood now than in 1988. At the time, the mayor’s crimes, and sorrows, moved me to verse, of a sort, which I reprint below. For a reasonable take on Barry’s career, check out Wikipedia’s entry here.
For Marion Barry
Head like a melon, where can I find peace?
Naked I came to this city of monuments
An interloper from Tennessee riding a wave
Brave youth riding a wave.
The giants looked down on my temerity —
When will they see my like again?
I pitched my tent in a hopeless land. Did they believe?
A politician travels like a salmon, upstream
Scales gleaming I progressed to Connecticut Avenue
Crossed sun-dappled pools, crawled on my belly
Fins scraping on dry concrete
Slid like an eel down drains and sewers
Knew Glover’s Run and Rock Creek
Spouted like a whale in Anacostia
Led a new army of the Potomac
Forged a black beachhead on Pennsylvania Avenue
Brought joy to my people.
Now my belly spreads, pregnant with death
Is this my reward?
The flesh betrays the spirit
O sorrow known only to the strong!
The weak die quickly
We haunt the earth like giant shadows, more real than the living. Is there an answer?
In the islands, I am told
There are pools.
A man enters, and his flesh is reborn. Gray skin blackens
Gleams like a panther
I descend and emerge broad-shouldered, flat-bellied
A new mayor.
The ambassador’s residence commands the sea.
Broad umbrellas on the patio proclaim his luncheon —
White canvas against blue sky and blue, rolling sea —
Young ladies, polite and eager, attend me —
Black skin shining by white canvas —
Afterwards, drinks amid the bouganvillea
Salmon-pink blossoms nodding in the breeze
On the ambassador’s patio life is a summer afternoon — Young ladies attending, polite and eager —
The ghost of Henry James gapes at my temerity
Beneath the arches of P Street the creek’s waters are flowing
From the West and North the runs and branches converge
My salmon flesh chokes on filth washed from the suburbs
Scheming congressmen bear me ill
Their constituents are not my constituents
On television I endure the laughter of personalities
The snickers of New York descend
I am a bear, fresh for the baiting
Here in the mountains a new life is shaping, purged of excess
Herbal teas cleanse the body, dismissing gross desire
A sauna beckons
Here clean air and modesty conspire
The flesh grows innocent and wise
Alone and unrecognized I walk my city’s streets
The open window of a townhouse salutes me, and I enter its quiet
All have departed, save I alone
Bare feet are padding on a thick carpet
My black toes spread like mangrove roots
Soft music calls me, and I enter.
By the window an English divan
Walnut claws clutch walnut balls, their grip frozen for all eternity
Skin darker than coffee glows on silk upholstery
Crimson, green and gold
Thighs darker than Africa bear her treasure
Nimbly I ascend, the salmon of my soul coursing the Nile
Green flutes warbling, riper than banana leaves,
Caress the summer afternoon
There on the English divan, unhurried passion rules
Calm, devout
Here I sleep and waken, waken and sleep
Here on the English divan, walnut claws gripping
Black skin on silk, crimson, green and gold
The rattle of the waters grows larger
The watershed of the Potomac shakes me
Is this why I was born?
A black man stands by a shack, pulling catfish from the river
His face a mirror of my sorrow
So we are undone
In the courtroom, in a blue suit
Salmon-pink palms press my thighs
A herd of lawyers starts forward
The prisoner plunges from the dock
Black man in a blue suit rolled by a wave
Chokes on brown water, spouts like a whale
The roar dies in their throats, impaled by a vision
There in the river a ghost ship floating
Serene, mirrored in the waters, turns slowly in the wind
Ropes groan and stir like living things
White sails belly and ripen in the wind
A black man ascending stands on the deck
The wheel turns, the prow obeys
Sliding through brown water
On deck a black man moves glistening
The ship, propelled by a giant’s hand,
Discards the Potomac, transcends the Chesapeake, seeks the sun.
Astern the shriek of gulls
Astern the roar of cities
There, there where the sun rises,
Africa sleeps
The Atlantic bears me back
Flamingos rising in a sea of pink
Africa, green land, awaits.
