All Those Ships That Never Sailed - Bob Kaufman 1:2

Bob Kaufman, a well known American beat poet from New Orleans, rarely wrote his poems down. He often spoke his poems against the backdrop of jazz performers. Kaufman took a Buddhist vow of silence after hearing of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. He broke his ten year silence in 1973 at the end of the Vietnam War by reciting the following poem entitled ‘All Those Ships That Never Sailed’

All those ships that never sailed
The ones with their seacocks open
That were scuttled in their stalls...
Today I bring them back
Huge and transitory
And let them sail
Forever.

All those flowers that you never grew-
that you wanted to grow
The ones that were plowed under
ground in the mud-
Today I bring them back
And let you grow them
Forever.

All those wars and truces
Dancing down these years-
All in three flag swept days
Rejected meaning of God-

My body once covered with beauty
Is now a museum of betrayal.
This part remembered because of that one's touch
This part remembered for that one's kiss-
Today I bring it back
And let you live forever.

I breath a breathless I love you
And move you
Forever.

Remove the snake from Moses' arm...
And someday the Jewish queen will dance
Down the street with the dogs
And make every Jew
Her lover.

The beginning of this poem centers on the ship, a strong image for African literature. Nevertheless, these ships are powerless and immobilized. Only by way of the poet – “Today I bring them back”-- are these ships able to retain their functionality as vessels of the memory of Africa’s history. Symbolically, these ships sail between Africa and the Americas, thus reinstating the African ancestral association.

Although the poem in its entirety is a great metaphor for acknowledgement and triumph of struggle, I only dug deep into the first verse. The first verse, to me, sums up the entire poem and is such a strong stanza. I relate to this poem so well that I actually tattooed the first line of this poem on my forearm in hopes of following up with the entire first stanza. This poem represents embracing, not repressing, ones struggles and battles. It is these times that make us who we are, as a person or as a culture. I also take from the lines – “Today I bring them back, Huge and transitory, And let them sail, Forever.” – that it is never too late to take that first step.