Over the summer, I chose to read Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man. Something that struck me about Invisible Man was that though we, the readers, were given a really clear understanding of the narrator’s thoughts and emotions, we knew nothing else about him at all. From the beginning to the end, we never learned the narrator’s name or his age. Perhaps the only concrete thing I could hold onto was that he loved Louis Armstrong. Thus, I chose to write about the Invisible Man in the form of writing that I loved the most and the form of writing that allowed me the most freedom to express the narrator’s raw emotions. I was drawn to writing a poem, though it turned out to be a mix of prose and poetry, with a mix of poetical verses, quotes from Invisible Man, and a few special lyrics from Louis Armstrong.
"I am an Invisible Man"
“I have… been called one thing and then another while no one really wished to hear what I called myself… I am an invisible man” (564).
Walking along the snowy streets
of Harlem at night,
the streetlights seemed to illuminate
the swirling smoke in front
of me,
lit by the pulsing glow
of bloodshot eyes.
Nobody glanced as I passed,
not even the old man begging
the hands of passerby to spare him some money
in exchange for the yams he sold on the corner
of the street.
“How many days could you walk the streets of the big city without encountering anyone who knew you, and how many nights? …The notion was frightening, for now the world seemed to flow before my eyes” (491).
Only the vibration of Louis Armstrong’s lyrical
melodies accompanied me
on this winter night. I found myself
absentmindedly humming
what did I do to be so black and blue,
my footsteps trailing behind the beat
of the music.
“Invisibility, let me explain, gives one a slightly different sense of time, you’re never quite on the beat. Sometimes you’re ahead and sometimes you’re behind” (8).
I let the battered briefcase
in my frost-bitten fingers
fall into the snow
as I closed my eyes and breathed
in the frigid air.
“Instead of the swift and imperceptible flowing of time, you are aware of… those points where time stands still or from which it leaps ahead” (8).
I recalled the pungent fumes
of cabbages,
reminding me of the times when money was scarce,
and dinner at Mary’s, when I avoided
her hopeful eyes and the prospect
of paying my rent,
though long overdue.
I recalled the shivering piece of paper
with Brother Jack’s hastily scribbled handwriting,
containing my new name,
my new identity,
the old one forgotten.
I recalled
the enigmatic Rinehart
whose identity I wore with a mere pair of sunglasses,
like one slips on a padded winter coat.
I recalled Brother Tarp,
and his oily, steel leg chain,
with its marks of stubborn will and violence.
His leg chain that
I didn’t want but felt had some hidden
significance as I slipped it over my rough knuckles.
Brother Tarp’s broken leg chain that held the
freedom he’s been searching for.
At times
I thought to myself,
“Why should I be the one to dream this nightmare?” (570)
And I recalled the Sambo doll,
the doll that watched Tod Clifton fall
to his knees and bleed,
with a smile painted on its face.
I watched
Tod Clifton kneel as his blood
spilled before it dried
in the sun, like punctured
fruit, decaying cabbage.
His name was Tod Clifton and my tears will never dry.
And I recalled Brother Jack’s
glass eye that saw everything yet failed
to see me.
The glass eye that believed in personal responsibility,
the buttermilk eye that saw only discipline, sacrifice,
and me a black puppet.
Brother Jack with his raw, red eye sockets and who never
looked me in the eye once.
“I ran blindly, boiling with outrage and despair and harsh laughter… I ran through the night, ran within myself. Ran” (525).
And I ran face first into the old man on the corner
of the street with his sweet smelling yams.
I ran into the old man with the yams, who handed me one bursting with sugary pulp
for ten cents. I broke its leathery skin, watching it steaming in the cold.
He poured spoonfuls of melted butter on the yam as I watched the butter seep between my fingers.
“I took a bite, finding it as sweet and hot as any I’d ever had… [and I was] suddenly overcome by an intense feeling of freedom” (258).
I recalled the warm amber gaze
of Tod Clifton,
of Mary as she ladled me her homemade soup,
of my naked voice as I whispered to the hushed audience, “I feel, I feel suddenly that I have become more human” (338).
I inhaled in the yam’s honeyed scent and found my eyes spilling over
with glassy tears. Before I knew it, I found myself running.
“The end was in the beginning” (562).
Bloodshot eyes
lit by the swirling smoke in front of me,
the streetlights illuminating
the night.
This was Harlem.
As I ran along the lonely streets,
I found myself panting, running
to Mary’s,
watching the snowflakes
hissing into steam from the warmth
of the yams,
thinking to myself,
“What a wonderful world” (Louis Armstrong).
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