I stared at my corpse and smiled.
I stirred at the sight of my corpse
Smiling amid wailing wailers
Mourning packaged flesh and bones
Nicely wrapped in calico for delivery
To a feast of earthworms and invited guests
Of creatures in the belly of the earth
I stirred at the sight of my corpse
And flared at the absence of props
On a stage I have set for when my clock stops
One day;
Like that day, when I was cast in this drama
Of live performances with no rehearsal
That day when my wailing motioned a burst in emotions
Of joy and happiness to celebrate my arrival.
A distant lifetime that seems now
Of a past, once broken into several futures
Such a good life lived
How better it could have been!
O what joys my regrets would have been?
Now afloat, in elements of my spirit
I wonder, “what would have happened
If I applied for those dream jobs?”
I can’t know cos I didn’t
Come.
Let’s die
Before our fear
Of death consumes
Us into dying A natural death
From unnatural causes
Endless Voyages
Beautiful arrivals experienced
In numerous take-offs perceived
The happiness envisaged before
Distorted by surprises along this path beheld
Blood and tears
Mounted either side of these paths
Narrow yet widening
Then shutting at gates gaping
Into the skies.
Until at a tip, peak
Hills atop mountains
Rooted deep in valleys
Of disappointments and shattered hopes
That have resurrected with each ascension
To crown queens without thrones.
These queens know no rest.
Whereupon there are conquests
On they march to the next quest
And with each flag flown at half mast
Another they hoist smiling
Of cycles continuously causal.
Son Of Night
George Floyd Tribute
O son of night,
Gasping for oxygen;
Pressed in oppression.
“I can’t breathe”
“I can’t breathe”
But, I won’t weep
For by no fault of yours
Have you earned disdain.
Your hatred for this hate
Cultivated in you
By the pale veil
Of a white world
Blotted by darkness
Is as justified
As your dark skin
That draws the ire
From your oppressor.
This immoral system
That stole you away
From your motherland
Keeps piling your bodies up
Centuries since the awful beginning
“I can’t breathe”
“I can’t breathe”
Yet, I won’t weep
For another dinner will be had
With another empty seat
At the head of the table;
Orphaned daughters
Staring at the swollen eyes
Of their widowed mother
And ill-fated little brother;
And wondering what dad’s fate
Would have been
Had he been mothered
By Assata; she who struggles
And lives thankfully.
“I can’t breathe”
“I can’t breathe”
And, I won’t weep
Even as I re-count the empty shells
That gave count of the lead bullets
Buried in you, brothers,
For nothing, but your identity
For the institutional racist murder
Of black Africans will not end
Until there’s a fightback, one way or another
And we know no amount of looting
Will stop the shooting of innocent sons
Neither will arming sons with beretas and glocks
But there surely is a way
O son of night
The way out is only one
For your darkness to shine.
For a canoe to move forward
The paddle must move backwards
Call home
Crawl back home if need be
For no stolen land Is home to a stolen people
Nourishing Thoughts of the Journey
Captives, chained and shackled
Across the oceans
Yet never conquered
O rivers of sorrow flow
In joy of disagreement
To a Hamitic hypothesis
But in one hand we hold
On to the past; a mirror
Reflecting the middle passage
The nourishing thoughts
Of a path so clear
From Timbuktu, Lalibela
To Addis Ababa.
Good old city in the ancient land
Of Abyssinia
Leaves me in an abyss
As to why we are still here
Onward from Giza
We saw tomorrow
Thousands of years ahead
Through the ancient lenses of Imhotep
Measuring latitudes of our successes
Across longitudes of our multiple
Pyramids of challenges
Encountered as we strode
Through different eras
The winds blow the trumpet
Sharing the stories of a land
O Kumbi Saleh
A land of Gold, our land.
Kufu’s wisdom
Zoser’s dreams
Sundiata’s aspirations
Realized in our nation’s past
Stumbled on a Rock of Ages lost
To a battle we barely fought
Yet got defeated overwhelmingly
Captives, chained and shackled
Across the oceans
Yet never conquered
O rivers of sorrow flow
In joy of disagreement
To a Hamitic hypothesis
But in one hand we hold
On to the past; a mirror
Reflecting the middle passage
Set at the base under Buktu’s well
Mansa Musah’s wizardry
The human race’s wealthiest men
Mined gold in chunks
Just below the Niger
As water flowed
Africa’s legacy
Attracting an accident of history
Which washed ashore the Atlantic
To mine chunks of the best
From amongst us
To build a new world
Or so they said
In a Western civilization
Beckoning third world nations
To mar a first world Africa.
Captives, unchaining, and shaking
Rivers for joyful transformation
