Calloused hands cleave sugarcane

outstretched to Caribbean sun.

Fires of resistance forge

weapons from master’s tools.

Exiled from tribes and gods,

through slave castles to plantations,

we revolt to revel in a history

hidden within outlawed drums.

Onyx angels trouble the water

under a voiceless ocean.

Down by the riverside,

Water breaks like hearts leaping from slave ships.

We sing Soul into existence by

freeing our holy ghosts.

In America, voices rise

above lies hiding gospel truths.

Sarah Baartman is a woman in a zoo.

Her captors have forgotten their mother.

Proud buttocks attached to hips

that birthed nations, an oddity on display.

Josephine Baker is Sarah’s reckoning,

Impundulu’s plumage electrifying crowds.

Snaking hips now become an infatuation.

J’ai deux amours, both Black and women.

Black magic invokes ancestors

speaking through us in tongues,

code-switching suffering into

chariots coming forth to carry us —

home is Jim Crow incubating culture in the stuff of nightmares.

This seed bears strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Big Mama’s hound dog howl

shakes cobwebs off Elvis’ pelvis.

Long tall Sallys go tutti frutti

for rock’s white king.

Blue-eyed soul’s sleight of hand

makes King Richard feel Little

but say it loud Mister Brown,

‘I’m Black and I’m proud!’

Soul power plants seeds

for Black Power now.

Funkadelic spectacle brings

one nation under a groove.

If Paris is Burning,

The House of Baldwin has set it aflame.

Let Joseph Bologne compose a melody

with the fire next time as muse.

Punk meets Rudeboy

in old Brittania,

a London calling that doesn’t Clash

With gangsters in a ghost town.

Oku Onuora’s reflections in red

migrate colonial class struggle.

Linton Kwesi’s dread beat an’ blood

is chocolate magic hidden in ganja mist.

We are moving culture people

even after our forced exodus,

we get up, stand up for our rights,

to sing redemption songs.

Tonight Amiri Baraka and Maya Angelou

will cut a rug.

Uncle Jimmy will catch a vibe as Aunty Toni

stalks the dance floor.

Earth-toned limbs and elastic bodies

vogue into Harlem living rooms.

“We will house you,” says Mother at the ball

like Madonna with child.

We paint the message of our plight

like hieroglyphics on new pyramids.

white lines blow away, but

redlining remains a sign of the times.

As public enemy number one, it would take

a nation of millions to hold us back.

Within this terror dome, we fight the power

and try to shut em’ down.

This lemonade is bittersweet

yet quenching our thirst for a renaissance.

Tina was simply the best

So Beyonce had a suitable prototype.

Come forth Orishas through our ancestors as ebo.

Write Sonnets in Adinkra on our minds so we remember,

we are music rooted deep as the foundations of a nation

where our bones are bricks for monuments to liberty once denied.

Sunrise Symphony

A cacophony of cooing birds chirp daybreak through shuttered windows.

Rhythm rides sunlight scattered between curtain slits in situ.

Sza croons smooth awakening with soulful aplomb, and I

connect consciousness to the chaos of kids clomping on concrete.

Rubber soles squeak step and scratch slide across sidewalks,

with wanton abandon these careless kids collect scuff marks on new kicks.

The elongated beep of garbage backing up bellows a beware.

Gears grind dust while mechanical movement swallows detritus into itself.

The gaping maw mashes solid matter made malleable as

an attentive mama bird regurgitates food into chirping chicks.

Scared mice scramble, skittering behind thin walls,

my loquacious feline scratches plaster, mewling feral discontent.

Gravel-throated exhalation punctuates the ceremonial performance

of fluttering wisp of blanket announcing serene shedding of twilight.

Uncovered extremities crack while crawling from their extraneous cocoon.

Mattress warbles a spring-loaded whine as I shift lumbering mass out of idle.

Flat feet creak the floors of this venerated Victorian,

as I trod tenaciously toward toothbrush territory.

Turning bathroom taps triggers pressure tremoring pipes,

evacuating an element essential to eliminating the end of existence.

I hack up phlegm to emancipate lungs from belabored breath,

a primordial brew like one-celled organisms ovulating through osmosis.

Shaving my epidermis with unskilled precision that slits skin,

bleeding a truth that betrays the solipsism of lighter shades,

A denial of equal existence disassociated from the divine.

A skin displayed in human zoos and prisons perceived lesser.

My mirror meditation doesn’t reflect what bluer eyes have shown

through white knuckle-clutched purses and locked car doors upon approach,

The spritz of pink spray tans around plastic plumped lips,

Stealing features like African masks pilfered for Picasso paintings.

While Kardashians run through Black men like O.J. fleeing the police,

carving away ethnicity under the knife to live anew in Black women’s bodies.

Black men run from the police to flee the cries of Black women grieving,

high-pitched siren wails drowning out muffled gasps and lovers’ mourning.

A symphony muted by screaming teapots, the clink of a swirling spoon,

and the pin-drop drizzle of honey in a steaming cup of the blackest tea.