I
Race is a masque—
brown, in my case;
and it’s a mosque—
blue, in our black case.
In my opinion,
the Slave Trade was like Hiroshima.
(Yes, sir, evil done 24/7
ain’t evil anymore,
but professionalism!)
White man lives like a ship floats—
buoyant,
forgetful it gonna sink one day.
Why reproach me my realism?
Every self-portrait is nature morte—
an apparition of bones—
no matter how much champagne
sparkles like chandeliers:
Mothers give birth to morgues.
Onto blank TV screens I strut,
Lincoln-lanky,
a bleak, apocalyptic beatnik
in the dull garb of a hangin judge,
spouting annoying poetry—
“Hate”
(conspirators say I orate).
No, no: I’m a man
as astringent and brilliant
as detergent:
Out to recast the outcast Negro,
make him (and her) black,
then even blacker,
but clean—
so that we prove as demoralizing to the white man
as sunlight is to filth.
Yes, I make words cuss on paper,
concuss in air.
Enthralled radios crackle like sandpaper.
I am but what I give:
A voice of fire
born from solid rock.
(Every orator or writer
gotta mete out scorching Truth.)
No tongue of hesitancy!
The blues are my only language—
each elegant, crisp text.
Even my humour is a hammer
crackin noggins from the rear:
When brains bust out in whimsical, bloody blossom,
you see clear proof that minds are being changed!
(But it’s always taboo to be too frank.)
