Ghede

PaPa Ghede grins and whips his coat tails, puffs his cigar and sinks down into the cosmos,
who knows how these prayers are answered?
When we said: “ MaMa we cannot go on living this way”
who knows what is really going on up there, in here, over there.
Heard some black people was shakin like mad up north.
Heard they found Walter Rodney’s skull in a shallow grave right next to Toussaints black heart and De Salines righteous foot.
Heard they released the ones who killed bishop.
Heard they learning to forgive again.
Nothing new, nothing new.
Afrika alive in the west but barely.
More pictures of black children with distended bellies and dust on they foot, barely.
More pictures of tribal war over a tin of milk and some rice, but barely, but barely.
More trivializing the issue as aid rushes in from all corners and cameras, but barely mama jus barely.
More pictures of black bodies piling at the side of the road.
More white nations climbing these rotting towers of Babel to try to talk to God to see if he really looks like their grandfathers thereby confirming creationist theories and willie lynch.
And when they come they don’t leave.
Because we can’t walk on our own,
without a red hand, a white man and a blue brace.
Which is why we cant seem to federate, reperate,or repatriate.
Which is what you get for being black brave bold and brazen.
Which is what you get for mashin up all france things, but don’t study that you will pay them back.
Which is what you get for doing all that who do voodoo that you do.
Never mind their ancestors worshipped their own pantheon of gods.
Thor in Vallhalla does not look like Ghede and will not speak to him on account of the way he dances.
Which is what you get for not believing in the one god and the son and the spirit and the saints and the priests and the rosary beads which is looking like an Ileke but it is nothing so nothing so at all.
And too besides who ever heard of gods who actually visit when called.
Sit down in your soul seat and make yuh soul dance to an old beat.
No, you will kneel and hail mary.
Your Gods are either to Phallic or too round.
Both of which disrupt my  paper thin sensibilities.
Get in line or I’ll put you there!
A 15 year old girl was found two weeks after the disaster…alive.
A 200 year old nation was found to be still eking out an existence off of music and mud cakes.
But all that is about to change because when Uncle Sam rattles your bones, Ghede knows,
he never forgets to do the math,
In the aftermath.