Featured Poem:

Have You Ever Seen An African Dance

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They say we dance like rivers, hands flowing North like Nile
Like deserts do not surround us.
They say we move too dynamic to be in disarray
Too potent to be powerless,
Too spirited to be mummies,
Too vibrant to be starving,
That seasons do not pass when drought tucks us into bed at night and famine like roosters crows emptiness into our mornings
They ask
How could dried up xylophones ring out such rich symphonies
And why is there so much life in that barren planet of a person

How does a man answer such questions, how does he breath truth into the ignorant, so I answer with this simple question

Have you ever seen an African dance?
Have you ever felt the music possess limb to limb
Like there are Angels having a feast in body
Spiritual movements paralyzing each vertebra from remote to rural

Have you ever seen an African dance?
Have you ever sat in awe and watched the rhythm take flight in mind like rockets
Full orchestra playing and matching in sync
Forgetting that this man knows not piano
Knows not of viola’s complementing violins
Cello’s and double basses
Nor does he know of woodwinds and brass
Or music sheets, all he knows is rhythm,
How he composes symphonies with each movement
That raw, untainted and unmastered rhythm.
That causes his feet to pound firm on the ground
Crusty and cracked enough to build trenches yet he stomps
Forgetting that the soil can taste his blood
Does it taste like fear, like he knows that his barren soil will not produce for his family?
Does it taste like negligence, like he willfully ignores his plight like incompetence is his mantra?
Does it taste like cowardice, like he cringes at the site of blood, of tears, and of death?
Does it taste like death, does it taste like a plague, does it taste like a curse
Does it taste plain and empty, like there’s a zombie residing in his inner residence?

Have you ever seen an African Woman dance?
Have you ever watched her hips steal the spotlight gyrating in fervent excitement with each drumbeat?
Smile synonymous to sun like she did not cry rivers last night
Like the man who was meant for protection did not become a predator and her prey
Like his flesh did not become Prime, and hers pillage for his desires
Watch her hips gyrate in pleasure like they did not gyrate in pain last night
Like the beautiful earth around her waist did not crack, and quake like Armageddon
Like she did not pay for her beauty with mundane beatings.
Have you ever looked into the eyes of death and told her that there is something lively about her
Watch her hips gyrate in joy like they did not quiver at the sight of her son six feet under
Watch her hips gyrate with so much freedom like she did not know slavery too well

Have you ever seen an African King cry?
Watch his tears dance down his cheeks in morbid helplessness
Galloping through the bed farm wrinkles on his face
As he watches his people dance on empty stomachs
He looks and notices that
See through Vessels never looked so beautiful
The way the sun finds home in melanin
Skin never hugged bones with such force
Vicious plagues never plagued a place with such potency
Would you want to know his thoughts?
Would you want to know the silence that dances inside
Would you want to know the nervous inferiority that causes his head and feet to nod and tap?
Would you want to know that his throne carries no power?
Because a seat is not a seat when faith is lacking
Would you want to know that he is king only by title because circumstance has stripped him to peasantry?

Have you ever seen and African dance
Have you ever looked on in tears, heart skipping with smile and said, “this is beautiful”
That this grace is worth glancing at twice
When rain meets a sunny day
How his outro fades like the sun behind the mountains at dusk
How his movements are tears filled praises
Limbs telling folktales worthy of the king’s ears
To say that this dance brings our souls before God
How our knees kiss the floor in humility and our hands marry the sky in adoration,
and how our hearts pour out its supplication
That in this state of devotion, we find faith, we find flaw, yet a blazing firefly still buzzes within
That we move like there’s a solar flare skipping inside
That we dance because it frees the soul from this shackled flesh
We dance like its our last for our legacies are more genuine when painted on tainted canvas for tomorrow may crumple this page with dementia causing us to forget the heavenly joy that was penned here tonight
To rest in our sleep and wake up anew moving like pain did not sleep here tonight
So the next time you see and AFRICAN dance, pause, take a moment, look closely, and maybe just maybe you might find the joy hiding in the crevices of our plight.

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