J. Anthony Sowers

Reggin
... They were in the bush filled with
Hot wild meat. They were in the bush
Singing and stomping by sacred fires,
Primitive fires where umbilical cords
Lay buried beneath the earth. Tied
Beneath the earth to Shango Gods and
Drum language -
They were in the bush praying
To hallowed leaves, to mighty rivers
When he came with guns and blood
To hush the screaming drums. A stranger
With knives came to sever black hands and
Gut young bellies of maiden girls.
Oh mother - Oh Dying Congo - Oh cruel
Damn white man! ... the rubber is red
And your basket full of hands.
Our women are swollen with rape,
Your lawns are decored with our
Father's skulls. Savage and brutal
Man you force our men to mount
Their sons. The Congo Mother is weeping.
I got de blues - Lawd, lawd, jus tryin'
To remember somethin' I'm s'pose to.
The rows is long and the master is hard.
They whipped a yellar nigger today
And I'm tired and hongry. I think
It's the Jim-Crow signs. But I hear
A drum beatin'- Poundin'- Thundering!
And I want to march with threatening fist.
I want to spit in the face of
The executioners in Angola. The jazz
Beat is in my nigger blood-
And I want to strike back
For my brothers bent under the white
Torment of Johannesburg!
Ding... Ding... Ding!
Hail Malcolm full of death and darkness
Blessed was Patrice and the black fruit,
The black arts, the black power of
Bessie Smith, Leroi, Senghor and Baldwin.
Mother of negroidness switch your big rump
Till the niggers scream and bum and play
The miracles of Duke and Miles and
Shout Amen in one black voice.
AAAAA - Men!
We are holy like the Koran
James brown and Carmichael are
The Prophets
AAAAA - Men!
We are holy and steeped in
Biblical darkness - Hail . . . Hail
Madonna with nappie hair.
Blessed mother, Voluptuous black fits
And animist lips
Be our guide even at the
Hour of death... Amen. Amen. Amen...

ODE TO A BLACKBIRD
No more. No more O'coward ghost
Shall you haunt this darkened house,
This brooding soul that whines to
Lick a gentile dream while flesh
Decays. Nay! I will strike you down
From servants pose. (smashes mirror) Free!
And on your wing I stamp in honeyed
Breath:
"Sweet prince of darkness-thou hast flown
Alas in yonder light alone..."
Indeed no finger points your way
To burning hell; nor heavens mock
Your brow with lucent splendor
Too full of beauty not to praise:
Beware! all gods are chains but
Stars who claim you not; and winds
That seek some truth unknown - Hear me!
As you fly above the earth decoyed
by blood -
Trinidets bound you noble slave
For creatures of this world learn
Not their own decor. Instead, they
Mark with slight of hand
What seems just from minds that
Render greed for reason - death
For cause.
Man punctures the eyes of love
With holy spears and fashioned words
That drip more lust than cats in heat.
They gird their shames of war and cry
Peace! ... Peace! Yet bannered fears
Work their anxious jaws to crush dissent...
(Softly) Fly - O'fly winged blackbird but hear
Me still above your song anew.
Tears mirror the soul, but crowns
Are born behind the Isis veil
That walks unseen within the "I"
What shines like wealth is but a tale
Quickly passing by.

HAM-let
I am... and I am not. For flesh has born me
but life has brought me forth, stillborn.
A mortal ghost shrouded in black.
To pinch this hand is but mockery. For none
but white hands cry out when labored with
pal 115.
Dark. Dark! this monstrous mouth that rends
appeal to ears mute with snow covered walls.
Alas, this harried life walks unseen past the
frocked gates of law, past the blood-ridden
eyes who see me not! Yet a shiver stirs in
gruesome awe and hate if I, by chance, pass
except on bended knees. The not man!
The not I, but an image deformed in grace and
reason. An ash to be brushed aside or a
wicked dream to he whipped and hung from
southern trees, and left to swing on maggot
limbs until dreams return to mist. Madness!
O'madness murders blind innocence when nature
is tripped by her own design.
Who is this apparition that I must feed but
cannot will its form to sit in kingly places?
A bastard licensed to stumble about the earth
a hollow thing.
A thing without heart, but weeps. Without a
soul stamped by the powerful hand of God!
God who tends me with silence and forgetful eyes,
created neither Chameleon nor Protean actor.
And in his merciless haste forgot to issue a charter
of being.
1-low then shall I be judged for maliced deeds, when
chains defy these feet to plod the earth! In what
court of heaven shall the "Not I"answer for these
bits of evil brewing in this worldly heart.
Shall I be called in that day of judgement
by HAM-let?
Orrhall the majestic finger point and simply say
aloud, "You There!"
Ah ... it is a joke on paradise. A fleshless sinner.
Yet the curse of HAM burdens me still. I who
never looked upon my father's nakedness cannot
disrobe this invisible black shroud, While Canaan
who reaped the fruits of evil bore nothing less
than pleasure; and nothing more than the impotent
curse of a drunmken man.
o let me be Hamlet; a wretched villain who is seen
at foul play. But not this HAM-let which no sense
of men can record.

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Cover Design: Joseph McNair