“Destiny, Baby”

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I have shed so many anguished,
Joyous tears,
Revelations of the spirit,
Of Jazz,
On the cross-roads of brownness,
In the villages of my ancestors,
I am pushed forth,
Like a canoe into a raging sea of tears,
Those musical notes of sacred water,
A steady rhythm flows,
Through time like Coyote’s dagger knife,
Cut my heart open,
I bleed on the history-books of your lives,
Red blood on a Red-Road,
A single trumpet bleets,
Inside of tobacco filled dens,
At the intersections of two sets of gambling dice,
These old bones steady roll,
On mother of pearl plungers,
Brown fingers lash out at the white-man,
Whipped with brass,
Lashed with violin bow,
Chained to the melody,
The oppressor knows a new master,
Destiny Babies,
Conceived then on flea-bitten sheets,
Born screaming into the fire,
Forged on the hot tin rooves of their grammas cooking,
Their grampas stories,
Their daddies brokenness,
Their mommas per-sis-tence,
Excellence,
An English-man’s word,
Spoken on the lips,
Of sons & daughters born in bondage,
Not knowing the English,
Except for their language of brutality,
Dominating abuse,
Persecution,
Suffering,
Like gramma’s flap-jacks,
Or momma’s acorn-mush,
A daily diet to sate the ever-hungry,
Destiny,
Baby,
Toot your horn,
Sing your songs,
Remember your parents stories,
Tell them on the steps of fate,
Where plank houses & field labor cabins,
Once marked our hard toiled subjugation,
In the oat & barley fields,
Where now children play unaware,
On green grasses,
Under shady trees,
But that sheet draped old white-ghost,
Couldn’t leave those old bones well enough alone,
The children went out to play,
Where the swings once stood,
Were open graves,
Dug from the malice of some,
Wearing peak-ed white hats,
Stained red with new blood,
Burning cross-ed effigies from their flaming mouths,
Unknowingly waking up that spirit of opposition,
That oldest of brown attributes of excellence,
They sought to bury me,
Yet forgot their own history,
When they dug my grave that day,
They dug it shallow,
My ancestors bones were already stacked to the brim,
Like cord-wood on an eternal fire,
They dug my grave,
Nothing more than a mud puddle,
For a blood muddled barking dog,
This young dog digs bones baby.

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