King Jah Jah.

KING JAH JAH

   I am King Jah Jah, chained to black hope
   that drives these Caribbean islands to oneness.
   Let the oil of Venezuela burn my essence
   That I may produce tongues with volcanic rage
   For a unity desired by Williams, Barrow, and Gairy.

   Cotton no longer clothes me nor sugar sweetens my veins.
   Cudjoe, my negro brother, is now an African American.
   Simi, Soyinka's temptress, offers me drinks to drown
   my sorrows in this new-world where I must invent an identity.
   I am cool to deception as I start my revolution.

   I look far beyond this tribal thing of be being Bajan, or
   St. Lucian drowning Castries in vitriolic patois.
   These foreign dudes understand that the Caribbean
   is one solid mass of humanity called Jamaican.
   You and I ride high in the lie.

   Crusoe and his man Friday in homosexual splendour
   chased each other on the beach on their shipwrecked island.
   The Caribs danced in delight at this sight, while negroes
   cursed the wind and called this human act of love a sin.

   In Cuba, Ijeoma stopped and undressed on the windswept
   beaches. White sands, blue seas, sex, booze and midnight
   ecstasy, were the play things in neo-colonial revelry.

   Yankee Doodle went 'to town, riding on a donkey.
   He stuck Cuban cigars in Ijeoma's mouth
   And called it American foreign policy.

   Castro came down from the hills
   Headed for voluptuous Havana.
   O what a tumultuous cry there was
   at seeing Chi's beret
   A sure sign Cuban women would have dignity again.

   In the barrios, Macomba would thrive once more
   as the high priests summon black gods across
   an ancestral void. With wing speed they come,
   and fertilize the sacred fields of virgins.

   Children knew their fathers once more
   And pride and peace returned to the streets of Havana.
   King Jah in royal robes mounts his steed
   and speeds south to free Simon Bolivar's people.
   Forty million Blacks in Brazil, among Indian ruins,
   cry out for their silent gods masked by the Saints.
   I'm King Jah ruler of rebellious nations.
   My world was splendid before the ships set sail.
   I followed the trail of my people, blood marking
   the way to their new birth. I fought until I was captured.

   Here in these isles of the Caribou, my eyes grow cloudy.
   My vision is obscured by dark imaginings.
   My thoughts are neither pure like spring water,
   nor muddy like the river after rain.

   There are old world rhythms
   and new world words in my songs.
   I've long abandoned the thoughts of returning.
   I've forgotten how to mount the wind
   and ride her currents into your lap, Africa.

   My arms are lead. My feet are firm.
   My body is girded by steel bands of land locked in
   by continents standing astride my islands of hope.
   O how I wish to harness my energy to build
   new market places in these new lands, my island homes.