The wade of hope or the wave of hope
That inWaded the bark Senegal
With its hopeful chant of Sopi sopi
Has given place to a repressivechant of Nopi Nopi
DIC-tated by zealous thugs with a badge,
Intimidating, imprisoning, brutalizing crushing  any dissent

From the enemy lines, degg degg  coupled by the tales of the “Ah noce yi”
The pen warriors have played their part in the absence of an
Opposition”  whose Lld-ers”  implicitly or complicitly are
keeping the lid on any popular manifestation of discontent

How many more inches under water ?
How much more darkness in the land  can the people sustain?
How many more billions need to disappear unaccounted for?
Before they outgrow their living room revolutionaries theories

The revolution will not be televised
What revolution you ask?
A revolution of self first is of prime necessity
A disciplined, conscious and organized mass
Is more lethal than any weapon
More powerful than any army..

If change is to come,
Senegal ! hold a mirror to yourself
Do you see the reflection of your ” Lead-Err” in you?

If change is to come it has to come from within us
Rebuilding from the ruins of Sunugal demands courage
A rare commodity in this strange land
There will be no messiah, Stop waiting

If change is to come it has to come from you and me
There will be no handover of power
we will have to demand it
We will have to take it
Do not wait for the opposition to do your bidding
And when change finally comes our way again
After the inWaders are chased out of dodge
“Hopesization” is what we need to give the people

If change is to come , power needs to be shared
So to avoid another power struggle
And a concentration of power in a few hands
A group of learned men and women with tested solutions
Need to be put in place, where every government job
Is to fulfill clearly defined duties, not tailored to fit the king

If change is to come, …No the time has come
For us all to quit being cowards…
I hear the joyful chant of
Folli folli folli

Un-lucky Dub

We are left with
Rub a Dub
No lucky Dub-E
The messenger has been silenced
While we stand aside and look
Just like he said the ennemy will stand aside
While we slash and kill our own brothers
Dub-E You got a friend in me
Don’t have to worry no more
Peace you deh find for peace you spread
Mirror mirror on the wall
Tell me who is the deadliest of them all
He asked us now tears in his eyes?
We are the victims every time
We got double trouble everytime
Freedom fighter standing on the mountain
He is still here, spreading the gospel of hope
The chant of love
Can’t be silenced
Like water his message spreads and
cleanses the soul of the oppressed
Still bars all around him
He fought to the end….
REST IN PEACE MY BROTHER Lucky..LOVE ALWAYS

Last night, when I saw you

Holding your baby in your arms
Tears falling down your cheeks
Like flood water
I saw my mother cry, I saw my sister cry

You sat there in silent lamentations
Wondering how you got there
How after all you gave him
He could be so cruel to you
After you held on to his broken pieces
Indefatigably putting them together
Patiently, lovingly
Feeling not the pain of the daily cuts
Enduring, after all like your mother did

What is a woman to do, you asked?
Falling in the pattern of thought
And conditioning formed from traditions
Making you do insurmountable things
With inborn talents and gifts
Bourne of act of the sacrifices and resolve
That adds strengths
Even though he said you were not good enough
You make wonders

To transcend your circumstances
Take a step back stop for a moment
Without stillness there is no movement
In stillness you will see the road you travelled thus far
The road you travelled alone before him
When you could do everything for yourself
Before the self doubt and constant pain
Kept you incapacitated
Blinded by the blood from the broken glass

Then only then
Will you be delivered from the
Nightmare of your own doing

On that Thanksgiving day, I had a lot to be thankful for

Surrounded by the same circumstances the past two years
The familiar everyday scene I took refuge in
After the Low-rain stopped, started to weigh on my being

From nowhere this warming light came unexpected,
But sure of what she had come to get
A promise…

A voice so limpid it inspired me
A skin so soft, like black satin
A smile so bright, it fickled like a light
A joyfulness so contagious, I got infected
A laughter so genuine it penetrated the walls of my soul
She came and brought the radiance of the sun with her and made everyday bearable

All the apprehension suddenly made way to possibilities
The Lawd had heard my supplications for a sign, any sign
When from my doorsteps showed up tender mercies from heaven

Bearing abundantly, soft bodied fruit
Yummy blackberry
With a root bark, with dizzying curves
Intense aromatic fragrance
Almost ready, Eager

But as like a valiant farmer
I shall plant my tree and
Wait till the FALL harvest song
To bear its fruits
Before I reap the fruit of my labor of love

And soon enough she groaned
How come your mother earth that
You love so much, not warm up to me
Not take me in, embrace me as hers as I am to you
Am I not good enough to be planted on your garden?
Honor before death
To that I replied, an apple tree she favors
But after the harvest, she will be force to recognize
The beauty in this, that I see

There from a distance I saw the clouds gather
The Oracle had warned me of the storm
Plant another bramble son
Blackberry’s can be wild
And their incurved thorns will dig into your flesh
When you least expect

But what did the oracle know
Of the complicity I had with my tree
Cultivating, pruning
Of all the long talks, to calm her fears
Of all the long gazes, to build faith, hope and experience
Of the sweet kisses, the warm embraces

But what was set in stone.
With a sudden change of condition
Found me unprepared, though predictable

Then came the deluge, unrooting all in its passage
There I stood numb to any feelings
Thoughts Rushing like a flood gate
Confused, disoriented
Yet not resentful, not bitter
Depth in a man is a privilege of
Those who have suffered said Oscar

So I said a little prayer
Lawd let not pride set upon me
Let no sorrow make me resentful, empty
Give thee strength to regain the enduring energy to plant again
Undeterred, unbent in the process of healing, feeling and dealing
With hopes of what’s to come
Will bring a better harvest
 

I have been to the dwellings of the Gods

There I stood, in the stillness of the night
Looking into the infinite as though the world ended there
There I stood like a flower ready to come out of a bud
In total communion with the source of all things in its mysterious glory
No cathedral bells, No muezzin call to prayer
The call to observe prayer came through the whistle of the wind, the stillness of time uninterrupted, tranquility absorbed the everyday pattern that stop us from seeing the beauty in front of us…And then a moment of blinding discovery…
There in the most elevated realm of abstractions I heard a love supreme, not that of Coltrane’s Saxophone, but the natural cadence of waves crashing on the sand…

There I was in the valley of the shadow of light, where the gods must live…
A journey that started as I rose that fateful day, in search of the glorious trail blazed by the mayan gods, in route to Chechenitza, buoyant with anticipation, to finally see with my own eyes what they saw, ready to go up the stairway to heaven to be closer to god..
But the gate-keeper kept me from fulfilling this dream, by denying me access to the very place I came to worship
I desecrated the place, he said but I came to worship I protested…So I left with a bitter taste in my mouth, more so because my intentions were pure as a child heart, not to trespass or desecrate the sanctity of the temples….
En route to 2-lum the sign read Cenote Akil
I inexplicably got drawn into going in the CENOTE amid a torrid rain
And there behind the gates, underneath the fallen walls laid a mystery before my eyes never seen before, a picture of delicacy so profound I got seized by a deep fear
My heart begin to pound as I wondered around as if I was having an out of body experience, a strange feeling inhabited me…
As I mustered enough courage to swim, drops of rain fell on and around me, manifesting itself as if I was being baptized, total cleansing of the soul..I suddenly begun to feel very cold and shaking …Came out of the water and thanked the place for having opened herself up to me so gently and cleanse me of all the luggage I carried along with me..
The lord moves in mysterious ways, there I thought going up towards the sky was where I would be closer to god, but it is at the bottom of the Cenote against all odds that I felt that oneness with the source of all things.. The dynamic multiplicity of God made perfect sense…
It occurred to me that the Mayans had built these splendid, mighty, glorious structures so their eyes could see god and found his mysterious glory at the bottom where their quest started.
Right there in front of them, left to be discovered in complete simplicity…
I have been to the dwellings of the Gods and you were there with me…

A bridge in America should not go down
Said the the good senator
So why are there floating bodies
At the bottom of the Mississippi?

Who rose unsuspecting that fateful day
Went on to ensure sustenance of their livelihood…
After a hard earned steamy day
On their way home
Without warning
The giant of steel and concrete slabs gave in
Tumbling down

Taking everything with it
Bodies, cars
Water logs, debris
Dust, smoke followed
As a tanker caught fire
A bus full of school children
Escaped this tragic fate
As the pier pointed to the Sky
As if to say why?

Finger pointing will be the
Favorite sport of the season
Whether caused by human faultiness
Or the forces of nature
There is no rhyme or reason
Why anyone deserves to die this way
But tragedy is indiscriminate
It lurks and hits when you are the least prepare

Man in his ignorant and arrogant ways
Persist in erring he has dominion over things
Matter versus energy
Man versus nature
Hanging on a thread in suspension
Helpless…With only reaction as an option

A bridge in America should not go down
To that I say
A child in America should not go
To bed hungry, or without access to care when pinned with an ailment
A person in America should not be without a home
A city, a people in America should not drown under water
Unless there are two Americas….