A SONG FOR PATRIOTS 1
It comes to me finally, say,
during showers and gray fog
on some anonymous winter day,
that I've fought so many battles,
waged so many wars, that the mind,
staggered, eventually forgets
Time or Place, and continues
the motions. And one hopes one can
still be effective--and not some
punch-drunk pug shadow-boxing in
the mind's warped mirror...
2
The Long War continues down untold
generations: Africans constantly
using every trick, every speck
of wisdom to triumph, expand
territory, survive on hostile terrain.
Zulus fighting nazis in northern
climes. Ancestors crying blood-
warnings...The Enemy, in an
Age of Assimilation becomes more
than just ofays. Oreos stand ready,
Colin Powell style, to raise
the candy-striped flag, viciously
burn the Red, Black and Green;
lifting Martin Lawrence, or any
anonymous coon, to the heights
of archetype, erasing Memory,
desecrating Malcolm as he sleeps.
AUTUMN IN NEW YORK
(for Gloretta Baynes)
Music fills the elegant room
of a sophisticated art gallery
where a hip jazz quartet plays
an old tune, "Autumn in New York."
A man and woman sit listening together,
as the saxophonist journeys down decades.
The bronze, bearded man is, again,
a young art student hypnotized by
a 'Sixties-youthful Coltrane blowing
lyrical combinations described by critics
as "sheets of sound." The chic, sepia woman
is soaring in a rainbow world of vivid color,
as she dances with her Muse across
decades, generations, seeking an illusive
Africa in rhythmic, percussive harmonies
embracing night...They are artists, initiates,
come to worship as Music's primeval shrine.
They are wounded by brutalities known as
American Urban Life. They are battle-scarred
survivors, veterans in a campaign
to transform society, and make worthy
human beings emerge. They are visionaries
known as artists...The Music, the Music,
the Muse of this complex lyricism
nourishes their very depths..."Autumn in New York,"
moans the saxophone, as it recreates
a lost decade, resurrects both youth
and innocence in a mythic time,
when vision and possibility were one.
HOME | BIO | CONTACT | BOOKS | POETRY | EVENTS | BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT | ESSAYS & SPEECH
© 2004 - The Official Website of Askia Toure
All Rights Reserved
Assorted Images by © 2003 Craig Bailey / CBE PHOTO