A SONG FOR RWANDA
By Seneca Turner

piss stained straw mats of human suffering
on unhallowed ground
thin dusty mist of late evening heat
the sun a big orange gumdrop
waiting to be swallowed whole
by the thick shroud of death
oh, Mary don't you weep

Mass graves and screaming babies
sucking empty breasts of dead mothers
rotting bodies plied up/used roadblocks
"inzira, inzira, inzira" (move out of the way)
heads to heavy to lift
mouths too dry to speak
a moaning chorus of agony
at the river, at the river of Jordan

tribal madness/colonial legacy
U.N. (United nitwits) ponder the issue
benevolent European relief workers
play God/triage/dead/dying/calculate medication
Hutu death camp/sins of the father/Retribution
"revenge is mine, said the Lord
oh, Mary, don't you weep

and we...
Transplanted "new Africans"
peer in comfort at televised images
of horror and suffering in the land
of our father's, father's, father
with fat full bellies hanging down
and sterilized deodorized body funk
and quickly press the remote to
"Wheel of Fortune"
Mary, Mary, Mary don't you weep



FOR ETHRIDGE

By Seneca Turner

Renegade/flim flam man
Wordsmith/be bop slim
Blackman/soothsayer/wailer
Your voice and spirit
Rose from the bowels
of a prison cell
Echoing throughout this land

Tall and Black like a crow
Talked as much stuff as the radio
High Priest of the Word
Signifying Storyteller
King for a day and nite
smiling that knowing smile
Dazzling Master's children at every turn
Mississippi mojo man

Your words like l0-carat diamonds
on your big Black Mississippi fingers
Your pen chopping cotton that was
to be weighed on the scales of Truth
Stiletto tongue/cutting across the grain
And the money went and came
While you did it again/just one more time
Polka dots and moonbeams and the pain
Against the backdrop of white thighs

Traveling/turning corners
The road beckoned and twisted and turned
While we took the A-train to the Bonx of oblivion
New York City never tried to judge you
and sweat ran down your neck in the middle
of January/and we both heard the sound of
Clapping hands intrude upon the ritual
of white flesh and canceled checks

Seer/prophet/Tribal Griot
People's poet/keeper of the Flame
Lonely hunter/alien
Conjure Man/dancing on the
penetrating edge
Your old enemies rose up to meet you
Pall Malls and the hot point

and VA hospitals and detox and skin grafts
and the pain, the diabolical pain of redemption
While you talk about Free/doom

Keeper of the Records
Rapmaster/maker of the songs
shooting dice with the Devil
Hoodoo dancer/dancing/dancing
Dance Ethridge, dance, dance

This is of remembrance
For Shorty Moe, Black Frank, Three-Finger Bill
Willie Earl and Freckled-Faced Gerald
For the Big Yard And the Big Wall
Those that came and those that went
And for you my brother

Be free.



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