Drums fail to pass the
Atlantic, that watery bulwark,
Neutralizer of heirlooms.
Reclined, its folds of froth
Snuff true tradition out.
Its two hearts contemplate its
Indifference to history, its
ushering of hell hulls,
Death-dock-bound.
The drums have found a loophole,
though, throwing their
Passionate pulse westward in
the cloak of words,
The guise of academia.
Alien dish of ager, this
blue monster has walled us
Into worlds of contrast. I
stand on land that will never
Sober, mud always tinted
red. Even now, your daughters
grunt and butt against star
spangled criteria.
Your sons, the same. Our
cream feet on your continent
Stub and stumble over mountains
of culture.
Societies of the stranger.
These eyes are ill-equipped
to take you in. Yet we
Stand, toes in foam and
sand, staring. Where is your
Fufu? Where is your icebox?
A hollow womb?
Have you been tested? Our
sockets shriek across the wild
Wetness, their potential to
clasp cut by tongues of waves.
We grant each other pity, I
for your lag, you for my
Amputation of ancestors.
Polished wood versus dirt-floor huts –
But which of us is backwards?
But which of us is backwards?
© 2015 BENJAMIN SMITH
