orisha black father/mother rage rises

i.

ori

   bless your father-head ashe?

stay strong when the day comes and play

  remember the words ancestors say

from the time before our freedom we betray

ii.

you haven’t forgotten have you?

    that the father was

 chained, maimed and slain

        after birth

  and resides now under earth

             with black pain

     in the hearth

of olokun

      stuffed down the deepest hole in the ocean

 as she rages

     for her son’s and daughters

            in cages

  it is there you will find a weeping man

     unaware

  of just how many black diamonds and pearls  he bare

mad distracted so he thinks he doesn’t care

and if

   he ever rises

the first sight that greets his eyes is

the laws and fates that despise his

      black manhood

iii.

so is it a curse

     the black flesh that first

pressed against this earth?

   obatala’s breath when felt in the depths

of soul made ashe

        through menstrual clay

       a redbone, scorned when not black

a reminder of the fact that master owned sex and with a crack

  owned our seed

while black father shacks amongst weeds and pig crap for feed

       so obatala stands crowned

           black wigs in mounds

the king, with lipstick the color of sin, black penis and breasts,

             high heels, white vest

    acrylic nails and guess the power of the cross

dangled between the cleavage

where it rests

       cause in that white night

   the people took flight

to a freedom land beyond sight

black moses burns bright

  in the cripple, the crazy, castrated might

motherless mothers, called man and woman

the father in all creation

iv.

but the father of next generation

     must prove right to life through rape and predation

  like a devil’s dance in the trance

no-homo patriarchy

    and the strength of ogun’s careful crafting

  co-opted into cancer crack vials

and falsified death row trials

       freedom comes with a reconstructed slavery

    and a father running from the law

     but who saw what he would do to his mother?

like native son, my brother

born brutal and smothered by the grip of empire

  until his lover, slathered in honey could uncover

the hard lover stance buried from rejection of a father

  forgetting his flesh and driving away from son

only to return back to the love of black manhood

made one

v.

shango in flames

    b-boy and sashay

king of the runway

        and father of all genital play

  “heeeeyyyy”

 you smell it, the good fonky,

like battles to reclaim the name

sex junky

    and prove this sword that steals

   was born to heal the deep wounds in the father’s womb

turning from sun to moon and back again

  and see in just what ways we can bend and lay into each other

my sister, my brother, my child, my mother, my father

 discover the (r)evolution of other

when the thunder strikes we shudder our cloaks of shame

and utter the words of lightning

     his mouth in mine

   slipping me, his child, a knife to unbind

non-consensual gratification

        in our sexy flaming war

vi.

and my seventh ancestor

     the ancient child

born to lead me down the aisle

        to unions of self

in the crossroads of eshu

  the sexy devil slave catchers never knew

     well it’s true

my father was my son who flew, back into the past to birth me anew

         on the wings of sankofa

     ashe

sankofa

      ashe

sankofa

     ashe

sankofa