Testament

My father's abeng blew up my mother's womb And I was chained there Nine months in darkness drinking blood Longing for my resurrection from the tomb Longing to break the chains Holding me before my birth to a carnal earth Longing to stop him pounding Pounding on the door of my bereft eternity I carrying the weight of him already The weight of them against the gravity Of my life. My wings folded Longing wield sword edge of flight against the sun I burdened to undo what already is done Have no finality here. Look at me like an eagle flying in the sun Blood dripping from my talons when the flight is done O let me cleanse the world again In the red flood that alters pain. One day I was born screaming for a cause I could not take kindly to tradition Slapping black and blue a baby's **** ... laws Must have been broken to beat the innocent Unless it is a crime to come into this earth To carry so much legacy From maroon history to Jesus Christ, blacklisted Like my my forebears: Shaka Father of my grandfather's mother, My other grandfather, Accompong warrior Slain between the stones of Holland Estate and Mountain Bridging the way for fleeing slaves I come Cudjo less, Nanny less, merciless Carrying on the war of generations Calling no more for repatriation but reparation Of human rights, human dignity, and racial sovereignty Where Africa may find again its concord Without false treaty and flimsy accord Raping the Congo of natural resources and life I come, the bushing through guinea grass Tumbling kingdoms with wisdom and knife. For this I was born, beaten at birth Given resurrection from the night of earth. My father sought to be civilize Recite poems of Britannia's might and lies And I, I was singing with the night Reading a long history of pain to make write Of my own proclamations, to declare I shall not bend my knees, nor walk in fear Where death measure us in dust And vampires and conquistadores lust For El Dorado buried in my disgust. I am a man, and I will make my monument of truth Upon the gravestone of the brute.