I Am Africa, I Am Man

I am Africa, I am man Hear my drums, know my heart beat My sorrow is not metered in iambic lines Life does not speak that way So artificial this enumeration of joy So false this constant rise and fall of tone I fish the tides Sometimes the water rises above the rock And stay a long, long time Like a dream that won't give up Sometimes the water recedes far out Lingering at the bar Waiting for the moon to show her breast Watching silently like a star For one ear Nana Oba to divorce me From this culture that is my hell. I am Africa, I am man My fingers running fast on antelope skin Cross the bata light and sweet like a caress Like rainfall on the Serengeti Like bird call for Nana Oshun's memory So when I put my hands around your waist Sliding my finger over the contours of our embrace Searching for lake Nakuru under your dress Down from the Kilmanjaro of your breast And whisper my feelings in your ears In cross-rhythms, kora and mbira playing Hot like khamsin, passionate like the yamo Sucking on your tongue for life Seeking the umbilical water for my pain What care for anapestic sentiments Trochaic promises, dactylic stories I need you in all the wonder of your loveliness In all the moods that living tell In our orbiting exodus of earth and hell No time now for phony precisions I speak as I am, as I feel emotions Dancing on my finger tips Dancing on the velvet smooth of drums Ladling at your Nakura, lapping at your lips All tribal, my body hums For the stolen glory of my history For the cinder of theories That make me victim twice in my misery I am Africa, I am man Hear my prophecy, I will succeed!