Ranny Williams

"Man 'pon spoht" No more, the ridiculous of convention To throw in the swine pen of laughter, Where we turning from red, white and blue And Ceres transformation, had no clue Who we were Or what else we were tto become Unless what we were already made to be. You were a sort of mirror to us So we would not become What we were laughing at, And that we saw Clearly using lens of humour You made specifically for the vision here. I even laughed at me sometimes What I had borrowed Or stolen from the old master of our fate. I laughed at what was villified with hate. I wanted to be cleanse Of what I was not supposed to be But had no cure or remedy Though gathered around the radio The only one my father afforded for the village That kept my company every night And taught me folklores And self in that which I did not understand. You brought its love to me When I did not know. It was this love when I owned it This love when I knew it was me Made me worthy of loving me Of loving my peculiar difference Set aside by class, and color of my skin And status that dwindled me within; This love Set upon from without, I had no weapons to defend ... But you You and radio liberated with me. They sold us it not to make us equal But to take away our wage In payments week after week. They did not know Even when you did without mask before their face; It was not money that we need to heal It was faith in us To laugh, and separate the vain from the real.