Best Griot Poems

I, griot, of the Hamitic shrine
I, oracle of the orisha's ebon throne
I, child, of Melchizedek line
I, olive tree in a desert sown
Mantled in the robe...

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I almost thought she was the one that made
Neil Diamond sings like a confetti parade
You know that sweet Carolyn thing, why not
She has the warmest...

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Tell us, you say, in your profound complexity
Prophet, griot, artist, word maker
Why do you litter our hearts with song?
I do not write for the crowd...

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He danced on the decks of tossing ships, danced only for dimes
He danced to the lash and sound of whips, hip moving like dream
And when...

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nnam, where's that tree
at the centre of the clan?
o, what happened to the people's iroko?
where're my people's hope?
the voice of my clan
the famous tongue that...

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Derive pleasure from chiseled moves
Reckon the Creator grants fuel
Focus on otherworldly jewel
Live as wise Griot, calm as doves.

Wake up to life's amenities
Portion of good is...

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He was our best, an urn in time
With all the fragments of jewelled history
But now today hear how the bells chime
The griot's pen scroll another...

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Manifestation of pain
inside walls of your gospel
Penned up truths that 
haunted your psyche but
you made the pen a weapon 
that prospered against all 
that troubled...

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Reba, you are big now, much too big to enjoy the fog
Sitting in different shapes of everything we fear
When trust was only those we know....

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(In loving memory of my big brother, Reg)


Right within my den
Calligraphic letters you penned
Surfaced as reminder of the love we shared
I see picture perfect portraits
No...

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Political Poetry

Obama: what bard, what griot, what poet wouldn't want to tell -the miracles of our times in tales.
What courage, what evidence that man can...

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Tirelessly rising, like cerosee tea to them, and apple to me
Tell them I am the Sankofa of the morning, shall we dance again
I was the...

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yon full-throat’d weaver –
she comes home, thither! 
again & again
oh, by the shores of my niger
& she comes, singing
like the griot of my old clan...

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(Apropos of Black Poetic Griots)

We may not be deemed apostolic recorders
But we poets, guided with divine wisdom, are
The lay scribes thereof in the chronicling of
Our...

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SHURI

Ba Ru Raa a bomb buray
Ba Ru Raa a bomb buray
Ba Ru Raa a bomb buray
A 

SHURI african princess
genis

Wakanda forever

Ba Ru Raa a bomb buray
Ba...

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